You are not comparing apples to apples. Business class is triple of of economy for long-haul flight, not short-haul flights with Avios. Even after the devaluation, New York-Madrid on Iberia Business class is still only 34,000 miles each way for a return trip of 68,000 miles in transatlantic Business Class without any fuel surcharge. Compared to Aeroplan, which will be asking 110,000 miles + another $900 worth of fuel surcharges, Avios still comes out on top.





Also, BA gives up to 300% miles when flying F + another 100% bonus for BA Gold elite members. How many miles can you earn while flying Air Canada on F fares with LH/NH/OZ? Only 150%. Even UA gives more miles for flying based on ticket price paid so for Aeroplan to benchmark itself against United Mileage Plus in terms of redemption but ignoring the much lower earning potential vs. United is a major miscalculation on the part of Air Canada and Aeroplan. Logically, if you are one of the few corporate travellers who can fly paid Business / First Class fares, there is an incentive for you to direct your business to UA since you can book most of AC flights out of Canada using UA code anyway and have UA being the ticket issuer. Considering that UA Mileage Plus doesn't charge fuel surcharge, the decision to stay with Aeroplan vs. UA Mileage Plus if you fly paid Business / First Class fare becomes plainly obvious. This will further push Aeroplan away from being a frequent flyer program into a frequent credit card churning program since earning Aeroplan miles via flying is no where nearly as effective as credit card churning. Over time, the retailers like TD and Esso will notice a drop in customer volume due to these devaluations, forcing them to sweeten the deal, hence we are seeing TD up the ante with the Infinite Privilege card giving a 50K bonus until end of October. The vicious cycle continues but even among sheep, there will likely be a ceiling when and where even the sheep will jump the fence.

Well, no. You are assuming every mile is born equal. They are not. The reason why Asia Miles' pricing is generally above average vs. other partners such as AA, AS or JL is because Asia Miles is too, a frequent shopper program. It is extremely easy to earn Asia Miles, sometimes easily more than 5 miles / $ spent on pretty much everything you spent. Asia Miles also have far more credit card partners worldwide than Aeroplan. They have issuers in Canada, USA, Japan, all over South East Asia and of course, Hong Kong. From a redemption standpoint, the cost of Asia Miles award are not cheap but once you factor in how easy it is to earn Asia Miles via shopping or credit card spending, you almost have to divided their redemption cost by a factor between 1.5 and 3 to get to a comparable cost vs. most North American based FFP. In other words, if you have to spend $100K on your CC to get a return trip in Transatlantic Business Class with Aeroplan whereas the same trip will only require you to spend, say $30K on your CC to get a comparable trip on Asia Miles, which one is cheaper? The opportunity cost is more accurately measured based on how much spending you need to make on your CC vs. the number of miles required since we all know CC spending is the easiest way to earn lots of miles whether it's Aeroplan, Asia Miles, Alaska Mileage Plan or BA/IB Avios.

I wouldn't worry about those last minute equipment change for a few reasons:

1) So long as the segments ex-Japan or ex-China are protected in F, they are the ones that really matter. The shorter hops are less of a concern.

2) CX/KA will pay you a cash compensation (or miles) if they switch equipment on you, even when on award. How much you can get depends on your negotiation power and skill. Speaking for myself, they paid me the fare difference between F and J + $50 USD, after some smooth talking on my part of course. Once you establish a precedent and you know who to talk to, this is no longer a concern. I rather like collecting those fare differences vs. a short hop of little difference in J vs. F, as long as my segments to HND/KIX are protected in actual F, which they always are.

3) You still have F lounge access if they equipment swap on you, they will simply write you a F lounge invitation if necessary and CX F lounges in HKG. If you are OWE, then this is irrelevant.

You are benchmarking against the wrong program even from the perspective of a Canadian flyer. When using Avios, you should always transfer them from BA to IB if you want to fly Transatlantic long-haul in J. Like I said, long-haul J with IB starts at 34,000 miles each way without any fuel surcharge. This is not a secret and people on FT have been doing this for years. It surprises me people in the Aeroplan forum are awfully unaware of a FFP that is widely and easily available in Canada. If you want to redeem within Asia on CX F/J for mid-hauls (greater than 1150 miles but less than 2500 miles each segment), always go with Alaska Mileage Plan. On short-haul flights within Asia (<650 miles), BA Avios is good with Economy starting at only 4500 miles each way or double for Business, still much cheaper than Aeroplan, just get a RBC Visa or HSBC Premier, and you are good to go. Better still, cancel your TD/CIBC Visa, cut it in half, send it back to TD/CIBC with a letter explaining why you are cancelling your card.

Better still, if you have had your Canadian AMEX (those with Membership Rewards) for a while, just borrow a US address from a friend then tell AMEX you plan to relocate to the U.S., they will promptly give you a US based AMEX even without a Social Security number. You can keep both cards if you want, no need to cancel your Canadian AMEX. You can transfer your Canadian MR points to your US Membership Rewards account once a year based on the prevailing exchange rate. But once there, you have far more transfer partners than in Canada, including to SQ. See, there are a million ways to tell Aeroplan to get lost, if one just uses their head and think for a second and stop being a sheep.

Sure, here you go: https://www.hsbc.ca/1/2/personal/ban...ewards-details

The caveat is they are looking for people with $$$. If you qualify, you don't even need to pay an annual fee and the card gives up to 2X points or 1.5X for grocery, gas and drugstores.

Yes, to my knowledge, the only CC in Canada that has a direct transfer option to SQ assuming the SPG transfer does not count as direct transfer. If you transfer to SQ, you can use their miles to fly AC if you so choose to. But then again, why would one want to transfer points to SQ and use them on AC instead of SQ? @:-)