Originally Posted by
martzipan
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.
I'm glad to be wrong. I really don't know the availability trend of these routes, as I don't look at them too often. Sounds like pretty available within a shorter time frame, but what about 350 days out...for the planners?
But yeah, persistence is 100% right. Not just with Aeroplan, but with pretty much all award programs. Even ones that are usually regularly available can change over night, so you need to be able to adapt. It's part of the fun, but it's also stressful so I can understand why most people wouldn't want to bother with Aeroplan.