TheBlueLabel

Hello Flyertalk's experts. I am planning a trip for my SO and I and was wondering if this trip is valid?

YVR-TPE (layover)
TPE-HKG (stop)
HKG-SIN (destination / turn)
Total distance: 8,061

SIN-TPE (layover)
TPE-YVR (layover)
YVR-MCO (stop)
MCO-YVR *home*
Total distance: 13,222

The MPM for YVR-SIN is 13,196 miles. However, with 5% allowance (right?) I should have 13,856 miles to play with on my return?
1) Is my return route valid?
2) Am I allowed a layover on my origin / home airport?
3) Is there a better routing for my return? We would like to hit MCO as our stop to visit Disney World. We can swap SIN to DPS to give up slightly more MPM of 13,338.

pentiumvi

No 5% allowance, but from experience, AP's mileage does not match 100% with gcmap.
Also, your return route is invalid. Cannot route through same city twice on one side of your destination. Based on this "rule", I do not believe you'll be allowed to transit through YVR.

I don't think it's possible for you to get MCO into your itinerary. SIN-TPE-IAH-MCO-YVR may be the closest option (13417m). You can try calling in and seeing if this is valid.

flyer05

People saying you can’t do NA-Asia-Europe turn: you can. YVR-PEK-IST is one such example.

ChrisA330

brokencreed

Thank you for the reply Cerenity! Does 115K +600 sound like a good deal? I've never flown business before & I am trying to learn how to use the mileage programs & what's worth it etc. I checked out each airline's business class section to see if the reviews are great . I don't mind flying economy either, I am not really picky. I also tried to choose flights that do not have AC as the airline.

actually I googled business class flights and it seems like a great deal.

Cerenity

Value is a contentious topic of debate. Some people look at face value of ticket to see if its a good deal vs pts, some people compare it to what they'd be willing to pay (because who actually pays $5000 for a business class flight out of pocket here).

But at the very least, for $600+115K in business, your trans-atlantic flight will be much more enjoyable than $600+75K in economy. The intra-europe flights will probably be meh, as airlines tend to use regional planes and just block off a middle seat for their "business" class. I'd probably still consider that (600+115k) to be decent even with the high fuel surcharges, as I'm quite tall and do not fit comfortably in economy seats for long periods of time.

If you're willing to add 1-2 connections, you could probably bring that $600 fee down a couple hundred bucks. Instead of YYZ-AMS, try YYZ-WAW-AMS or YYZ-YUL-ZRH-AMS. Totally up to you whether you feel like thats worth it or not though.

Twickenham

If you take your specific example, you could really reduce the fees if you flipped the order -YYZ-IST-AMS on Turkish, then AMS-JFK-YYZ on United. One booking, with stops in each city, and fees would probably be less than $200.

drvannostren

You can, but that's about it, that's what I'm doing and I literally got under the MPM by about 10. I tried to ATH, couldn't do it, I tried via TYO and TPE couldn't do anything other than YVR-PEK-IST, that was it. If anyone else can find one, feel free to post it. I BELIEVE I looked for TSE as well and couldn't swing that because the MPM kinda forced you to route via Europe.

United nor AC serve JFK anymore, so if you wanted to try that you'd have to go to LGA or EWR. JFK/LGA work fine as a same-city transfer, but I've had problems in the past with LGA/EWR, though others have reportedly differently. It's a shame AC isn't at JFK anymore, there's lots of flights out of there internationally on Star Alliance, but hard or at least harder to access.

limall

I'm trying to book a mini-RTW,
YYC-CPH
CPH-NRT
NRT-YYC

I've been checking for months and there is never any availability even if I check 12 months ahead and use my priority rewards as a 100K. Am i being unreasonable with the itinerary? What am I doing wrong? I was trying to book it all in business class. When I check the flights individually, I am able to book them. Thanks

YOWgary

If I'm reading you correctly, when you search each individual flight, it shows up, but you can't get the website to put them all together into a multi-year itinerary?

If so, call Aeroplan. You'll pay a $30 booking fee, but you should be able to get the flights.

If, instead, what's happening is that you search a multi city, and it shows a bunch of greyed out flights, or says the routing is invalid, then it's possible that the routing you want is simply over the allowable mileage for YYC-NRT, which wouldn't be a huge surprise.

pentiumvi

I have a feeling YYC-CPH-NRT is over the MPM for YYC-NRT.

Your outbound is nearly double the distance from YYC-NRT

karlpenney

The MPM for YYC-CPH is 7695, which is a bit more than for NRT. But, any route CPH-NRT-YYC is way over that. If you did another stop, say SIN, it would work.

ChrisA330

MPM for YYC-NRT is 6964.

+1 on the SIN suggestion which would increase MPM to 13562. YYC-YYZ-CPH-SIN (as an example routing) is ~11776 miles so there is still a bit of room to play with.

YOWgary

Note that a stop only affects MPM if you stay there longer than 24 hours.

In the specific case of SIN, this would also trigger the points cost for YYC-SIN, adding 5,000 points to the cost of the redemption, but I believe this would still work using HKG as the point of turnaround.

rankourabu

You will need to replace the YYZ-AMS Air Canada leg - that is what is causing $620 in fees.
You will need to fly Swiss, LOT, United or SN over the ocean.
Once you find availability on each sector, call in to the call center, pay $34, and feed them flights one by one.

Also there is no JFK-YYZ, it has to be LGA/EWR.

Using Aeroplan miles for longhaul economy is never a good idea.