Originally Posted by
canadiancow
I disagree with everything you've said.
I don't call in and say "I want to fly SFO to YYZ via YVR." I say "I want to fly SFO to YVR on AC 1843, and I want to fly YVR to YYZ on AC 1176." They can infer that I only care about getting from SFO to YYZ, but it's absolutely not what I said, or what I want.
On another matter, "offer early" is pretty awesome. It basically turned my Tango booking into Latitude in terms of flexibility
What you asked for is not really relevant, what is relevant is what you were sold and accepted by paying for it. Rule 245AC of the tariff, which you accept by purchasing a ticket, provides no protection for undeclared stopovers. However if AC refuses to offer a satisfactory alternative routing you may be eligible to refund the entire unused ticket.
Again, I agree that these scenarios can be a legitimate inconvenience to the passenger. What I don't agree is that the inconvenience rises to a level that the airline is legally obliged to compensate. There are caveat emptor features to all modes of transportation, and this is one of them for airline tickets.