What's better? Aeroplan or AA?
 

Currently with Aeroplan, but thinking of switching to AA. I don't fly enough to get status, but I figured with AA I could work towards getting lifetime eventually. AA seems to have more lounges also. Downside is Aeroplan has a lot more bonus offers here (in Canada).

Which one do people think is better? Who treats their customers better? Who has better benefits?


Thanks.

Lounge access is meaningless if you don't fly much. Air Canada at least provides $25 MLL passes on certain fares, which would be more affordable than the $50 Admiral's Club passes.

You'll only gain full value out of AA if you tend to fly transborder or international, as a YYZ-based customer. Furthermore, because of the American nature of AA, you'll have to make connecting flights a lot more than if you were to fly AC, which hubs in YYZ.

Unless you have a pressing reason to fly AA or BA (and not discount economy either), I'd stick with Air Canada. At least you'll get reasonable accumulation offers from aeroplan partners.

Of course, if you can't reasonably get 25k miles in seven years, take AA any day. That expiry clause on aeroplan is pretty brutal in that regard.

Does aeroplan charge you a fuel surcharge when you redeem for a ticket?

Yes there are taxes/fuel charges that have to be paid.

They are airlines for two different countries and unless you are flying between the two of them that is probably not a good idea. A friend took me into an AC lounge once when traveling as he United status and it was really good with snacks and lots of free drinks.

Em. Not necessarily. You do not necessarily have to fly regularly on either FF's airline or live in the country the each belong to earn award & status mileages. That's why there are alliances with various airline partners to help get those mileages.

Aeroplan's new system smacks of discrimination, opportunism, and corporate greed at it's finest. Truth be known, other airlines have loyalty plans that still seek to reward loyalty.

As the OP has clearly stated they do not fly enough to obtain status, I think the comparison should be made strictly on ease of earning and ease of redeeming.

Hence, the recommendation to Aeroplan, despite its numerous faults.

What about eventually earning lifetime status with AA?

From my point of view

+ Aeroplan - the MLL lounges are much better the the AA lounges (not including the AA flagship lounges of course) BUT you can purchase lounge access through other means and get into some of the better lounges.

- Aeroplan - worse availability in my opinion for flights from Canada to US / Mexico and Eruope (possibly on par with Canada- Asia) as AA metal to Asia is very weak. However I am not familiar with using AA points on partners so I may be wrong.

- Aeropaln - much higher taxes and fees on award flights compared to AA.

+ AA at 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 miles gives you status.

- Aeroplan - very weak in how the points expire

+ Aeroplan earning partners gas, other purchases

+ Aeroplan can redeem for Canadian flights not possible with AA

As a Canadian I would put AA much farther ahead, however if all you want to do is redeem for say YVR-YYZ tickets, well you really don't have a choice then.

Also I think I heard a rumor about RBC moving away from AA. Again I am not sure where I heard that so take it with a grain of salt.

I fly a lot and so get Elite/SE on AC and Plat/EXP on AA, so perhaps my experiences are different than yours. But from my perspective if you're YYZ-based, then the only reason not to switch from Aeroplan to AAdvantage would be if you travel and redeem awards exclusively in Canada. For transborder and international service I do much better with AA in that I accumulate more miles and it costs me less to redeem them, hence much more free travel (mostly for my relatives as I already travel too much:p). Also, the AA/Oneworld combination is vastly superior to AC/StarAlliance if your international destinations are mostly in Central and South America, and AA/Oneworld is no worse for the rest of the world.

My policy is that I fly AC/StarAlliance only within Canada or on international legs where it's either cheaper or the schedule works out better.

If you aren't flying much, but want to earn useful points, you might also consider the credit card options. The annual fees for these three are all $120:

RBC Avion - $1 per point, note that there has every year been a promo with BA where you can transfer to get BA miles with a 50% bonus. No guarantee that it will happen forever. You can of course use BA miles to redeem on AA.

TV AAdvantage - $1 per point, counts towards AA's current lifetime status scheme.

CIBC Aeroplan

There is also AMEX Platinum for Aeroplan with a $499 fee; it comes with priority check-in and lounge access.

If you like lounges, the Air Canada lounges are generally better, and cheaper, as noted elsewhere.

But it's a little tough to answer your question without knowing where you travel, or where you want to travel (and perhaps redeems award flights).

... or accumulate in a *wood account (via MBNA *wood, no yearly fee) to redeem on the carrier of choice at the right moment.

As to lounges: there are also private lounges that are usually quite competitive...

Unless, you only travel in Canada ,in my opinion there is no comparison.
AAdvantage is so much superior.
I'll list a few examples :
1) On AA : Life time status . On AP : none
2) Cost of a "FREE" award tkt .( for example in North America )
On AA ( taxes & fees ) $ 40 . On AP $120
3) On AA you can do a status chalenge . ( I became PLT on AA with 1 Y flt
JFK-TOKYO-JFK ) . No such thing on AP .
4) Low season awards on AA . You need only 40K miles to fly to Europe or to
deep South America ( from N. America ). no such thing on AP
5) Wait time and pleasant agent on the phone . No comparison.
6) Miles accumulation . On AP you have fares that only gives you a percentage of the miles flown . On AA you get 100% miles flown.

Get yourself a TD AADVANTAGE VISA card ( you get 2500 miles annualy
at renewal time )
As mentioned , all the AAdvantages above apply unless you only fly within
Canada.
Cheers
Michael

I know this thread is for a comparison between AA and AC, but I'm beginning to feel more and more that AS is probably the most versatile program in North America and possibly the strongest for the infrequent traveler. AS allows miles to be credited from NW, DL, AA and CO (but not CO for EQM) as well as KL, AF, BA, CX and QF. Thats pretty darn strong. I believe the credit card is also available to Canadian residents.

The benefit of AC over AA is the flexibility to fly US and UA and still accumulate mileage. This is what makes the AS program so strong: when you're a price-sensitive customer, having a ton of options via AS is really going to go a long way towards shopping for price and still getting miles.