makin'miles

So I'm thinking about booking a reward seat (GRR-YEG/YYC). I log onto the AC site and I check reward availability (08/09 Mar through to 18 March). Nothing comes up as available (no J/Y). I would prefer a J seat.

I know that there are seats available from GRR-YYZ because they come up as available when I try to book them only as far as YYZ. However, nothing shows up for the YYZ-YEG/YYC portions. When I go onto ITN, though, I can see that there is a lot of C inventory. I always thought that C class was where J rewards came from. Am I wrong? Is it just ACs online booking engine? If I called Aeroplan, would there likely be seats (I hate to spend the whole night trying to get through to them, only to not get seats).

exAC

Are these dates spring break for Ontario school kids? I know that the week before is Quebec.

Good luck, you will need it.

makin'miles

I'm not sure when the Ontario kids get the week off.

I'll need luck just to get through to them - total BS.

Does anyone have a definitve answer on the C inventory, though?

makin'miles

So I only had to spend 20 minutes dialing, hanging up and hitting re-dail again until I got through to Aeroplan. Now, I've got an estimated wait time of 30 minutes (any bets on how long it actually takes?).

makin'miles

Sorry... its D (and I knew that).

Andrew Yiu

C class inventory is for upgrades and discounted business class fares on some routes. Award comes out of D [J class] and W [Y class].

If you're not an Elite, what you see on the website is what you'll hear from the agents regarding availability.

makin'miles

Thanks Empress,

I'm on with them now.

makin'miles

Got a booking Empress. The AC website does not check UA space at all - that's how I got my J booking. Horray!

Andrew Yiu

Sounds good. UA comes through again! [Even though it's through Aeroplan]

nobody-elite

I am the only one that didn't understand what you did and how you did it? smile..

any way congrats on your good fortune with getting what you wanted...

Andrew Yiu

Hehe... what he did was trying to get an award seat in J class for GRR-YEG/YYC. He checked AC's website for award availability but there was nothing. So he called Aeroplan and he got a seat on UA flights because one could use their Aeroplan points for UA flights [Star Alliance]. Sounds better now?

makin'miles

Where UA didn't come though, though, is that since I booked a J reward, I have to sit in Y (well, E+) on the GRR-ORD sectors because UA only offers Y and F on that route. The agent told me that to move the booking up to F it would cost another 20,000 points (which is not worth it for a 30 minute hop).

Plus, I wanted to stop over in YEG and then continue on to YVR and spend a day there on the return, but the agent told me that UA awards do not allow a stop-over in North America. Maybe I'll have to just book an N/L ticket down there.

Plus, I just want to know if I'll get RCC/MLL access? I assume so (not for upgrades, but for J awards, right?).

nobody-elite

Thanks for the explanation Empress... I really do want to learn how all of you people manage to do things...smile..

Andrew Yiu

Fly enough and hang around on FT long enough, you'll become one of us. You'll be surprised how the info that you learn here will come in handy one of these days when you travel.

makin'miles

A 30 minute wait wasn't to far off the mark. After about 35 minutes a friendly and capable Maria (in YVR) helped me out. We chatted about Beijing and living in the States for a few minutes while she waited for UA to return the confirmation.

Kudos to AC on this one.