I hope some of the experts out there can offer advice or at least reasurance that we will be able to eventually do what we intended. My husband and I each have about 250,000 points in our respective accounts after the tranfer from Cdn..we gen'l fly only for pleasure, altho we do get rather significant points from credit card usage..for the past few years we havent used many points from AC/Canadian..a number of years ago we did use points on Cdn to travel to Australia and for a few trips to Hawaii(always in Biz class)...in the past we never had any difficulties getting what we wanted because for these trips we are always able to book on the first day that availabiltiy came into the system...ie about 11 months in advance(we were always booking with Cdn )...the other day I called AC to book Vegas from Toronto using our points (and after a 1 hour and 5 min wait on hold.....sheesh)I spoke to a very nice agent who I happened to discuss our future plans with which are....this coming April I had intended to book for the following year to Austalia ...we had intended to go for about 4 weeks out of which we had planned to stop in Hnl in both directions(which I had previously confirmed as being acceptable on AC awards to Australia)...on the way down just for a day or 2 and for about a week on the way back...the total trip would be as I said about a month...we had planned on using a biz class award for this and this was the main reason we had been banking our points for so long...she basically told me that it was very unlikely that we would be able to do this, that AC had been offering NO inventory for Hnl flights out of YYZ and that our plans (which we've been making for about 3 years now) were pretty much up in smoke regardless of how far in advance we were booking...I was so disappointed ...Is this correct?? Any suggestions?? I have lots of time since we're not talking about booking until April of next year for the following year??

You might want to consider booking an award on UA. They fly YYZ-SYD via LAX.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, and our Air Canada world.

That sounds like a very unlikely situation. I cannot believe that there would be no award seats set aside between YYZ and HNL, even in Executive Class. I quote from AC's Air Canada's Customer Service Plan, posted on the website earlier this year. [There is no direct link from the home page, but go to Press Releases and you will find a link to the complete document.]

"For frequent flyers: a guaranteed number of seats Air Canada will make available a minimum of 10 percent of the airline's seats per month on each route for reward travel.

" If you are an Aeroplan� member, you accumulate miles with the full expectation of being able to redeem those miles for future travel. To ensure that this basic expectation of our Aeroplan members is respected, Air Canada makes a substantial and measurable number of its seats available for reward travel.

"Despite the commitment to a set number of seats, it is always advisable for Aeroplan members to book their reward travel early and have a certain flexibility regarding travel dates."

And particularly with the introduction of the new YYZ-HNL-MEL service, there will be even more capacity to Australia early next year, so there must be more award seats. This is a very attractive route for awards, granted. And seats will be hard to get. But even if there is a limit on "local traffic" for awards between Canada and Hawaii, there can be an override for those wishing to travel directly to SYD or MEL.

Alternatively, have you considered using Air New Zealand or United? Both STAR carriers can be an alternative, flying down to LAX and catching one of their services into SYD or MEL. Or at least into AKL, then using additional miles to get into SYD on Ansett. But you should be able to do the trip, one way or another.

I very much doubt the voracity of that agent's statement. True, as a non-status Aeroplan member, you may be down the pecking order. But you sound flexible in your dates. I would call back -- I realize the wait time, but... -- or better still, if you are a lawyer [as your Username suggests], then why not drop the AC VP who wrote this policy a line with the quote you were given from the agent you spoke with. As a lawyer, you can certainly find a reason why they have published a misleading statement, and suggest you might take further action if this indeed is the case! But say it in less blunt terms: you know, honey rather than hammer.

Or click on Customer Service Plan.

Welcome to FT legalbee. Certainly it is >not< the case that award seats aren't available on the YYZ-NNL-Oz routes. It seems that you reached the wrong agent (even after your long wait). Last year, not only was I able to book an award flight for my daughter, but they even opened up inventory for one segment that wasn't available.

I'd suggest that you take Shareholder and FlyerAl's advice and check out the other *A partners. That will give you a number of alternatives. You should also check AC's virtual rewards site to see what might be available. I checked two random dates next April, and although there was no W (Biz) availability on the YYZ-HNL segments, there was W (Hospitality). If you try other dates, you might find what you want. It's quicker than sitting on hold.

Our youngest daughter flew to Aus on my bonus points last May to study at the University of Southern Australia. Admmittedly she went economy but on a point sale, just 55,000 points.

You know, I think you have grounds to file a lawsuit. AC is advertising through their loyalty program that you can earn a free trip to Hawaii. If they're not offering basic members a single reward seat, then that's false advertising. AAdvantage members in the United States were successful in winning class action lawsuits when AA raised award levels and reduced award inventory several years ago.

Wbeeelcome legalbee.

My sister did a similar trip this past spring after trying unsucccessfully the past year. What she had to do was call the maximum number of days in advance aeroplan allows. Even then at 365 in advance, calling first thing in morning, she could only get filled initially in Y class. She was told that most of the seats were already gone to S.E.'s, and AC executives. Her husband was elite at that time.

There was something I read this past spring, don't recall where about Hawaii being gone for this summer as far as rewardswent, although they would open up revenue's for E's and S.E.'s.

Would suggest that Flyer Al's ideas re UA might be an option.

Furthermore if you listen to this board often, the members will have you doing mileage runs and earning status, getting rewards won't then be a problem.

Thanks for all the quick replies....hehe guess my name is a giveaway but only one problem ...I'm a criminal defense lawyer not litigation(darn and that could come in handy here ...seriously though we had considered the other carriers but we were told to do hnl as a stop it had to be on AC (another agent had told us that before)?...we wont ever take enough trips to get status though I gotta tell you ...having read some of the mileage run reports it does sound like fun

Yeah, YYZ-HNL-SYD would make a great mileage run!

andrew

I wouldn't be surprised at what the agent said. While they doubtless offered at least
SOME award seats on these routes, there can't be very many. I started checking for availability on the YVR-OGG direct flights for nxt Feb way back in March of this year, and the agent who I had on the phone ( who was very helpful, I might add) checked award availability for that flightb right from Dec. 2001 to April 2002, and there was NOTHING available. I asked her if she could tell if the award seats had been opened up yet, and she said she could't tell from her terminal what classes were sold, only what was available! I was trying to find just W class, not C. I am a basic member. Is it possible ALL the award seats were snapped up on day 365 out?? I find that hard to believe!

Legalbee,

I can confirm first-hand that award seats on the YYZ-HNL-SYD route are hard to come by. I spent many a phone call trying to plan an itinerary for this trip a couple of months back, and finally succeeded in finding a trip from Aug. 18th to Sept. 8th in J class... which I recently had to cancel for business reasons. :-(

When I tried to rebook the award for later this fall, I was informed that nearly all business class award seats have already been booked, and that only a few economy class award seats are left. I don't think it's that AC isn't offering the reward seats - it's just that others have already snapped them up.

My only suggestion to gain access to business class award seats to Oz would be to make (close) friends with an SE member, who can free up (paid) business class inventory for award tickets. Otherwise, you may just have to be extremely persistent (and flexible!) in your hunt for reward tickets.

Good luck!

-Zombie-

I just flew yyz-hnl-syd on a revenue J ticket, and there were 6 empty seats yyz-hnl, and 8 empty seats hnl-syd. I have to assume sone of these were no-show revs, but it couldn't be all of them. I have to do this route SEVERAL more times before the end of year, it'll be interesting to see what the loads are...

If you're not too hung up about going to SYD via HNL, try NZ. Very late last year (late Dec. 2000), I tried to get an AC BC award ticket YVR-HNL for April-May 2001 travel. Very few dates were available (only one depature in the 2nd half of April, and only one return in the latter half of May) which were no good. I called Aeroplan back and asked them about NZ flights (Aeroplan staff don't exactly tell you there are *A partner alternatiaves available). Got exactly the dates I wanted. Never even had to check UA.

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 08-20-2001).]