Aeroplan (Air Canada) is now selling points

[kangarooflyer88]

Nice redemption Mel.

How do the stopovers for 5000 work?
Can I do a stopover in the same country? EG: ADL-PER(7 day stop)-BKK-KIX ?

You can stopover in any country except North America (full details here). The stopover has to be en-route to your final destination so you can't do something whacky like SYD to NRT (stop), FRA to JFK:

Flight Reward itineraries built in a circuitous manner may be permitted so long as the coughulative flown distance between the origin and destination does not exceed twice the non-stop distance for a given direction of travel. Within a single direction of travel, backtracking via the same connecting airport, city or country is not permitted.

In general, it is recommended to avoid having any segments flown by Air Canada since:

Flight Reward itineraries with a direction of travel wholly operated by Air Canada, or operated by Air Canada and Aeroplan partner airlines, may be subject to the routing rules of the equivalent retail fare.

In terms of booking the stop over. In theory you might be able to build it out on the Air Canada website, choosing a multi city itinerary and basically having your stopover be the destination for flight one and the origin for flight 2. However, in practice the website is buggy and would likely price out the whole thing incorrectly. Hence, it is recommended that you make the booking over the phone for free (since that is the only way such complex bookings can be made anyway).

Let me know if there are any other questions.

Cheers,

RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The website now has a stopover function, which prices as part of the through fare, plus 5000 points. You select origin and destination, then the stopover city, and number of days for the stopover.

Using multi-city will price as two separate awards.

However, not all combinations available as multi-city are reflected once you choose the stopover option. So there may be a need to contact the call centre anyway if the flights you want aren’t coming up.

 

[PatMcrotch]

Thanks for the info guys, much appreciated.

I might have to pick up some points next time they have a 100% bonus sale .

 

[PatMcrotch]

Aeroplan have another 85% sale on now until Oct 9 so I picked some up Today

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Aeroplan have another 85% sale on now until Oct 9 so I picked some up Today

Hopefully you find some good value with the points purchased, I know I have!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m gonna hold out for 100%… hopefully in the next couple of months.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I’m gonna hold out for 100%… hopefully in the next couple of months.

That remains to be seen. Frankly I wouldn't bother transferring points or buying frequent flyer points with any program unless and until I can see an award I want to purchase. For the last promo AC ran, I could see that I could book a round the world ticket in J for 220,000 points on Aeroplan on the dates I wanted to travel so I pulled the trigger! YMMV

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

That remains to be seen. Frankly I wouldn't bother transferring points or buying frequent flyer points with any program unless and until I can see an award I want to purchase. For the last promo AC ran, I could see that I could book a round the world ticket in J for 220,000 points on Aeroplan on the dates I wanted to travel so I pulled the trigger! YMMV

-RooFlyer88

Aeroplan is one of the ones I buy speculatively. Availability is consistently good for just about any route. The 100% bonus seems to pop up every third or so round. Fingers crossed.

 

[RealtimeY]

I have been looking for flights for next year for SE Asia. I can't find much in Bus class and nothing in First class. Most of them have been only in Econ and with 2 couple of connections. I used the AC and United website to search. I looked early in the year and a few different months and couldn't see much.

Is it too late to get seats for the first 6 months of next year? I thought from doing my research that they had heaps of seats available or is it like some other FF seats and you need to book more than 300 or 350 days in advance?

I'm also struggling to find anything in business and first, and the UA calendar brings up a lot of options that don't appear on AC. Does anyone have advice on what period might have more availability?

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I'm also struggling to find anything in business and first, and the UA calendar brings up a lot of options that don't appear on AC. Does anyone have advice on what period might have more availability?

Let me guess you're finding tons of availability on EVA Air with United but not on Aeroplan, correct? I've noticed that too myself, and have had to call it in to Aeroplan to make the booking (for some reason there is a glitch on Aeroplan where it won't show connecting EVA flights even if there is availability for each sector).

-RooFlyer88

 

[Duffa]

Just checking out the maths on this for the first time.
Buying 110,000 points for CD$2,100 + CD$134 taxes on a oneway J flight to Europe with Etihad works out at AUD$5,060 for the round trip. Not much of a saving when I just paid $5,300 cash for same trip with Oman Air and Malaysian (a trip I have done before and which was excellent)
I just feel more secure as a fare paying passenger.....
Have I got my sums wrong????

At 100% bonus points it comes in a bit cheaper but not enough to go through the worry of not finding flights.

 

[luxury-lizard]

@Duffa - totally agree - I like AC/Aeroplan and have bought points when 100% on offer. But some routes are better 'value' - e.g. SYD-AUH-SEZ on EY (for 100,000) or PER-MRU on Air Mauritius for 60,000.

If I can get SYD-Europe for $5300 return - then I also would not use points (from any airline program where I bought points)

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Just checking out the maths on this for the first time.
Buying 110,000 points for CD$2,100 + CD$134 taxes on a oneway J flight to Europe with Etihad works out at AUD$5,060 for the round trip. Not much of a saving when I just paid $5,300 cash for same trip with Oman Air and Malaysian (a trip I have done before and which was excellent)
I just feel more secure as a fare paying passenger.....
Have I got my sums wrong????

At 100% bonus points it comes in a bit cheaper but not enough to go through the worry of not finding flights.

At the current offer you can purchase 222,000 miles for $4,200 CAD (which includes the 85% bonus). and book Australia to Europe in J roundtrip. With taxes and fees on the booking you are likely looking around $4,600 CAD all in which works out to $5,200 AUD. You are quite right in saying that yes from time to time you can find business saver fares to Europe for around that price. And on top of that you'd earn frequent flyer miles and status credits to boot.

So you're probably asking yourself why even bother with this? A couple reasons come to mind. First, what Aeroplan gives you is flexibility, generally speaking you can find business awards to your destination Europe in Europe connecting through AUH with Etihad. With the business saver sales sometimes the dates or routing or destination may not work out. The second part, and I think the most undervalued part of the program is the ability to add stop overs. For instance, I booked Sydney to Toronto, Canada with a stop over in Zurich, Switzerland for 110,000 miles (105,000 miles from the partner award chart for Pacific to North America itineraries (at least at that time) + 5,000 points to add the European stopover). I would challenge you to find a J ticket from Sydney to Toronto (with a Zurich stopover) for that price! The third part why you might want to use points instead of cash is you get better quality carriers. Flying Swiss or Singapore over Oman or Malaysian is reason enough for many. Lastly for ultra premium tickets in F, the value can be absolutely incredible, especially with carriers like Singapore or Etihad.

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Except long haul F isn’t available on SQ though Aeroplan… the best you might be able to do it BOM or DEL when the a380 is slated as a regional service? For the likes of Etihad or Oman Air F it’s a tiny incremental cost for great value.

The return fares to Europe are better value when the CAD is closer to the AUD, and you can take advantage of a 100% bonus… this brings the cost of a return business down to around the AUD4600 mark, add another $350 for stopovers each way.

I would rate Oman Air business above SQ business at the moment!!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Except long haul F isn’t available on SQ though Aeroplan…

Forgot about that one! So I guess in that case Etihad, Swiss or Lufthansa S depending on the connecting cities involved. And yes, Swiss sometimes accidentally releases F saver awards, not that I'd ever complain about that one!

the best you might be able to do it BOM or DEL when the a380 is slated as a regional service?

I wouldn't consider flying J on AI or to India to be a great "value". Don't get me wrong, wonderful place to visit but the airports leave a lot to be desired.

For the likes of Etihad or Oman Air F it’s a tiny incremental cost for great value.

Indeed and certainly compared to the cash difference between F and J which can be many thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars difference a huge deal. Also for Lufthansa F you get your own private terminal so you don't have to mingle with the plebs at Frankfurt!

The return fares to Europe are better value when the CAD is closer to the AUD, and you can take advantage of a 100% bonus… this brings the cost of a return business down to around the AUD4600 mark, add another $350 for stopovers each way.

The real key here is how you build out your itinerary. Sure if you are doing something simple like AU to Europe return, the value may very well not be there. But if you can turn it into a multi-continent trip you can easily make the couple thousand dollar investment pay off! For instance, you can fly from Australia to Europe then onwards to North America for 120,000 miles + whatever taxes and fees one-way.

I would rate Oman Air business above SQ business at the moment!!

To each their own, I suppose. Although I'd be curious how dry Oman is when it comes to beverage service if you get my drift?

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

To each their own, I suppose. Although I'd be curious how dry Oman is when it comes to beverage service if you get my drift?

-RooFlyer88

Oman air isn’t dry. New 787s with apex suites standard in business class. A330s also apex, but if any haven’t been converted over yet, they use the old first class suites in a 1-2-1 full-forward arrangement. Catering and presentation was above SQ pre-covid. If those standards are maintained they would be way above the current SQ offering, which has dipped.

Oman’s new lounge at MCT is better than SQ’s in SIN.

 

[Duffa]

To each their own, I suppose. Although I'd be curious how dry Oman is when it comes to beverage service if you get my drift?

Been there. Definitely not dry.
Great wines, actually

 

[Duffa]

I would rate Oman Air business above SQ business at the moment!!

No-one can beat the SQ staff but the Oman food and beverage was better IMHO. It was sort of in between business and first.

 

[Ecco]

This is wonderful. Thanks so much for taking the time to spell all of this out

Thanks for this post. It must be the most helpful post I've ever read since doing points hacking. Just wondering how far in advance did you have to line this all up? I might try and just emulate what you did. However couldn't see any J awards on EY out of Melbourne at the moment. There's quite a bit from Abu Dhabi to Europe. I'm based in New Zealand. I'm looking around April/may next year. I've already got the flights via AS through US. So I'm looking more for the homeward journey from EUR back to NZ in mid to late June.

 

[Ecco]

Just thought I'd share that I took part in the recent points sale and bought myself 160,000 miles for $2800 CAD. I then transferred over 60,000 miles from AmEx to Aeroplan to build out the following itinerary:

1. Sydney to Zurich:
   • VA 832 - SYD > MEL
   • EY 463 - MEL > AUH
   • EY 73 - AUH > ZRH
2. Zurich to Toronto:
   • TP 929: ZRH > LIS
   • TP 257: LIS > YYZ
3. Los Angeles to Seoul:
   • BR5: LAX > TPE
   • BR150: TPE > ICN
4. Seoul to Sydney:
   • OZ 601: ICN > SYD

All of this travel is occurring in business class, and I'm purchasing a couple of tickets here and there to complete the trip (i.e. KL from ZRH <> HAM and DL (WS): YYZ > LAX). Overall, I think this is decent value given I got the routing I wanted and more or less pieced together a round the world itinerary for peanuts:

View attachment 286687

Some notes for those curious on making such a booking:

• Find partner availability when possible, it's often the cheapest when it comes to points required. In addition, I would go so far as to say the partners provide a better quality service than AC. Certainly I would choose NZ J over AC any day of the week to come back to SYD, despite having to connect in AKL. And given NZ has release some sporadic J award availability to partners it's not a bad idea to book with them.
• How did I book this for 220,000 miles? Per the Aeroplan Terms & Conditions, you can request one stopover on a one-way and 2 stopovers on a return award ticket with each stop over costing 5,000 miles extra and the total cost being based on mileage flown. Since SYD > YYZ is between Asia-Pacific and North America zones, we would use the highest band in the Aeroplan award chart (i.e. travel above 11,000 miles) which is 105,000 miles for Partner J.
• Stopovers can only be requested over the phone. Do not follow what other bloggers may tell you and book online then call in to add the segments as you'll be assessed a change penalty which sadly I was assessed. Have the flights you want to book ready and indicate to the agent that you are looking to flying from X to Z with a stopover in Y. For instance, "I'm looking to fly from Sydney to Toronto with a stopover in Zurich".
• If an agent tries to book it as a multi-city just say no and insist that it can be booked as a stopover for 5,000 miles extra. If they don't believe you hang up and call again (HUCA). Eventually you will be greeted to an agent who knows what they are doing
• The Aeroplan booking engine agents are using seems to be a black box, with certain routings not being allowed. For instance, I originally wanted to fly Swiss from Zurich to Chicago then connect onto a United flight but their computer said that routing wasn't permitted. Fortunately I had a backup with Tap J and that worked
• Further details on the rules and permissible routings with the Aeroplan program can be found in this AC document.
• In terms of finding partner availability your best bet is to use United Airline's award search tool which will show you partner J availability a month at a time.

Hope someone finds marginal value from this article!

-RooFlyer88

Thanks for this post. It must be the most helpful post I've ever read since doing points hacking. Just wondering how far in advance did you have to line this all up? I might try and just emulate what you did. However couldn't see any J awards on EY out of Melbourne at the moment. There's quite a bit from Abu Dhabi to Europe. I'm based in New Zealand. I'm leaving nz around April/may next year. I've already got the flights via AS through US. So I'm looking more for the homeward journey from EUR back to NZ in mid to late June.