Originally Posted by
Transpacificflyer
I am not aware of this "passion for product excellence". What is the product excellence at Air Canada that Mr. Nasr was responsible for? The product Air Canada is selling is air transportation and vacation packages.The profit center Mr. Nasr was responsible for was Aeroplan. There is a thread discussing the lack of partner redemption opportunities. There are also other threads discussing the devaluation of the aeroplan miles. I don't think that you will find too many Aeroplan members who fly in paid J for years, using terms like "passion for excellence" when they see that a J redemption for a RT YYZ-YVR is 200,000 + $$ and more or YYZ- Europe is 500,000+$$$ and more. There are other terms that would be used, none of which are positive.
I guess if you want to debate by example using the most outrageous examples you can find then I guess you can pick the eyes out of anything. I have 2 J flights for next week that I booked 2 weeks ago between YYZ and YVR...one was 22k points, the other was 23k points. I get similar redemptions like this in PY on that route all the time and am at the top of the e-Upgrade list as a result.
The last 2 years I've been able to redeem on partners to Europe in J RT using a PR so it cost me 90k points total, paying far, far less than what it would have cost me to buy a cash J ticket.
Of course not everyone will agree, but for the most part I think the changes Nasr has brought to Aeroplan have largely been positive, well for me anyways. On a personal level, I've always found him to be prompt and thoughtful in his responses. He's responded to my emails on the weekend and has referred me to subject matter experts on his team for specific inquiries; they have always provided prompt and detailed responses to my inquiries.
That tells me there's still lots of value in Aeroplan for me, but maybe there isn't for you and it's time to find a program you'll be happier with?