Re-importing songs whilst saving original song info

When you import a song from a CD that you already have on iTunes, it tells you that you already have the song and asks if you want to replace it. I love the way doing this keeps all the song info; ratings, artwork, comments, even which playlists it is in... whilst still re-writing over the song, which is good for if you want to change the format the song is in e.g. MP3 to AAC.
I am planning on making some copies of some of my dad's albums onto CD-R, with the songs in AIFF format, so that I can then always have a quality master copy to import from if I want to change how I store my music (e.g. MP3 to AAC.) This is because I won't always have access to my dad's CDs in the future.
My question is, is there another way to re-import songs in a different format that still saves all it's info (the playlists it's in, comments etc.)... or is doing it from the CD using the option to replace the old song the only way? Can you do this kind of thing from music stored on a hard drive, for example?
I hope I have explained my question ok, maybe someone who knows alot about iTunes type stuff will know the answer. Thanks everyone!

Thanks everyone.
In response to Mr Blobby, I am aware of the convert to option, but that doesn't keep the song in the playlists it was in before, it creates a whole new song whilst keeping the old one. I'll definately use it in the right circumstances though.
In response to Michael Allbrit; Thanks for the point about AIFF files not supporting ID3 tagging. It wouldn't really matter in the procedure I want to do, as I actually want to retain the info I'll ascribe to songs on songs in a format like AAC, which I'll keep on my computer, then have back-ups in AIFF on CD (which is good option as if I want to re-import the songs in a different format, I can replace the AACs, whilst still keeping all the info for them.) I may never even re-import them, I just want that option to kind of future-proof my music, especially as I'm 22 now, so I'm expecting that at some point there'll be a better way of storing it.
In response to peeble; thanks for your point. I won't be converting up to AIFF from something like an MP3, only from the original CD version. Good point though and would have been helpful had I not known.
If anyone out there does know the answer to my original question, I'd still like to know. Thanks.

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<dict>
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</dict>
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regards!

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Re-importing songs whilst saving original song info

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