Originally Posted by
nolens volans
As far as I could gather, the policy used to be that the Aeroplan booking fee was only charged if you used the call centre to book something you could have booked online
This is simply not the case, unless you're talking more than 5 years ago. Just look in the mini rtw thread. Everyone who wants 2 stops and a destination pays a fee, and that's certainly not possible online.
In fact, the only time I've had the fee waived is when I couldn't book something like SFO-YYZ online (it errored out), and that required going through web support. Something that SHOULD be bookable online, but due to technical issues, could not be.