I think many people are basing what they think will happen post Dec. 15 on their past booking experience, which I think is a dangerous assumption. It's obvious from this most recent reward chart devaluation that Aeroplan is specifically targeting areas where customers perceive the value is greatest. The more popular a reward is, the greater is the point inflation - the pattern is loud and clear. Aeroplan is betting on that the price elasticity of Aeroplan customers is fairly inflexible and that the price hike will not affect the demand very much. But seriously, who in their right mind will pay 80K in J for a return trip within Asia when the booking system pretty much limits what routing you can or cannot take to fairly short distances to begin with?

Following the same logic, it stands to reason many of the practices that members find useful such as being able to connect via IST (Europe 2) on the way to Europe 1, YQ elimination trick once the trip has begun, or rebooking an existing based reservation on pre-devaluation prices - all of them are at risk. We just don't know what will happen but we do know Aeroplan is aware of those as they are openly discussed here in this very forum and chances are, if they want to, they can put a stop to them without notice.

If anyone wants to speculatively book trips for next year prior to December 15, I think they should be mentally prepared to fork additional miles when and if they make a change because past performance doesn't guarantee future outcome and given that Aeroplan has never promised you can change pre-December 15 award at the old price post December 15.

When US Airways Dividends Miles disappeared earlier this year, AA gave written notices that awards issued by US Airways will be carried over to AA and that AA rules will apply. There were a number of significant differences between US and AA in that US allowed stopovers on award whereas AA did not. AA allowed free changes as long as origin and destination do not whereas US would charge $150 even just to change the time of a flight. To deal with these obvious contradictions, AA said awards booked under US terms will be honored, so they can keep their stopover(s) without charge and if they need to make changes, AA rules will apply and that is no fee for changes that do not involve change to origin and destination. I can confirm that AA kept their words because I have a US booking that has a stopover but needs to be re-issued due to outbound date change, not a problem. The fact AC never gave any such assurances is a cause for concern or someone should ask them on facebook or twitter to get them to come clean before December 15.

You should write to AC/Aeroplan and ask them for a written reply. It's more useful than asking the question here that no one seems to have a firm answer either way.

Lan Chile, of Oneworld and AA, do not charge any YQ to/from Americas. That's true even using Avios or Asia Miles. More good reasons to reconsider Aeroplan if you travel often to South America.