Aeroplan is launching a promo with their new Distinction program, which I wrote about here.

It seems like any members who reach dBlack will receive an additional 10,000 Aeroplan and members who reach dDiamond status will receive an addition 5,000 miles in additional to the 10,000 miles from dBlack qualification. Registration is required for the promotion, which you can do here.

Members will also need an active Aeroplan-affiliate financial card to qualify for the bonus miles. It says you need to reach Distinction “elite status” before March 31, 2014 which is a bit confusing because the Terms and Conditions of Distinction say:

Distinction status is based on the number of eligible miles earned by a member between January 1 and December 31  of the previous calendar year.

So I am assuming that you will either qualify before December 31st of this year, of between January to March 31 of next year.

Remember, this is what counts as qualifying spending:

Eligible miles are miles earned in the Aeroplan Program directly at participating partners and include base and certain bonus mile offers. Unless otherwise indicated at the time of offer, the following miles are not eligible for Distinction status: financial card sign-up; bonus miles received as a benefit of the Air Canada Altitude program or Aeroplan Distinction status; miles accumulated through conversion from other programs or transfers between member accounts, top-up miles, contest prizes, and reinstated miles. Aeroplan reserves the right, at their sole discretion, to change the miles eligible for Distinction status from time to time by either adding to or deleting from this list. Eligible miles are considered to be earned on the activity date, meaning the date upon which the member performed the qualifying activity. In the case of financial card partners, the activity date is the statement date.

That is actually pretty limiting, which means the few ways to qualify is credit card spend (as signup bonuses do not count) on Aeroplan-affiliated credit cards (as cards which have a transfer option to Aeroplan do not count either), miles earned directly through Aeroplan (destinations miles, eStore purchases), and miles from flights. That is actually incredibly smart as to the consumer who wants to reach a certain status and isn’t informed of all the credit card options present in Canada, will probably highly incentivize spending with Aeroplan.

Remember, the miles which are “distinction qualifying” with aeroplan are marked with the following symbol to the left (as you can see transfer do not count):

I think this is actually not a bad promotion at all, but I don’t think it will cause me to shift my spending habits from my current credit cards, and the incentive is just not big enough. For those who already are quite close, though it might be worth it to shift some spend onto CIBC (soon to be TD) Aeroplan-affiliated credit cards.

These are the Terms & Conditions of the Promotion:

1. The Distinction launch bonus promotion is open to all Aeroplan Members.
2. The applicable bonus mile level will be awarded to members who:
   • reach a 2014 Aeroplan Distinction dDiamond or dBlack level based on the qualifying criteria for the 2014 qualification period by March 31, 2014,
   • register at aeroplan.com from June 28 to December 31, 2013, 11:59 p.m. (EST),
   • hold or acquire an active, Aeroplan-affiliated mileage accumulating financial card between June 28, 2013 and March 31, 2014, and
   • are the primary cardholders of an active, Aeroplan-affiliated mileage accumulating financial card in good standing on March 31, 2014.
3. These bonus miles will count towards 2015 Distinction status.
4. Aeroplan Bonus Miles will be credited to member’s account 12 weeks following the end of the promotion. Maximum of 15,000 bonus miles per member.
5. Offer is subject to change at Aeroplan’s sole discretion, without notice; other conditions and restrictions may apply.