harris22643

Every year since AC acquired Canadian Airlines in 2001 until now I have been either an Elite or Super Elite member of Aeroplan including the present year except for one year that followed my retirement. During that period in many years I flew well in excess of 100,00 miles.

Now that I am only a Silver Aeroplan member using miles is very disappointing. Let me illustrate with two examples. First, my wife and I planned a trip from YYZ to YWG to visit our grandchildren. One going to the Aeroplan web site show that tickets in Economy are 25,000 point each but one can only go at 6:30 or 22:00. If one calls Aeroplan you can get seats at other times for a premium of 10,000 points each.

I needed to go YYZ to PEK and once again went to the Aeroplan web site and put in that I wanted Executive Class seats. The best alternative seemed to be flying YYZ to YVR and then YVR to PEK going out and returning PEK to NRT (on Air China) and then NRT to YYZ. For this the charge was 150,000 points. I selected this and booked these flights.

After confirming the booking, I realized that despite the fact that I had selected Executive Class on the web page and that the two initial flights starting in Toronto and Beijing were indeed executive class, the long hall flights were economy. While I realize that the error is mine, I don't think I is unreasonable to assume that if one request a certain class of ticket and the first flight in each direction is that class, the second would be the same unless highlighted in each case.

What really annoys me is that if points were given the same value as one pays to purchase such points, $0.03 per point, I could have purchased these tickets at either Latitude fares in the case of the Winnipeg flights or Elite in the case of the Chinese itinerary.

Unless one is Super Elite, the benefits that come with the membership are virtually worthless. It is not how loyal to AC one has been over a long period but "What have you done for me lately?'

Comments?