Emirates Award Bookings Now Available via Aeroplan

[kangarooflyer88]

Breaking news: Air Canada's Aeroplan award program now lets customers book award flights with Emirates using the existing award chart. What's significant about this development is that it now gives us yet another option for booking flights to Europe and beyond on arguably one of the best carriers out there. In addition, unlike Qantas, Air Canada does not impose a carrier surcharge on Emirates flights meaning a potentially huge savings for long haul flights.



Further details on this development can be found here:

New: Book Emirates Flights with Air Canada Aeroplan (Great Deal!)

You can now book many Emirates flights using Air Canada Aeroplan ... and at least for now, it's easily the best way to book Emirates business class.

thriftytraveler.com

-RooFlyer88

 

[levelnine]

This is very big news. It is going to massively increase the value of Aeroplan for Australians given EK's huge presence here if EK start releasing premium cabin availability again to/from Australia.

I thought I'd never fly EK J/F again after their huge increase in taxes and fees on points redemptions, but now that will not be the case.

 

[luxury-lizard]

Wow - amazing - did a couple of "what if" searches for Oct 31 (ie far out on the booking calendar) and easily saw up to 3 seats on SYD-DXB-FRA for 110K and SYD-DXB-ORD for 115K.

 

[levelnine]

Wow - amazing - did a couple of "what if" searches for Oct 31 (ie far out on the booking calendar) and easily saw up to 3 seats on SYD-DXB-FRA for 110K and SYD-DXB-ORD for 115K.

The big win is not the points, but the taxes!

$AUD150 vs $AUD1815!!!!!!!!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Wow - amazing - did a couple of "what if" searches for Oct 31 (ie far out on the booking calendar) and easily saw up to 3 seats on SYD-DXB-FRA for 110K and SYD-DXB-ORD for 115K.

Remember too that you can book stopovers too meaning you can get a transit in Europe (going AU to North America) for just 5,000 points, too! The real tragedy, though, is EK F awards remain unavailable for booking via Aeroplan which likely will only cost marginally more than partner J. Not a huge deal, since I reckon many would be willing to "take the hit" and fly EK J, particularly given the lack of carrier surcharge.

-RooFlyer

 

[djtech]

Now is the time to get in on it before they start implementing the new award chart which takes away quite a bit of value. First class redemptions when they come in will be quite expensive points wise!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Now is the time to get in on it before they start implementing the new award chart which takes away quite a bit of value. First class redemptions when they come in will be quite expensive points wise!

new award chart? Aeroplane’s new chart is already out. (edited, see discussion below!)

 

[djtech]

new award chart? Aeroplane’s new chart is already out.

I mean when they start using the Emirates specific chart as mentioned in OP's linked article. Right now you can redeem at the standardised Aeroplan chart, but next year they will have a special distance based chart for Emirates redemptions specifically which is significantly more expensive and less lucrative than the standard chart.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I mean when they start using the Emirates specific chart as mentioned in OP's linked article. Right now you can redeem at the standardised Aeroplan chart, but next year they will have a special distance based chart for Emirates redemptions specifically which is significantly more expensive and less lucrative than the standard chart.

My apologies! Didn’t read the thread.

Yeah.. could have have significant downsides.

 

[levelnine]

I mean when they start using the Emirates specific chart as mentioned in OP's linked article. Right now you can redeem at the standardised Aeroplan chart, but next year they will have a special distance based chart for Emirates redemptions specifically which is significantly more expensive and less lucrative than the standard chart.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see how badly this affects the value proposition for Australian flights. East Coast Australia - UK is ~10-11K miles, so a fairly big range of points outcomes, from 120K (amazing) to 225K (meh).

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Just thought I'd point out that we're now seeing Australia to North America flights in J on EK being available:


I would make the argument that 115K points to fly such distances and with there being virtually no taxes & fees for such a booking represents incredible value for points!

-RooFlyer88

 

[luxury-lizard]

Yes - I just saw for March 15 - SYD-BNE(VA)-SIN (SQ)-CMB(SQ)-MLE(EY) all in J for 80K - the BNE-SIN leg is WL on the KF - go figure !!

 

[Ecco]

I still find aeroplan awards quite expensive. Does anyone else find that? I find that alaska sweet spot of NZ -US for 55k the best deal out there, also at times United has good deals on awards. Paying 100k+ points for long haul sounds expensive. I figured aeroplan only really stacks up for me when there is a really good points promotion.
I searched up akl-syd but couldn’t find any emirates awards there. I’d be interested in trying F on that 5th freedom flight.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I still find aeroplan awards quite expensive. Does anyone else find that? I find that alaska sweet spot of NZ -US for 55k the best deal out there, also at times United has good deals on awards. Paying 100k+ points for long haul sounds expensive. I figured aeroplan only really stacks up for me when there is a really good points promotion.

This has not been my experience at all. If you can find partner award availability you can fly SYD to LAX for 75,000 points in J or 87,500 points to route most places in North America taking a direct routing. The aforementioned 115,000 is a routing over Europe which can be advantageous in the sense that you can stopover in Europe for 5000 points more. Neither United nor Alaska offers such generous routing flexibility which can often mean the difference between finding a partner award and not finding a partner award.

I searched up akl-syd but couldn’t find any emirates awards there. I’d be interested in trying F on that 5th freedom flight.

My understanding is EK doesn't operate fifth freedom from SYD to AKL anymore. They do however have a fifth freedom between SYD and CHC, which Aeroplan is showing award availability for the 30th:


The big boon about Emirates though is right now you aren't paying any carrier surcharges which can be quite considerable, especially on long haul flights. In terms of First class redemptions, those aren't presently available as all EK bookings are being made under the partner award chart (which requires considerably less points than the EK specific award chart to be released in the coming weeks).

-RooFlyer88

 

[Ecco]

Thanks Rooflyer for that useful info. I need to get my head round using aeroplan properly…!
I ended up getting Akl-lax-jfk on Fiji airways in J and then jfk-hel-vie on Finnair, all via AS for 125k so nearly as good as AC. However I must do some homework on AC over the xmas break. I guess that’s not as good as AC because it’s not getting me back to the US with stopover in EUR.

 

[levelnine]

all via AS for 125k

The problem is it is very hard to rack up lots of AS points cheaply. AC points are much easier to acquire by comparison.

 

[Kremmen]

The problem is it is very hard to rack up lots of AS points cheaply. AC points are much easier to acquire by comparison.

The easy way to rack up AS points is to credit QF flights to AS. (I don't remember which decade I last credited a QF flight to QFF. Might have been this century, might not.)

Yes, if you are buying points, AC is cheaper than AS.

 

[levelnine]

The easy way to rack up AS points is to credit QF flights to AS. (I don't remember which decade I last credited a QF flight to QFF. Might have been this century, might not.)

Fair enough. I still credit to QF as I get some decent benefits out of Platinum status. If you don't care about release of reward seats on Qantas flights, that is a viable strategy. Though you'd have to be flying a lot to rack up enough AS points to fly Aus/NZ-US in J regularly.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

The easy way to rack up AS points is to credit QF flights to AS. (I don't remember which decade I last credited a QF flight to QFF. Might have been this century, might not.)

The issue with that approach is of course earning OneWorld status. I'm not sure how status works with Alaskan, but if it's anything like QF you'd need to travel so many revenue segments with them in a year. Also you would lose out on QF specific benefits like early access to awards and the ability to use US OneWorld lounges whilst travelling domestically in the US.

-RooFlyer88

 

[Kremmen]

The issue with that approach is of course earning OneWorld status. I'm not sure how status works with Alaskan, but if it's anything like QF you'd need to travel so many revenue segments with them in a year. Also you would lose out on QF specific benefits like early access to awards and the ability to use US OneWorld lounges whilst travelling domestically in the US.

-RooFlyer88

My last AS award was ORD-SEA-LAX-NAN-MEL in business class for 55k miles with a stopover in SEA and I indeed missed out on lounge access in ORD. (but not SEA, of course) You can spend 182.2k QF pts (43.8k+138.4k) for the same route, but 127k pts for access to a domestic US lounge is a bit steep.