Class-action lawsuit after Aeroplan allegedly rescinds ‘welcome bonus points’

A national class-action lawsuit is alleging Aeroplan account holders had their welcome bonus points rescinded after signing up for a second credit card.

CityNews spoke to Jeff Orenstein, a lawyer at Consumer Law Group, which filed the class action against Aeroplan, TD and CIBC.

What can you tell us about this lawsuit?

JO: Around October of this year, people got emails, apparently according to some news sources, there were 17,000 people that received emails. And what it had said is that there was a change in the terms and conditions, a change that I think goes back to two years, to October of 2022, where they had said in their terms and conditions that if you already had any credit card, any Aeroplan credit card, that their bonus points would only be available one time and you couldn’t do it a second time. And many people had signed up for, for example, CIBC, Aeroplan card, and later on signed up for a TD card. Same thing, by the way, if it was American Express, although American Express apparently was not affected.

And so if you had more than one credit card, they then went back and took away all the bonus points that you had received with regard to your welcome bonus. And the welcome bonus was 10,000 points.

What are you seeking in this class action?

JO: So according to some of the things we read with regard to TD and CIBC on their website, a thousand bonus points or a thousand Aeroplan points is the equivalent of $200. We allege that of course people would have lost – I mean, it’s the points, obviously. But if you talk about monetary value, we’re talking about $200 approximately per person.

What has Aeroplan, TD, and CIBC’s response been so far? And what are the next steps of the case?

JO: So far, we’ve only had appearances in the files. So the intention obviously is to defend the case. But that’s a requirement by law anyway. So that doesn’t mean anything one way or the other. What would happen with the case next is, depending on whether we proceed in Quebec or Ontario, because we filed in both jurisdictions, for Ontario, it’s everybody in Canada. In Quebec, it’s just Quebec residents. And so whether we proceed in both jurisdictions or one jurisdiction, we’ll be looking to get a judge assigned and then get dates for certification hearing.

How can affected Quebecers get in touch?

JO: So we’ve had already close to 5,000 people that have contacted us on our website. So there is at our website at clg.org. You can look at a list of cases. You find the Aeroplan case and you put in all of your contact information. And what that allows us is that if there is any important news, could be a settlement, could be that we win, could be anything. And we would then send emails to everybody to keep them informed of everything.

In a statement, Air Canada, which owns Aeroplan, says as the matter is currently before the courts, it is unable to comment. But the airline company added it intends to vigorously defend itself in the proceeding.

CIBC told CityNews it would not be providing a comment as the matter is before the courts., while TD did not respond to a request for comment.