…… But good God, don’t try to get your spouse into the Maple Leaf Club with you. I felt like a criminal.

See: there was ONLY one Business class seat left or I would have just BOUGHT two. But no, you can’t bring your humble coach guest /wife into the lounge with you because your elite status just fell down a notch. THANK YOU Air Canada!

Remind me NOT to take the ONLY nonstop YUL-SFO (inconveniently at 6:15pm) when we could have gotten one-stop service in Business/First on any of three other (American, eh?) airlines and left at a more civilized time for departure (and ESPECIALLY arrival in SFO) *without* being made to feel like some kind of criminal for wanting to actually travel together (which I guess could have been arranged by me simply giving the finger to their business class “perks” and buying coach, rather than providing a premium fare to AC at all.)

I WILL now switch seats with her. Nice lady, wife of 28 years, sorry I made her travel at night in order to go nonstop, because this is definitely a mixed bag. I am also enjoying a proper dinner by paying at a restaurant rather than slop upstairs in their “special lounge”.

To add insult to this, as we turned to leave the lounge since we can’t enjoy it together because Air Canada has no more Biz seats to sell, I was reminded that “gee, if I WANTED TO BUY HER IN, I could for $68”, but oh, no, you’re only Silver.”

Air Canada just lost me as a premium fare customer (unless it’s using miles, for two in the future) because it is ridiculously stingy and officious. I certainly could and would, I guess, pay c$68, but my wife said since we’d only spend an hour in the lounge, let’s just go get a salad. The Caesar is quite good downstairs.

AC’s morning departure FROM SFO is still in the running because it is nonstop at the right time, but screw waiting until evening to come home, and a decent coach seat is fine for an A220. They can fool somebody else into thinking they’re a premium airline.