The Ultimate Guide to Booking Hotels with Air Canada Aeroplan

Overview of Air Canada Hotels

Air Canada Aeroplan is famous for its award flight options thanks to being Canada's leading frequent flyer program however the program offers much more than just flights to its members. Thanks to a long stint as a separately owned coalition program during the late 2000's and throughout the 2010's Aeroplan began offering a multitude of redemption options beyond flights. Merchandise, gift cards, hotels, car rentals, you name it, the program provided a lot of options for the millions of members.

With Air Canada buying back the program and relaunching it 2020 under the reigns of some the industry's brightest minds, the focus of the program returned to being a frequent flyer program first and foremost - but those non-flight rewards were not eliminated. Many of the other redemption options were also revamped with a large focus being put towards hotel rewards.

Today, the revamped hotel redemption option with Aeroplan is much more than just being able to redeem points for hotel stays - which is something many frequent flyer programs offer - but rather they have made it more of hybrid option that includes features typically only seen with hotel loyalty programs.

With Aeroplan you can choose to simply redeem points for any hotel stay (like other frequent flyer programs), you can redeem points with more value with Aeroplan's HotelSavers (akin to a hotel loyalty program award night chart) and finally, taking another page from hotel loyalty programs, if you have an Aeroplan co-brand credit card you can get your fourth night free on hotel redemptions.

Booking hotels with Air Canada Aeroplan

Booking hotels via Air Canada is just as straightforward as booking hotels via any other online method with the added benefit of having multiple options to pay for those hotel stays.

 

When booking hotels on Air Canada's site you can choose pay cash (well credit card technically) or redeem points or a combination of the two where you can do 50% points and 50% cash to pay for your stay.

 

 

The hotel booking engine on Air Canada's website allows you to easily switch between the three payment options:

 

 

The hotel search results will automatically update with the selection you make:

 

 

 

 

As you can see in the last example if you choose to pay all cash, you will earn Aeroplan points on the hotel stay!

And that's all there is to it for booking hotels using your Aeroplan points - a very easy process! But as already mentioned, there's more to booking Aeroplan hotels than

Aeroplan HotelSavers

HotelSavers is a travel redemption offering from Air Canada’s Aeroplan that expands upon their standard hotel booking option. With HotelSavers Aeroplan Members can save up to 30% in points when booking stays at select partner hotels. The program has negotiated special rates and partnered with multiple global hotel chains featuring a total of 55 hotel brands that participate in HotelSavers.

Think of HotelSavers as an extension of the standard Aeroplan hotel booking options outlined above but with more value per point at participating hotels. With HotelSavers, Aeroplan has taken a traditional hotel loyalty program approach as this option is offered as a rewards gird with 8 categories of hotels ranging from economy to luxury, starting at 10,000 points per night including taxes. You know, kind of like the traditional hotel reward charts that most hotel programs have moved away from in favour of dynamic pricing!

The HotelSavers Points Grid

These are estimated number of points per night for a standard room for each HotelSavers category

 

HotelSavers facts

1. HotelSavers redemptions always include taxes. Some properties do charge resort fees, and if applicable, those fees would be collected at the hotel
2. All HotelSavers properties offer an option to book a refundable rate. Some HotelSavers properties also offer non-refundable options for even fewer points
3. Aeroplan are continually working on adding more properties and brands to the HotelSavers program

 

Participating hotel brands

These are the brands participating in HotelSavers (Current as of June 24, 2025)

 

 

4th night free benefit for Aeroplan credit cardholders

Launched in 2023, Air Canada Aeroplan's 4th night free benefit for co-brand cardholders when booking hotels with points has been in market for almost two years now and is set to run right through to the end of 2025. This is an excellent benefit that takes a page out hotel loyalty program playbooks for using points on longer duration consecutive night hotel stays. For Aeroplan cardholders this is an every fourth night free benefit when they redeem points for hotel stays. Simply book a 4 night stay to get one of them for free, book eight nights to get two of them for free and so on!

This free night is available for each and every four nights on a stay so if you book an eight night stay you will only need to redeem points for six nights, twelve nights pay for only nine and so on. 

 

 

This offer is available for bookings at over 300,000 hotels worldwide made until December 31, 2025 with the actual stay dates extending well beyond 2025. The fourth night free applies to all eligible Aeroplan primary co-brand cardholders and linked secondary cardholders, including U.S. cardholders.

 

Free night is based on average point price across the stay

Unlike Marriott's famous fifth night free benefit which is applied to the one night that costs the least amount in points, Aeroplan's fourth night free is based on the average nightly price in points of all four nights, eight nights etc.

Here we have an example of four nights at the InterContinental Hotels Bora Bora Resort Thalasso Spa, which runs 489,000 Aeroplan points for the entire stay or an average of 122,250 points per night. In this case you would end up having to only redeem 366,750 points for the four night stay. That works out nearly 2.3 cents per point in value! That's a pretty awesome per point value.

 

 

But unlike Marriott's free night benefit, Aeroplan requires you to have one of their co-brand credit cards to avail of the free night benefit. Marriott's is available to all program members regardless of them having a co-brand card or not. So here's the trick - earn as many Aeroplan points as possible with the American Express Cobalt Card and get yourself one of the Aeroplan co-brand cards, even the no fee CIBC Aeroplan Visa Card, so that you can get this fourth night free benefit!

These are the Aeroplan co-brand cards that will get you the fourth night free when booking hotels with Aeroplan points:

• American Express® Aeroplan®* Card
• CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card
• TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card
• American Express® Aeroplan®* Reserve Card
• CIBC Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card
• TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card
• CIBC Aeroplan® Visa* Card
• TD® Aeroplan® Visa Platinum* Card
• American Express® Aeroplan®* Business Reserve Card
• CIBC Aeroplan® Visa* Business Card
• TD® Aeroplan® Visa* Business Card
• Chase Aeroplan Card (U.S.)

 

This month's recommended Aeroplan co-brand card:

The American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card is being offered with its best bonus of 2025 which provides up to 130,000 Aeroplan points! Apply by August 18, 2025!

 

The free night can be combined with HotelSavers

What is amazing is that the Aeroplan's HotelSavers option, which we've already detailed in this guide, can also be stacked with the fourth night free benefit. The Bora Bora example above is a perfect example of this of lower points requirements and then being able to get that fourth night free.

 

Stack these offers with Aeroplan Hotel point rebates promos!

Aeroplan Hotels has also now become famous for offering rebates when you redeem points for hotel stays. The promotional offers are provided several times per year. Typically you can receive these points rebates on HotelSavers bookings and on top of getting every fourth night free! 

Here's examples of two past rebate offers:

 

 

Is there value in using Aeroplan points for hotel stays?

If you are booking a HotelSavers location and/or are booking at least 4 nights for having an Aeroplan co-brand credit card, then yes, absolutely, there is value!

For other hotel bookings, that is, hotels that don't fall into the HotelSavers category (and you're booking less than four nights at one of the non-hotel savers hotels) the value is in the eye of the beholder. Points and miles maximizers will not be going out of their way to book these hotels as the value tends to come in below 1 cent per point.

However, for the everyday Canadian, if redeeming your points for a hotel stay makes you happy and you don't care about the value you get per point as it lets you keep several hundred dollars in your bank account, then by all means go for it!

 

Example: One Night Standard Hotel Redemption (non-HotelSavers)

Canopy By Hilton Toronto Yorkville (Oct 16-17)

Aeroplan Points Only:

 

Cash + Points:

 

Cash Only:

 

For the above one night stay you have the option to redeem 68,500 points for a room that costs $602 including all taxes and fees. This works out to a redemption value of 0.88 cents per point. The same per point value is extended to the points+cash redemption where you can redeem exactly half the points to pay for half of the room rate.

 

Example: One Night HotelSavers Redemption

Le Germain Hotel Toronto Maple Leaf Square (Oct 16-17)

Aeroplan Points Only:

 

Cash + Points:

 

Cash Only:

 

For the above one night stay you have the option to redeem 49,850 points for a room that costs $722 including all taxes and fees. This works out to a redemption value of 1.45 cents per point. The same per point value is extended to the points+cash redemption where you can redeem exactly half the points to pay for half of the room rate.

 

Example: HotelSavers with Aeroplan co-brand card 4th night free

Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver (Nov 3 - 7)

Aeroplan Points Only:

 

Cash Only:

 

For the above four night stay the total redemption requirement is 236,200 points with an average of 59,050 points per night. That means by having an Aeroplan co-brand card you have that 59,050 deducted from the 236,300 points for a total redemption of only 177,150 points. The cash cost for those same four nights is $2,808 including all taxes and fees. This works out to a redemption value of 1.59 cents per point - not as high as the InterContinental Bora Bora example mentioned earlier, but still quite decent.

 

So there is potential value in booking hotels with Aeroplan points

As you can see booking a hotel savers property can represent good value for your Aeroplan points. Throw in an Aeroplan co-brand card and stay 4 nights and it becomes an even better value for your Aeroplan points. We value Aeroplan points at 1.5 cents each based on flight redemptions and that's averaging economy to business class and first class flights and of late, most economy class redemptions I've been finding fall short of the 1.5 cents per point value so if you are like 90+% of Canadians who only redeem for economy class flights, you may actually get better value out of your points by using them for hotels!

On the other hand though, a standard non-HotelSavers hotel stay does not tend to provide good value for your points (and this was evident in numerous searches I conducted) especially when you know you can get a guaranteed 1 cent per point when you redeem points for Air Canada Gift Cards, towards Air Canada Vacations packages or even for LCBO purchases (The latter is if you live in or are visiting Ontario that is!) But as mentioned above, if you are not a per point value chaser and are happy with the cash being saved by using your points for a standard hotel booking, then do it. Any redemption that makes you happy is a good redemption.

 

Earn points on cash bookings

From the cash only examples seen above you'll see that those booking actually earn Aeroplan points! The earn rate is right around 4 Aeroplan points per C$ spent on hotel stays booked via their platform. This can prove useful for independent non-chain hotels or if you find a better rate via Air Canada over other booking options and you are not loyal to a hotel program where booking direct with them respectively earns you those hotel points, elite status credits and more.

 

Wrapping it up

Hotel bookings continue to grow in popularity for Aeroplan as members have saved on more than 225,000 nights booked with points since the launch of HotelSavers in 2022. With the continuation of the fourth free night benefit and the frequent points rebates, using your Aeroplan points for hotel stays can provide really good value that matches or even beats many economy class award flight redemptions.

Some will argue that Aeroplan points are best used for flights, especially in business class or first class and yes, that's where the big value can come from the Aeroplan program. However, there are a more finite amount of those rewards when compared to hotel rooms and getting that outsized value that used to be so common, isn't so much the case anymore. And don't get me started if you trying to book premium cabin flights for a family of four. That's an even tougher proposition especially when compared to potentially redeeming a lower amount of points to get a luxurious hotel room for the entire family for a week! So don't discount using Aeroplan points for hotel stays if the property falls into the Hotel Savers category and even more so if you are booking 4 or more nights and have an Aeroplan co-brand card.

Click here to learn more about and/or to book hotels via Air Canada