24left

I'd be interested to hear what any of you think about this and also, whether this will be good or bad for AC FFs.
Based on the timing of *A's planned launch, it means Aeroplan is the partner, for now.


Star Alliance Is Working On A Shared Award Flight System

MAY 24, 2017

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...flight-system/


Mods - wasn't sure where to post this. Feel free to move post

james dean

I would say it's a good thing if your Royal Family with one carrier in the *A and a no-body in another, if they have uniform status throughout the *A, I'm thinking that's a good thing..

rankourabu

I predict a thread: Aeroplan announced they are having technical difficulties implementing the new system, and for now, only Air Canada will be available, but they are working on fixing it as soon as possible, sorry for the incovenience.

eigenvector

Why would Aeroplan invest any money in implementing a new system when they will no longer be a Star Alliance program as of 2019?

The smallest state

That's a great point. They also might be finding out about it here, on this forum.

Maybe AC heard about this first and just never bothered to tell them.

Bartolo

Bound to be good and bad. Being able to access award space on partners easily would be great. Thinking about those SQ suites, for example . Guessing that more airlines will levy additional charges the way several already do. Clearly bad.

djjaguar64

This does not mean that airlines cannot restrict access to their premium products. All it will allow is for you to put in your origin, destination, dates and class of service and whats available will be displayed. Thats it.

canadiancow

Yeah I think a lot of people are leaping to crazy conclusions about what this would be.

Best case scenario, I suspect it would be the booking "hub" for the airlines. They all make space (that they want to - no extra SQ/LX F) available through the central hub, and they make all bookings through the hub.

Right now, Aeroplan needs to talk to dozens of airlines to query space. This leads to bugs. If Aeroplan only had one partner to talk to, it would be all or nothing.

No change to availability, routing rules, or cost. Just a way to simplify the implementation for the airlines.

eigenvector

Such a system sounds like it would reduce cost and IT complexity in the long term. But in the short-term, if you won't be booking *A partner space past 2019, migrating to a new system would cost money you won't recover later in opex reductions.

canadiancow

Oh I am not suggesting Aeroplan can, should, or will do this.

But AC would have a very good reason to, if they're going to be building a system from scratch.

daniellam

My guess:

Perhaps all frequent flyer redemption tickets must be booked directly using Amadeus (seems like the preferred system for most *A airlines)?

Aeroplan (until 2020) agents will be required to use Amadeus (as opposed to AC's reservation system) to book all redemption flights on AC and *A partners. Tickets will also be issued using Amadeus but plated on 014 ticket stock. Just like how a travel agency that uses Amadeus issues tickets.

For reservations involving AC segments, those would be booked under Amadeus as well (with AC's system returning the AC record locator to the Amadeus PNR which can then be retrieved using checkmytrip.com for those who are savvy enough).

If a pax calls AC regarding a mixed booking containing AC and *A flights, the AC agent would only be able to see the AC segments and the *A flights (shown as "INFO SEGMENTS") immediately preceding and after the AC segments. The pax will be asked to call Aeroplan for any further changes.

After 2020, Aeroplan will keep using the Amadeus system. However, all the other *A carriers will pull access to their redemption inventory to Aeroplan's Office ID. Only AC flights (and perhaps other airlines cash inventory typically available to Amadeus "travel agencies") can be booked after that point. Tickets must be issued as "market" awards for other airline bookings (similar to RBC rewards, Amex MR etc.).

Air Canada will have a separate call center for redemption tickets under their new program that also uses Amadeus. However, the Amadeus Office ID for the new call center will have access to *A redemption inventory.

tcook052

The FT Star Alliance forum would've been a better venue however given the number of posts will leave it in the AC forum as long as the discussion focuses on AC and/or AP and not broader alliance matters.

tcook052
AC forum Mod.

yscleo

This will be an excellent system.

There are flights that you can book with UA points without scamcharges, but from aeropeso there is scamcharges. Wonder if this new booking hub will make it uniform to have no scamcharges. If UA (and others) can do it, so can other carriers.

daniellam

My guess is that you have to first login using the frequent flyer account for the program that you want to redeem miles for first (through that program's website [eg. Aeroplan]).

You will then be redirected to another site (common *A redemption tool) to build your itinerary and choose your flights.

Once you build your itinerary, the "price" (and taxes) of your itinerary will be calculated based on the rules of the frequent flyer program that you logged in with.

For most people, this process will be transparent as the booking site might even display the logo of your frequent flyer program after you are redirected there.

eigenvector

I don't see anything here to indicate that individual programs won't continue to set their own redemption levels, routing rules and fees.