Disclaimer: Please be aware that offers for credit cards referenced in this post may have changed since the time of publication and may no longer be available. 

One of the cards that I personally hold is the American Express Aeroplan Gold Credit Card. This card is only available to Canadian residents with a Canadian credit file. The American Express Aeroplan Gold Credit Card is a great card because has one of the best signup bonuses in Canada and has decent benefits for a card with a waived first year annual fee.

Highlights of the American Express Aeroplan Gold Card

• Special Offer: Earn 25,000 Bonus Aeroplan^® 26,000 Miles after you spend $500 in your first three months of Card membership. Offer expires July 14, 2014.
• Earn 1 Aeroplan Mile for every $1 in Card purchases up to $10,000
• Accelerate your earn rate to 1.25 Aeroplan Miles for every additional $1 in Card purchases over $10,000 annually
• Earn Aeroplan Miles faster with two free Supplementary Cards – a $100 value ($50* for each additional Supplementary Cards)

The current public offer is for 20,000 miles, but through my application link you will receive 26,000 miles after your first $500 of purchases. I would assume this offer expires with the AMEX special offer as well which ends July 14th. Usually, the public offer is regularly 20,000 or 15,000 miles. As well, the annual fee is waived ($120), is waived for the first year, as well as the fees for supplementary cards.

Earning and Burning

The card offers 1 Aeroplan Mile/$ for the first $10,000, and then 1.25 miles/$ after that, which are directly transferred to your Aeroplan account every month. This is better than other competing cards such as the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite and CIBC Aerogold Visa Infinite which only offer 1 miles/$ with no bonus after a certain amount. However, the American Express Aeroplan Gold doesn’t offer a bonus on groceries or gas unlike other cards. Usually, I put all my everyday spend on the American Express Platinum Card, which gives me 1.25 Membership Rewards per dollar. That card comes with a $699 card so it might not be a viable option, so I wrote this post on whether it was worth carrying the Platinum Card. 30,000 miles gets you a economy class one-way ticket to Europe. While I never redeem for international economy class awards, if you are okay with flying economy class, it’s not a bad deal especially when you’re getting them from one card. I personally like to redeem for business and first class, which would be 45,000 and 62,500 miles one-way respectively. To top up my accounts, I can apply for other cards or transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards or Starwood Preferred Guest.

Other Benefits

The American Express Aeroplan Gold Card also offers the following insurance benefits:

• Flight Delay Insurance
• Baggage Delay Insurance
• Lost or Stolen Baggage Insurance
• Hotel/Motel Burglary Insurance

Other benefits of being an American Express Cardholder include:

The Canadian Kilometers Ranking

Score for the sign-up bonus – 9/10, as the 30,000 points signup bonus is one of the best in the field, and requires a fairly low amount of spending to unlock the bonus.

Score for on-going earning – 6/10. The card does offer a bonus on tiered spend after $10,000, however the lack of category bonuses and weaker AMEX acceptance do make it one of the cards that have potential but still lack bonuses in some areas.

Score for benefits – 6/10. I’ve generally found that American Express service to be better than other issuers, although that may vary. The card offers decent benefits for a card with no annual fee for the first year. Aeroplan is the primary frequent flyer program for Air Canada and for a significant amount of the Canadian population, so it is a important programs to keep and having a co-branded credit card is very useful.

I’d be happy to answer any questions you have, so feel free to comment, email, or tweet me.

Application Link: American Express Aeroplan Gold Credit Card

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