The Aeroplan eStore is one of the easiest ways to supercharge your point earning and catapault you into 25K status with Aeroplan earning you valuable e-upgrade credits that you can combine with your points (or companion passes from your Aeroplan cards) for even more value. If you haven't already, check out my article on why the eStore is worth your time. Unfortunately it isn't without problems, with points sometimes taking months to process if at all - I've outlined in my eStore Hygeine article there are some steps you can take to help streamline this process, but even when done right it can be less than perfect. How big of a problem? Across 41 transactions I have 12 that are pending as expected, and of the 29 remaining I have received 60.7k out of an expected 68k points
In this article I walk you through some things to consider before you submit a dispute for eStore transaction. I'll also share some of my personal experiences with eStore. As always, referral links and disclaimers at the bottom. If you need any help you can reach out for a consult.
Why this is so important? If your primary card earns 1-1.25 points per dollar, saving up enough for a round trip business class trip to Europe could take years and over $100,000 in spending. If instead you combine the optimal card strategy with the eStore, you could have the same amount of points after $10,000 in spending. Being able to go on luxurious trips 10 times as often is worth the effort in my opinion.
Where are My Points?
If you made a big purchase on estore with a high multiplier, it may be your nature to keep checking the Aeroplan app on your phone for the points to arrive. Perhaps you're trying to hit the EDQ target for 25K status, or maybe you need the points to book a trip, so I can't blame you for wondering where tens of thousands of points are. But you've been checking for a while and don't see the point amounts you were expecting.
Before you get too concerned and submit a dispute, we need to make sure you didn't already receive the points without realizing it. In an ideal world, a $500 purchase during a 10x promotion would show up as 5000 points - unfortunately that isn't the world we live in. Instead, typically you will see several different entries breaking down the points by component. For example, I bought some prescription sunglasses from Clearly during the Aeroplan Anniversary promotion for 12x points (10x base plus 2x for my 25K Aeroplan status). Instead of a single entry, the points came through as three entries, one for the base 1x (labled with the website name), one for the 9x from the Anniversary promotion (labeled points promotion), and one for the 2x from my status (labeled estore aeroplan status).
To make matters even more frustrating, sometimes these amounts are added to the history based on the day the points are processed, and other times based on the date of the purchase. For example, I recently received a large point total on Aug 17th for a purchase July 17th, but it appeared in my account activity retroactively and I had to scroll back through a month of more recent point amounts to see the transaction.
They also often process points per item instead of per transaction, so if for example you bought 3 things from Sephora during the last points promo and were 25K status you could have 9 separate point entries.
The cherry on top? They don't always process in clear groups like shown above (where the 9x, 1x, and 2x are all together), instead these separate entries can sometimes go through in bulk, putting muliple entries simply labled "points promotion" together, without a clear connection to the specific vendor, and mixing in with your other point sources (credit cards, partner deals etc) making it easy to miss and difficult to attribute. In the below example of Amazon purchases you'll see that the top entry is 39 pts base, this actually pairs up with the last entry of 78 pts, the 2x status bonus for this purchase.
If you're serious about the estore, and I think you should be, feel free to reach out to discuss some strategies to make sure you're getting your points. At the end of the day, your willingness to chase down points should be related to the value they provide you.
Even if you're more the type to sit back and 'trust the process', I would suggest that if you're owed tens of thousands of points (for eg. if you bought a computer from dell/lenovo/hp/apple during a 10x point promo) it's worth your time to make sure that you receive those points specifically.
If you see the appropriate amounts of points, thats great, you can check it off your tracking list, but what about if you dont?
The Wrong Amount of Points
There are three ways you can receive the wrong amount of points.
The first would be if they used the wrong price when calculating the point total. Make sure that the amount you're expecting the points to be based on is the pre tax and pre shipping amount and in the correct currency. If you're confident that they used the wrong base however, I would go ahead and submit a dispute. Going back to my prescription sunglasses from above, it may seem like I received all the points I was due, but the subtotal was actually $285 which should have given me ~2x the total points as what was processed. This sort of error has occurred four times out of my total 41 estore transactions for a total of 4670 missing points out of a total of over 60k points. Or in dollar terms about $87 in rewards out of $1200 - not a huge percentage, but enough for me to submit a dispute.
The second way you can receive the wrong amount is if didn't receive all the separate components of the points. For example, maybe you received the 1x base and 2x status bonus, but are still missing the point promotional bonus. Looking back to the Amazon examples above you'll see this behaviour, and in fact Amazon has been the cause of this issue in all the times it has occurred to me. Currently I have four transactions like this missing a total of 1600 points. I'm not in a rush to dispute these because I am optimistic the missing amounts will still process and the point totals are small.
Finally are circumstances where the wrong point multiplier was applied. I had a single transaction like this where a 3x multiplier was used instead of 5x, the difference was only 100 points as it was a small item. I imagine this is likely most common with Amazon as they have different multipliers for different item categories.
Give it Some Time
You need to make sure you've waited long enough for the points to process before chasing them down. Each vendor has different reported timelines for processing points, and on top of that special promos may have different timelines for the additional points. Outside of promotions, in my experience many of the vendors state that points will be processed in 6-8 weeks. Marriott Bonvoy notably only processes the points after the stay occurs, even if you're charged in advance:
While some will process the points within days, I try not to put any mental effort into it until a meaningful amount of points has not processed by the upper end of the time estimate. Depending on how much you shop and how you define a "meaningful amount of points" this may be a fair number of transactions requiring you to track your purchases (something I certainly recommend), or it could be a couple of transactions you can easily recall.
Out of my 41 estore transactions I have had 4 that did not process in the expected timeframe, I have since been paid for 3 of them after IÂ submited a dispute and actually got overpaid for one as the dispute was approved and original transaction eventually processed (1200 unexpected extra points). The final one is still pending dispute and represents only 600 pts.
Check if its Being Processed on eStore
After some time has passed, you may want to check in on eStore to see if the purchase shows up in your order history or not. To get to your order history go to the eStore website and click through on your profile:
From there you should see a list of all of your transactions.
You can see from my order history that I have received points for a two purchases late July, but still have some pending from further back. The Marriott entry is a bit unique showing just a dash, as I mentioned above, they process the points after the hotel stay is completed.
If it's been a couple of weeks, you've already paid and received your item, but don't see it on eStore, it may be time to dispute. Out of my 41 estore transactions I have 1 worth ~2k points that is not included here and will require a dispute.
Submit a Dispute
If you do not see an entry on the estore order history at all, have received points calculated on the wrong transaction amount, or are missing promotional point amounts, and you have given enough time for the points to process it is now time to dispute. First click on contact us at the bottom of the estore page, then select order inquiry.
The next page asks you to wait 8 weeks before submitting a missing points form and states you have 12 months from the date of transaction to make the claim. Click next on "missing points"
It's worth noting nontrivial contradictions in the instructions that pop up on the next page as it asks you to wait 30 days, and says "done in the last 6 months" under the date selector, instead of 8 weeks and 12 months on the page before.
It is probably wise to time your disputes in the 2-6 month time period to satisfy the contradicting instructions.
Next you'll fill in transaction information including merchant, price, expected point total, order number etc and attach a copy of the invoice. If you used the eStore browser plug in and saved the shopping ID, be sure to include it as well as any additional information you saved at the time of purchase. For the sake of an example I have filled in a dispute for a small amount of missing points from a transaction in mid June:
After you submit you should receive a ticket number for your reference.
I then jot down the ticket number and a date to follow up if I don't hear back.
Conclusion
The eStore is the fastest way to hit 25K aeroplan status without having to fly and is powerful earning approach to give you a steady stream of points. Even if you follow good eStore hygiene
you may end up missing some points. There are several ways your points can come up short: not processing at all, being based on the wrong transaction amount, wrong multipliers, or missing relevant promotional bonuses. If I exclude purchases that are still pending, I have currently received 60.7k of an expected 68.4k points due to these error types with some of the missing points still too early to submit a dispute. How you value your time versus the points will determine when to track your purchases and submit disputes, but for me the ~8k points (worth ~$160) is worth it, and the dispute process thusfar has been easy and effective. Overall I'm very pleased with my massive point haul (worth over $1200 to me) and the 25K Aeroplan status it secured for me (which gave me eupgrade credits I already used to upgrade a flight to business class, worth hundreds if not thousands more). To make it even better, once you hit 25K status you get an extra 2 points a dollar on the eStore!
Looking for help with the eStore? Reach out for a consult
Referral links
With its best in market 5x multiplier Amex Cobalt is a powerful point earner that can get you on flying for free 5 times faster than much of the competition - sign up here.
To see the access the best offers for different Amex card such as the Business Gold, or Platinum click here. Or to compare all the cards I can refer to, check out my card comparison tool.
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You're going to need somewhere to stay after all of these free flights. The Amex Bonvoy or the Business Bonvoy card will earn you free hotel stays and can be combined with the Aeroplan eStore for some incredible double dipped rewards.
If you're on the fence, or wondering about other cards reach out to me for a free consult, and if you sign up for a card through my link, let me know and I will walk you through advanced tricks and personalized advice to help you get the maximum benefit both from earning and redeeming points - getting your travel journey going faster than you ever thought possible.
Check out my Keeper Cards series to see other cards worth exploring
Disclaimer
This should not be taken as financial advice and details are subject to change. I have made good intentioned efforts to be accurate but ultimately consult card terms and conditions
