Review: TD Aeroplan Visa Signature Credit Card

Quick look

• 25,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,000 in total net purchase within the first 3 billing cycles
• 2X on Air Canada purchases
• 1X on all other purchases
• $95 annual fee (waived the first year)
• Issued by TD Bank
• If you apply for a TD Aeroplan Visa credit card and are approved, you will either receive a Visa Signature card if your approved credit limit is $5,000 or greater or a Visa Platinum card if your approved credit limit is less than $5,000.
• Miles do not expire as long as the TD Aeroplan Visa credit card is open and in good standing
• Does NOT waive foreign transaction fees

Sign-up bonus

One unique feature of this card is that the minimum spend for the sign-up bonus must be met within the first 3 billing cycles. This is different from most cards that give you 90 days regardless of closing dates. So pay close attention because if your first closing date came extra early, you could lose out on a lot of time to meet the spend requirement.

Fortunately, the spend requirement is only $1,000 so it’s fairly easy to meet.

What can you do with 25,000 miles?

The 25,000 sign-up bonus is not exactly outstanding but it’s far from worthless like the sign-up offers from some other co-branded airline cards. 25,000 could get you a roundtrip economy ticket anywhere in the continental US, so you could use it to fly United for the same mileage requirement.

Although many flights under 700 miles would be cheaper with United miles, if you’re flying from a state in the the northern half of the country to Canada, the Aeroplan short-haul redemption of 15,000 can be a great redemption (but you have to watch out for fees).

• You can find the Aeroplan award chart here. 

My favorite use of Aeroplan miles is to fly to “Europe 1” for only 110,000 miles roundtrip or one-way at 55,000 miles.

“Europe 1” consists  of the following countries:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Denmark
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• The Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• The United Kingdom

On these routes, fuel surcharges can be an issue with Aeroplan but you can get around them by booking with the following airlines: 

• Air China
• Brussels
• EgyptAir
• Ethiopian
• EVA Air
• Scandinavian
• Singapore
• Swiss
• Turkish
• United
• LOT (has small surcharges)*

I recently booked a flight from IAH to Tromsø flying business class on Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and only paid $12 in fees for the one way flight and used 55,000 Aeroplan miles and got a whopping 14 cents per mile on that redemption!

The Aeroplan program has a lot of other benefits to it like:

• Cheap change fees (roughly $75)
• Good lap-child policies
• Flexible stopover and open jaw policies
• Solid online search engine

You can read more about the perks of the program here.

Other options for Aeroplan miles 

So there’s a lot of potential for value with the Aeroplan program but how does the TD Aeroplan factor into the equation?

Aeroplan is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards at a 1:1 ratio, and so it’s extremely easy to rack up Aeroplan miles. Because of that if you’re trying to accumulate Aeroplan miles there are much better ways to do so by taking advantage of better sign-up bonuses with cards like the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card.

Also, you can earn more points with bonus category spend on cards like the Premier Rewards Gold Card and Amex EveryDay, so if you’re trying to amass a lot of Aeroplan miles, you might want to consider American Express cards first.

Still, it’s possible that you might need to take a break from American Express at some point or maybe you’ve exhausted all of your Membership Earning opportunities (in which case I say congrats). In those instances, this card is perfect to top-off your Aeroplan balance.

After that, I don’t see a lot of use for the card and would probably cancel before the annual fee hits the next year. The 2X on Air Canada purchases could easily be outdone by the 3X on airfare by the Premier Rewards Gold Card or potentially 5X on the Platinum Card, so I really don’t see a situation where I’d hold on to the card, even if I really needed Aeroplan miles.

Final word 

Overall, this is a pretty basic card that offers a nice way to top off your Aeroplan account balance. It will probably make more sense to pursue American Express cards if you’re trying to earn a lot of Aeroplan miles but there are still some specific instances when the TD Bank Aeroplan Visa Signature Credit Card could come in handy.