It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a credit card review. As some credit card offers are ending soon, I thought it’d be relevant for readers who haven’t familiarized themselves with Canadian credit cards, which are one of the easiest ways in Canada to earn frequent flyer miles. If you haven’t seen my review of other credit cards worth getting, take a look here:
- Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite (My Review)
- American Express Platinum Card (My Review)
- American Express AeroplanPlus Gold Card (My Review)
Overview – TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Review
TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Review
The TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite is one of several Aeroplan co-branded cards, allowing you to earn miles directly to your account on credit card purchases. There are three issuers that issue Aeroplan co-branded cards today – TD, CIBC, and American Express. However, CIBC is not allowed to publicly advertise to attract new customers.
Since TD won the contract to issue Aeroplan co-branded cards from CIBC around two years ago, they’ve been aggressively pushing these card to increase their credit card customer base and market share. This is the gold standard of credit cards out there. Nothing about this card is industry leading in terms of earning or benefits, but the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite is a very well balanced card that most cardholders should be holding.
Highlights
Take off to your next destination, faster.
To view the updated offer, use this link to access the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite application page.
Earning and Burning
The TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite earns 1 Aeroplan point per dollar spent on everyday purchases. This is typical for most Infinite level credit cards. However, non co-branded cards actually earn more. The 1.25 Aeroplan Points per dollar earned with the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express or the American Express Platinum Card is significantly higher over the long run, although this requires American Express acceptance which may be limited depending on the merchant.
In terms of category bonuses, the card earns 1.5 Aeroplan mile per dollar spend on gas, groceries, and drugstores, a 50% bonus. This is useful, although again lower than the market leader. The Scotiabank Gold American Express and Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite offer up to a 4% return on this category of spending! The 1.5 points/$ bonus also applies to aircanada.com purchases.
As this card earns Aeroplan miles, burning them is fairly simple as long as you have good knowledge about the program. There are many high-value redemptions out there, such as 45,000/62,500 miles for Europe Zone 1 in Business/First Class. As long as you are avoiding fuel surcharges, this means that 45,000 miles + ~$100 in tax will get you a ticket that’s worth upwards of $1,600 dollars.
Europe in Business Class for 45,000 Miles
Benefits
The card benefits are not bad, although inferior to ultra-premium cards such as cards from the Visa Infinite Privilege tier or even the American Express Platinum, in my opinion. However, since this is the mainstream premium co-branded Aeroplan/Air Canada credit card, cardholders can reap quite a bit of value if they fly on Air Canada. For your first redemption of the year, you could save up to $70 on your travel expenses. When travelling on an Air Canada or rouge flight redeemed with Aeroplan miles from your account, you can receive:
- Complimentary first checked bag
- Priority check-in and priority boarding
- One annual One-Time Guest Access Benefit to Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge
The TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite also offers a comprehensive range of travel insurance benefits, including:
- Travel Medical Insurance: First 15 days under 65 years of age
- Trip Cancellation / Trip Interruption Insurance: $1000 for cancellation before trip, $5000 during trip
- Delayed and Lost Baggage Insurance: 6 hours, maximum of $1000
- Flight/Trip Delay Insurance: 4 hours, $500 for hotels and restaurants
- Common Carrier Travel Accident Insurance: Up to $500,000
- Auto Rental Collision / Loss Damage Insurance: Up to 48 consecutive days.
- Emergency Travel Assistance Services
There are cards which have better offers, but I’ve had yet to file a claim during at all in the past three years. Maybe my travel has just gone really smoothly.
Finally, Cardholders also have access to a wide variety of benefits from the Visa Infinite program. Full details about Visa Infinite benefits can be found at their website, although for access, you’ll need to enter your card number. The website also has other content including curated experience that you can obtain with your Visa Infinite Card.
TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Curated Experiences
The benefits include:
- Visa Infinite Complimentary Concierge, available 24/7
I personally use the concierge service from the American Express Platinum card, which has been helpful, although it’s limiting because there’s no option for email contact. I’m not sure whether this would be the same with the Visa Infinite concierge service.
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Visa Infinite Dining Privileges: Enjoy exclusive access to gourmet events at some of Canada’s top restaurants.
- Visa Infinite Luxury Hotel Privileges
This is a website that gives you benefits for booking through their site, such as a 25$ food and beverage, late check-out, and room upgrades depending on availability. It’s similar, although again eclipsed by programs such as Virtuoso and American Express FHR. For more details, see my post about luxury hotel programs.
Questions about the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Offer
TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Review – Questions
Is it possible to get the signup bonus multiple times?
As per the terms and conditions –
If you have opened an Account in the last 6 months, you will not be eligible for this offer. TD Canada Trust reserves the right to limit the number of Accounts opened by, and the number of Welcome Bonus Miles awarded to, any one person.
This means you cannot have opened an account in the past six months. I’d also take it to mean that your account should have been closed for the past six months, and you do not currently hold a card in the TD Aeroplan Visa family, just to be safe.
Why can’t I find this offer on the TD Canada website?
I’ve been told that this offer is available via the online channel, and only on the online channel. When applying, make sure that you see the website link have contains “Code=gZQM3”. That’s the only way they can track your offer. If you have any trouble receiving the posted benefits, please email me and I’d be happy to follow up with my TD contact. I actually had a reader a few weeks ago who ran into trouble receiving the annual fee waiver, so it was great to get that connected.
How does the annual fee waiver work?
Again, as per the terms and conditions –
Annual Fee will be reversed within 2 monthly statements from the date of the charge. Annual Fee for any Authorized User Cards added to the Account continue to apply. You must apply for the Account by Aug 31, 2015. Existing TD Aeroplan Cardholders are not eligible for this offer.
What happens if you don’t meet the application requirements?
As a premium card, you’re only going to be approved if you have excellent credit. If you’re not quite at that point, or don’t meet other minimum requirements for the card, you can apply for the TD Aeroplan Visa Platinum card, which has a lower bonus, but is likely easier to be approved for. You’ll have to scroll down to apply for the other card. If you’re not familiar with applying for multiple credit cards to earn valuable benefits, see my post on starting out.
The Canadian Kilometers Ranking
Score for the sign-up bonus – 9/10, as there’s a 25,000 welcome bonus offer with a first year annual fee waiver.
Score for on-going earning – 7.5/10. While there is a category bonus offer, none of the earning ratios are industry leading. However, they are very reasonable, and the earning ratios for this card are on par with most mainstream premium credit cards.
Score for benefits – 8.5/10. This visa has similar benefits to most other premium credit cards. The additional Air Canada benefits are very valuable if you’re travelling on Air Canada while on award tickets.
Objectively, the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite isn’t a industry-leading card. Why would I rate it so highly then?
The reason is because the card is extremely well-rounded. If there’s one card that I’d advise new readers or beginners to get, it would be this card, because the earning rates and benefits are very good for the new or intermediate miles and points aficionado. As long as you have a good credit score, you should be applying for this card while the increased signup offer and annual fee waiver are still in effect.
Application Link: TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite
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Good review! It’s my go to card when they don’t take Amex!
I am actually having troubles receiving the bonus 10,000 miles despite having met the required spending in time. Any chance you and your TD Contact can help me?
Mark, if you applied through that offer code, please send me an email at canadiankilometers [at] gmail.com.
You can use email to contact the AMEX Concierge if you have the Centurion. It’s the same concierge team for both Platinum and Centurion too. I’ve never found the concierge to offer that much extra value though. You?
My ideal use for the concierge would be for simple personal/travel requests where normally I’d have to call and wait in a hold queue, and instead I’d just get someone at AMEX to do it for me. Alas, I don’t have the Centurion, so I can’t email them. 🙁
Email system for Centurion is overrated cause sometimes they don’t reply for a full day. If it’s urgent, better to call them. But I haven’t been impressed with AMEX concierges in general.
wow… reads exactly like the mailed offer I received
Thanks? It’s a great card, so it’s not like I’m lying through my teeth or anything.
Thoughts on this TD Aeroplan offer? Not FYF but $250 credit to a Visa Luxury Hotel & a free companion classic flight (+25,000 Aeroplan points). IMO, you’d be net ahead based on the value if you can maximize the value of the hotel offer (minus the $120 annual fee). https://www.tdaeroplan.com/flyfaster
Interesting… had never seen that before. Will look into it.
Have tried to sign up for this twice via your link, and both time got no decision. When I called TD, they had no record of the application, and I never got any rejection letter in the mail. Any clue what happened?
Unrelated, but how come you (or anyone for that matter), never seem to push mbna’ world elite card? It provides 2% cash back on ALL purchases with no limit? As far as I can tell that’s the onlyncardvin canada that offers this. I feel like most people are trying to use their aeroplan or other points for domestic non stop flights. After paying taxes on those flights, the value per mile is way less than 2 cents most of the time. With this you can take your 2 percent, and not be restricted by points availability, or even travel for that matter. People use TD travel points, but that only earns you 1.5 percent.
I tend to get a much higher return from using Aeroplan – way over 2%, so personally have never found any interest in writing about that card. Even with using Aeroplan, you should be getting a 2%+ return on the retail value of those flights. If you aren’t, then I agree that you should be using a cashback or cashback equivalent card. I also believe that the World Elite has a fairly weak signup bonus…
Do the math on short or medium haul flights to the U.S. after $170 in taxes and fees on aeroplan tickets, you’re usually way less than 2%. You may come out ahead on last minute expensive tickets if you are lucky enough to find aeroplan points for.
Bottom line is, if you have more than enough aeroplan points, this is your best bet for everyday purchases.
I disagree with that statement. A multi-city Vancouver – Florida – East Coast – Vancouver trip will go for anywhere between $700-900, which is definitely more than 2%. Of course, do keep in mind that I don’t recommend putting spend on this card if you don’t know how to maximize your miles…
Horrible experience with TD aeroplan visa card. My wife applied for this card and called for activation. The representative on the other end of line kept on for 40 minutes trying to sell a balance protection insurance to her. My wife was blasted with those lengthy and misleading questions. She is not very familiar with this kind of scam but she told the rep that other than the original benefits that come with the card, she doesn’t want any other stuff. But, to our surprise, we still received the insurance plan policy and apparently the repo went ahead and register her with this scam insurance anyways. So she tried to call the insurance company number to cancel the insurance but nobody picked up the phone. She then had to call the customer service line but was told that the insurance apartment does not authorize the credit card department dealing with insurance business, which is absurd because the guy who activated her card was authorized to sell insurance somehow. She then wanted to cancel the card but then the rep said my wife answered one of her secure questions with my help so he couldn’t do it on the phone and asked us to goto TD branch to cancel the card in person.
What kind of scam this is and this is how TD treats their customers. My wife even told them she has mortgage in TD and has been a long time customer of TD but the customer service guy wouldn’t budge. This is ridiculous and has to stop. Nobody wants your balance protection, TD! Stop charging people for something they don’t want and treat your customer like human.
Hi just got td aeroplane Visa card,, how to maximize the miles please