The Aeroplan program has some incredible values. I mean, North America to much of Europe for 80k in business class... North America to Asia in first class for 120k... the Australia award is a really compelling value. Routing rules are also especially generous, 5% over published maximum permitted mileage for a given city pair OR published routings, so travel via Asia to Australia is frequently doable. Not to mention having 2 stopovers or a stopover and an open jaw on multi-region awards. Plus North America to Asia can be routed via the Atlantic or the Pacific or cross one ocean in each direction. Moreover, while Aeroplan adds fuel surcharges to redemptions on Air Canada, they do not add those to partner award bookings. Changes are relatively generous, Low change fee (CDN$90 is more than the CDN$55 it used to be, but still--- plus you can make changes to dates and flights but not routing even after departure of first flight.) I happen to love that American Express points transfer instantaneously to Aeroplan, I'm not a big Aeroplan member but can drop points in as-needed. The one thing I don't particularly like is the inability to hold awards. (A glitch once kept my Amex transfer from showing up immediately and Aeroplan actually DID hold the award for me!) But recently Aeroplan apparently implemented a new agent interface, some agents were having a hard time with it, and there's also been speculation that Aeroplan would be cracking down on their generous routing rules and the like to reduce their redemption expenses. How have your recent redemption experiences been?
AC awards are 120,000 in J, but a AC-Star award is 100,000 in J.... Booked this week YVR-HKT (Routing YVR-HKG-BKK-HKT) in J 100,000 Star award. Also a HKG-BKK-HKT J 30,000 award. The agent was flipping between the two systems. The new system doesn't appear to be able to accept flight numbers, just a routing with available flights. Worked out in the end, but seems more difficult if I have already done the research and / or combining with a revenue ticket.
Yep, meant to post that. One of the really weird things about the program, eh? That new system I tell ya... look forward to others' experiences with it.
The cheaper *A J awards kind of make sense as they are "mid-class" redemptions whereas AC's own J is "top-class" (ie there is no F). In practice, though, most *A carriers' J is roughly on par with AC's own, so the *A awards are definitely a bargain (and even more so when you consider the lower fuel surcharges).
I had a great redemption over christmas: DFW -LH-> FRA -LH-> AMS (STOP) AMS -LH-> MUC -TG> BKK (STOP) (HORRIBLE LOUNGE IN MUC FOR TG F PAX) BKK-Cambodia seperate paid tickets BKK -TG-> SYD (STOP) SYD-AUK-CHC and back on seperate, paid tickets. SYD -TG-> BKK -TG-> FRA (STOP) FRA-CDG-AMS-CDG-VIE-AMS-FRA on seperate tickets. (award and paid) FRA -LH-> DFW This was all on a F ticket, yet some of the services didn't offer 3 classes. I was allowed 3 stops as a one time exception (I added the 3rd stop after I had begun travel). So in simplier terms, Dallas to Europe to Asia to Australia and back the same way. With stops in Europe (on the way and on the return), and in Bangkok (to visit cambodia). 140k miles
I'm working now on my next redemption, so this thread should prove invaluable! Always looking for new suggestions. I do need a little help fully understanding this MPM thing though. I know that my past ticket couldn't be routed to/from my home airport of DEN because it was over the max miles, so I had to start the award ticket in DFW. Is there a table somewhere of the max mileages?
Give ne your route and I'll tell you the MPM. DEN has some pretty limited MPMs in many cases, especially true in my experience for Africa.
How do you find the MPM though? I'm trying to figure out the under-workings of an award booking via Aeroplan so I can maximize my flight miles per redemption miles. <edit> Also not looking into africa from Aeroplan, I just don't feel that 240K is worth it. Going to look OW or another alliance for my African Travel Plans. At this point i'm thinking of going to Australia/New Zealand category with Aeroplan, 140k redemption. Maybe head out to Samoa with a stop in EU and Asia on the way? </edit>
KVS Tool provides MPMs, I think ExpertFlyer does, too, but both are subscription. I don't know whether there are free tools that do the same, though.
Sweet, I have expert flyer, but didn't know it provided this information. I don't have my login information with me though atm though, so i'll have to wait until I get home to experiment with that. Thanks for the info!
LH F availability seems to get better the closer the flight is. Started off with no availabiltiy which changed to some availability and eventually to lots of availability, all the same once a day flight.
Is it not true that we can delete our own posts at this time? Duplicate posts should be able to be deleted easily by the creator.
It is now. Initially we couldn't edit or delete except for the first 5 minutes, but now there is no time limit, at least during the beta period.
Why don't you compare to others instead of just whaling against AC. I recently booked my wife on a YYZ/LHR J ticket with BA to clear out some miles I have with them. It cost 100,000 miles plus $625 in fees as opposed to 85,000 miles and $481 in fees with Aeroplan. At least do some comparisons instead of just posting negative garbage.
Terry Quinn,if you go to other sites,you will note that whyfly and UA are synonymus. I would expect that trend to continue here as well
Not sure if this counts for this thread, because we are flying Luftanza from Toronto (not AC), but I just booked AP points for my wife to join me on a (paid) business trip to Israel. I post this because I was amazed I could book the exact flights I needed for her on about four weeks notice, and the cost to for the points ticket was only about $130 or so. When we flew to Australia last year on AC using points, we found the amount of points to be a great deal, but it cost us another $1000 or so in extra charges. In all cases, I am referring to business/J class. Cheers,
The *A awards in J or F are definitely the best value on Aeroplan -- better yet if you book a mini-RTW!
