Originally Posted by
D582
I guess nothing would preclude them from creating special tiers that just confer *S and *G with normal entitlements but without any AC extras (e.g. eUpgrades).
Are you suggesting AC would do this or *A would do this? I doubt any airline wants the extra complexity of administering separate tiers like that.
*A wants to make some revenue from this card so they need 'keep' something before buying points from the programmes.
They may also be getting a cut of fees and interest revenue - it's not like making margin on the sale of points is *A's only source of revenue from the card. To some extent, this is also an FX issue. 1 AUD = 0.90 CAD or 0.67 USD at current exchange rates, roughly. If AC or UA usually sells points for, say, 1 cent in their local currency, selling them to *A/HSBC for 1 cent in AUD is a huge discount.
Ignoring the fact that HSBC is considering selling its Canadian business, I don't see *A launching the card in markets with dominant *A presence and a local *A carrier credit card product. If anything were to launch in Canada, I would bet at most it would allow conversion to some other *A programmes, but not Aeroplan. AC wants Canadians to engage with Aeroplan via its own credit cards.
The *A spokesman quoted in the OP specifically said that wasn't in the plans ("emphasized that the group would not seek to launch the product in a market where an existing alliance member is based"). And since *A is not an entity unto itself, but merely an alliance of its member airlines, it's likely any airline would have a veto on the alliance encroaching on its territory. So I wouldn't expect to see a *A branded card in Canada as long as AC is in the alliance.