Originally Posted by
grandgourmand
With Aeroplan you need to figure out if the system works with your most likely travel habits. If I was regularly looking at YYZ-LAX or YYZ-YVR or YYZ/YVR-LHR etc...planning on point redemptions might not make the most sense. Popular routes that AC can dominate just won't be as available using points.
I find it ironic that you say this, considering I have redeemed 4 rt flights this year on such AC dominant routes (YYZ-YVR and YYZ-SFO). All about 1-3 weeks in advance, and all in such a way that when push came to shove, I wasn't terribly flexible with dates either. For some of these, I was keen on not just specific dates, but very specific times, too. And got them!
The key, in my short experience, is persistence. When timeframes are around 1 week in advance, availability may pop up tomorrow even if it was not there yesterday. I was checking their stupid website obsessively every few hours.
I must admit though that this strategy is hard to implement if you're planning a vacation and need to give ample notice to your employer, or if you are concerned about hotel availability and pricing.
Now that I think about it though, most hotels actually have very generous cancellation policies, so you can book a hotel for your target date, see if airfare shows up, and if it doesn't, oh well, cancel hotel, follow plan B.