Replace groups of dots by a tab

I have a file with a bunch of lines like the following one:

AAE ..........................................Above Aerodrome Elevation

I would like to replace the dots by a single tab.

I tried the following substitutions but it does not work.
%s/\.*/\t/
%s/[\.]*/\t/


vim keep seeing the dot in the s command as a wildcard even though it is escaped.

Is there as way to do it?

Thanks,

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