I am interrupting my usual posting schedule and pushing planned posts to the back burner for this big announcement for Basic Bishes. You can now earn Aeroplan points at STARBUCKS.
This is a big freaking deal!
Why?
Because you have to do absolutely nothing to earn these points besides maintaining your regular Starbucks habits! It’s a dream.
What Is Aeroplan?
Aeroplan is the recently revamped Air Canada rewards points program. You can earn points on Air Canada flights, as well as at a number of retail partners.
You can get a free Aeroplan account here. It is quick and easy. You do not have to be a Canadian resident to have an Aeroplan account.
I only recently got an Aeroplan account, because besides booking flights, I didn’t think that I shopped anywhere that offers Aeroplan points. Now that I’ve seen the list, I will probably be memorizing my Aeroplan number!
What Is Starbucks Rewards?
Starbucks Rewards is the free program that earns you “stars” to redeem on food, beverages, and merchandise. It’s actually a very lucrative program, so if you haven’t joined yet, but you even occasionally go to Starbucks, you need to!
I only joined the rewards program in the last year or so, and it’s one of my big regrets in life. I threw away a lot of free coffee.
You can get a free Starbucks Rewards account here. Download the app and pay through your digital card to earn double rewards.
You can even redeem your points easily on mobile orders, and let me tell you, placing a mobile order for $0 is pretty satisfying.
What Are The Requirements?
The hoops you need to jump through for this program:
- You must have a free Aeroplan membership
- You must have a free Starbucks rewards membership
- Connect the two
That’s it! I saw the announcement in my inbox and I joined in under two minutes.
You can easily link the two either through Starbucks Rewards, or through Aeroplan.
What Are Aeroplan Points Even Good For?
Here is a great post I found that outlines the benefits of the Aeroplan program and some of the things that you can redeem points on.
The big ones are:
- Star Alliance Flights – Including airlines like Lufthansa, Swiss, LOT, TAP, Air Canada (of course,) and more
- Flights with additional partners who are not part of Star Alliance
- Travel upgrades, car rentals, or hotels
- A huge selection of merchandise
You will notice that the Star Alliance includes budget airlines, which is good news for us common people. Air Canada also operates heavily throughout the United States, so redeeming points on Air Canada flights doesn’t mean flying only to Canada.
Visit the Aeroplan site to see all the reward possibilities. You can redeem for anything from appliances to gift cards.
Buy Starbucks, Earn Sephora
Browsing the Aeroplan rewards merchandise page, I saw that a $50 Sephora gift card is 7,000 points. Now that isn’t the best value for your points, but if you consider that your Starbucks habit can feed your makeup habit…well I’m interested.
Earning Points
My very first question was answered quickly. Yes. We get to double dip. You can earn Stars and Aeroplan points at the same time, you do not need to choose which one you are earning.
That’s what I mean about having to do absolutely nothing. All you need is an Aeroplan membership to pick up these free extra points!
How To Earn Points
Right now there appear to be standard offers, as well as limited time offers.
Here’s a look at the permanent point structure as it stands right now:
It’s interesting to note that you are rewarded for reloading your app with more than $50 and your points double when you load $75 or more. So I guess this is one way where your habits might change slightly. I tend to reload my card with $10 at a time because it makes me feel frugal, and now I will probably reload with $75. In the grand scheme of things it makes no difference, I will just go longer between reloading my card (and maybe do it on a pay day!)
I love that you earn points for redeeming stars! I tend to redeem 150 stars as soon as I earn them, so this suits me perfectly.
Here are some of the promotional offers running right now:
So if you are a daily Starbucks drinker than you will earn 25 Aeroplan points every week until June.
The middle offer is the same redemption offer that is listed in the “Everyday Earning” page, so I doubt that it ends on May 31st as listed.
This third offer is for anyone with a TD Aeroplan card. Pretty specific.
I am hoping to see that there may be more short term offers in the Starbucks Rewards app. That makes the most sense to me, since I use the app all the time and go on the Aeroplan website exactly never.
Sign Up Your Family Members
Aeroplan has an awesome feature called family sharing, which means that you can pool your Aeroplan points! That was my other question about the program, was how I could somehow connect my Aeroplan account to Jason’s Starbucks app. Turns out, I don’t need to! He just needs to connect his Aeroplan to his own Starbucks Rewards and I can add him as a family member on Aeroplan to share our points.
This is great because either of us on our own will take a long time to earn a significant amount of points!
You only need to be on a family account for a minimum of 3 months. So you could actually share points with extended family or friends if you wanted to pool for a bigger purchase. (For example, buying a flight for Grandma, or pooling with your roommates to buy a dishwasher.)
The only catch is that you have to call to be removed from a pool, and you have to wait 6 months before joining a new family share pool. Since you continue to earn your own Aeroplan miles during that time, it doesn’t seem like a lot of hoops to jump through. Just make sure you pool with people that you trust, because not all members have redeeming privileges!
Go Forth And Earn
Yes, at the end of the day you would have to spend a LOT of money at just Starbucks before you can redeem points. However with the family sharing option, points earned on flights, AND the fact that you passively earn by purchasing and redeeming at Starbucks like normal, I think everyone should join. Because, why not?