Originally Posted by
rankourabu
If you are putting all your eggs in one basket (whether its Aeroplan or whatever) - you are far likely to get burned as well.
+1 on this. I tried to book a flight for my family YYZ to RTB (knowing full well there wouldn't be a ton of options). The AE site gave me options connecting with UA through IAD, but it required a night at IAD each way (20 hours travel or something stupid). I went on the UA site and found more appropriate flights and checked them on expertflyer to see if they had R space, but the AE rep still couldn't get seats on the ones I wanted. I ended up using my DL points without an issue, it cost maybe 30% more points on DL, but they practically give them away over there anyway, and I saved 2 nights of hotel cost as well.