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FAQ: The Complete Newbie Guide/FAQ to the Air Canada Aeroplan Mini-RTW

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Old May 30, 2013, 9:55 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: jerryhung
New List of Mini-RTW 2.0 version after Oct 29th, 2014 "enhancement" (i.e. less MPM)

FAQ: List of valid and booked mini-RTW itineraries version 2.0 (post-"enhancement&quot

INTRO

This wiki is taken from the excellent overview in the first post of this thread by FrequentFlyer9000 and is meant as a guide to the Aeroplan "Mini-RTW" for the uninformed newbie flyer. This is a no judgment zone and newbies are welcome. In this thread, the usage of scary acronyms and complicated FlyerTalk insider-speak will be minimized.

Also, this wiki is a work in progress so please provide feedback or make wiki edits if you think something warrants it.

INFO & COMMON QUESTIONS

What is the "Mini-RTW"?

The Mini-RTW is a name given to a type of reward booking using Air Canada's Aeroplan miles. It is actually not a "round-the-world" ticket at all - it is a regular award redemption. Just as you would use 75K frequent flyer miles to go to Japan on another airline, you can use 75K to do so using Aeroplan miles. The difference is that Aeroplan allows you to "stopover" in multiple cities at no extra mileage cost, making it very attractive compared to other reward travel. It should be noted that this isn't really that much better than some other airlines. For example, Delta offers one stopover + open jaw, which is only one stopover worse than Aeroplan's deal. But many of the airlines only offer one stopover and no open jaw. So there is definitely value here.

In addition to your final destination (in which you can stay for days/weeks/months), you are allowed:

•Two stopovers in other cities (stay for days/weeks/months). You are allowed to trade one of these stopovers for an open jaw (where you land in one city, but take the next flight out of another city)
•10 segments (layovers during which you spend less than 24 hours in a given city) <-- this limit may be gone as of 2014/2015

So, disregarding the additional 10 segments, an award trip for Japan could actually look like this:

NYC > Tokyo (destination - one week) > Paris (stopover - one week) > London (stopover - one week) > NYC

You basically get three times the world exploration for the price of one. If you add on the extra layovers allowed, you can turn it into:

NYC > Los Angeles (one day) > Hawaii (one day) > Tokyo (one week) > Seoul (one day) > Hong Kong (one day) > Paris (one week) > Munich (one day) > London (one week) > Washington DC (one day) > NYC

Of course, you don't have to do the above. Spending so much time in airports can be exhausting. But the option is there for you if you want it.


How many miles is this going to cost me?

See the Award Travel chart here.

From North America to "Asia 1" countries: (effective Jan 1, 2014)
•75K in Economy
•150K in Business
•210K in First

From North America to "Europe 1" countries:
•60K in Economy
•90K in Business
•125K in First

...and so on. Check the link for other combinations. Assuming you are stopping in three cities, the city in the most "expensive" redemption zone is the zone you will have to pay for. So if you are visiting two Asia1 zone cities and one Middle East city, you will pay 80K miles rather than 75K miles since that is what the Middle East trip costs (numbers assume Economy class travel).

Which miles do I need to use? Can I use miles from other Star Alliance airlines?

You need to use Aeroplan miles. You cannot use miles from other Star Alliance members, such as United, to book this mini-RTW. However, you can book flights for the mini-RTW on any airline that is in the alliance and has the desired award seating available. You technically do not have to fly any segments on Air Canada at all.

So, what's the catch? What are the restrictions?

There is no catch. However, there are some restrictions on your itinerary. This is where things get a bit more complicated.

Want to find the new MPM after 10/29/2014?
Aeroplan City Pair mileage (new pseudo-MPM) - FlyerTalk Forums

This is no longer valid after 10/29/2014
1) Your itinerary must be within 5% of the total "Maximum Permitted Mileage" (MPM) for the route from the origin to the destination. Even though you are stopping in three cities by using your two stopovers and a final destination, you can define the destination as the stop city furthest away from the origin. Although certain flyers have gotten away with telling an inattentive phone rep that their final destination / "turnaround city" is one of their layover cities to increase their MPM, this does not always work. Sticking with one of your three stop cities is a safe bet.

MPM exist so that you cannot repeatedly fly around the world 10 times on your 10 segments. There is a limit to how many miles you can fly on the reward ticket. MPM guidelines can be found by using the KVS tool or by using Expert Flyer. MPM is calculated between your origin and your destination, one-way. The trips to and from your destination are calculated separately. You are allowed to overshoot this number by 5% ("MPM5"). If you can find a bookable itinerary online that has a mileage longer than the published MPM, this is a "published routing" and can be used even if it exceeds the MPM5. In KVS, navigate to the "Reference" tab, select "MPM" from the dropdown menu, and enter your city pair. MPM information is available under the Travel Information section of ExpertFlyer. It is available to all subscribers, Basic or Premium, and there is a 5-day free trial to ExpertFlyer.com that can be used.

To see if your itinerary fits your MPM limit, you can use the site here to see your total miles traveled: www.gcmap.com. Enter your airport codes separated by dashes to see the itinerary and get the total mileage (e.g. NYC - LHR - NYC). Example here.

TO READ MORE ABOUT MPM: Read this (short) document
2) If you do elect to use an open jaw instead of one of your stopovers, you must schedule the open jaw so that it is in the same "IATA zone" as either the origin or the destination city. So if you are going from NY to Japan to Europe and back to NY, the open jaw cannot be scheduled in Europe, since it is neither the origin zone or the destination zone. The open jaw also cannot be a larger distance than any two legs you are actually flying. In case you are wondering, IATA zones are as follows:

IATA 1 - The Americas (incl. Caribbean, Hawaii)
IATA 2 - Europe as far as the Ural Mountain range, Middle East & Africa
IATA 3 - Oceania, SE Asia, Far East, Sub-Continent.

Remember that if you use your open jaw at the turnaround/destination point, you will only have one stopover to use left. So you would be able to do NYC > Singapore (destination, open jaw) // Tokyo (stop) > NYC. This has one destination, one open jaw (at turnaround point), and one stopover. However, you would not be able to do this: NYC > Madrid (stop) > Singapore (destination, open jaw) // Tokyo (stop) > NYC. Because your 2 stops + 1 open jaw would be more than the two allowed.

3) You cannot land in the same city twice in any one direction. This means that on my way from NY to, let's say, Cairo, I cannot do New York > London > Paris > London > Cairo on the way there, since I would be stopping in London twice in one direction. However, I can stop in London on the way to Cairo and then again on the way back from Cairo.

4) The actual trip needs to be "bookable". It needs to follow certain rules. I won't get into too many details, but anything completely nonsensical in terms of routing is generally not going to fly. But most routes will not fall into this category. Just something to keep in mind.


Do I have to go in the same direction for every leg of the flight?

No. As an example, you can cross the Atlantic twice or cross both the Atlantic and the Pacific once (more like a real RTW trip).


How do I book this?

Assuming you have already planned out your entire itinerary to the dot and have made sure your trip is in accordance with the above restrictions, call Aeroplan and speak with a representative. Alternatively, you can try to book online for free. However, this is not always possible with more complicated routings.


What will this cost me in real cash? How can I minimize fees?
It depends on the region you travel to and which airline you fly on. In general, the more Air Canada segments you fly the more fees/taxes you will pay. Aeroplan does not collect surcharges on non-Air Canada-operated flights. So flying Air Canada internationally will cost you extra. If you use a lot of Air Canada flights in your mini-RTW, your fees could be anywhere from $150 to $400, even sometimes creeping up above $600. Lesson is to avoid AC "metal" (airplanes) if possible.

Every trip will have a $30 cost per person for booking on the phone, regardless of the itinerary.


What are the change fees if I want to change a leg or multiple legs of the trip later?

$90 for changes after original booking. If there is an involuntary change because of flight schedules changing, there is no fee charged. Note that when you make a change, the taxes/fees associated with fuel, etc. may change. They may decrease or increase depending on the previous flight and the new flight. This is independent of the $90 rebooking fee. The $90 is flat regardless of how many of the segments you change. It is not $90 per changed segment.


How do I plan this trip out? Even finding a simple award ticket can be difficult online, let alone one with 10 segments!

Good question. It is recommended that you use either the All-Nippon Airways (ANA) website (guide on how here), the KVS tool (costs money) or ExpertFlyer (costs money), or http://FliSea.com. I personally like to use KVS, but it is not newbie-friendly. It is $20 for 2 months for the "diamond" level service, and $75 for a year. Small price to pay for saving a lot of time, if you can handle the learning curve. ANA is a good free method of finding segments and many people have had plenty of success with it; FliSea is a metasearch tool that uses all of the sites above.

The trick is to do this one segment at a time. So first find NYC > LONDON for the date you want and make sure that the award class you are looking for is available (e.g. Economy low fare). Then do the next leg: LONDON > ROME. Repeat for every segment. Write down the details of each flight, calculate the mileage using the www.gcmap.com resource, and call up Aeroplan to book.

One of our Flyertalk members has built a database with all the Mini-RTW routes that have been flown in the various threads in one simple place: http://www.turnleftat.com/mini-rtw-list/
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FAQ: The Complete Newbie Guide/FAQ to the Air Canada Aeroplan Mini-RTW

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Old Dec 4, 2017, 4:22 pm
  #1696  
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: YXS
Posts: 160
Does the furthest point on a trip automatically become the POT? Looking at two scenarios:

1) India with a stop in Thailand (YVR-TPE-BKK-DEL). I know the stop in BKK would trigger Asia 2 mileage, but geographically BKK is further from YVR than DEL. So, if BKK automatically becomes POT, then routing to India that way would be impossible for MPM.

2) Cambodia with a stop in Thailand. According to GCMap PNH is 8 miles closer to YVR than is BKK, but you can basically only route there via BKK. So if BKK was POT, not only would mileage via PNH likely be exceeded but it wouldn’t work anyway to fly BKK-PNH-YVR.

Thank you!
YXSflyer is offline  
Old Dec 4, 2017, 5:44 pm
  #1697  
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Originally Posted by laddielad
Why can't I find any business class seats with United from YVR to ORD? Only AC shows up... Looking for April 2018 and onwards
Is it available as a saver award on united.com?
If yes, AC is blocking UA again.
If no, there is no space.
rankourabu is offline  
Old Dec 4, 2017, 7:56 pm
  #1698  
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: YVR
Posts: 1,083
Originally Posted by YXSflyer
Does the furthest point on a trip automatically become the POT? Looking at two scenarios:

1) India with a stop in Thailand (YVR-TPE-BKK-DEL). I know the stop in BKK would trigger Asia 2 mileage, but geographically BKK is further from YVR than DEL. So, if BKK automatically becomes POT, then routing to India that way would be impossible for MPM.

2) Cambodia with a stop in Thailand. According to GCMap PNH is 8 miles closer to YVR than is BKK, but you can basically only route there via BKK. So if BKK was POT, not only would mileage via PNH likely be exceeded but it wouldn’t work anyway to fly BKK-PNH-YVR.

Thank you!
I recall in my past bookings, the furthest point is deemed the destination.

But regardless, even if in option 1, BKK is determined to be the POT, it shouldn't be an issue to do YVR-TPE-BKK-DEL-...-YVR. Same with your example of going to PNH.
pentiumvi is offline  
Old Dec 4, 2017, 7:56 pm
  #1699  
 
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 192
Yes I can see it, if I call in will they "unblock" it or am I SOL?
laddielad is offline  
Old Dec 4, 2017, 8:09 pm
  #1700  
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Canada
Programs: UA*1K MM SK EBG LATAM BL
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Originally Posted by laddielad
Yes I can see it, if I call in will they "unblock" it or am I SOL?
You can try, but in the past AC has blocked UA space transborder with no recourse.
rankourabu is offline  
Old Dec 9, 2017, 5:10 am
  #1701  
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: Virginia
Programs: AA platinum , Hyatt Explorist, Marriott platinum , SPG Gold , Hilton Diamond
Posts: 92
I am booked at ORD to Del on Lx one way .,@ 75k miles on J ....I am planning to change like this .

ORD- TAI ( Eva) - BKK ( thai) - DEL

Can I do that ..will MPM allow me to do that ?

Second question how can I convert this into miniRTW ? Any suggestion

Thanks
shekhar is offline  
Old Dec 9, 2017, 9:20 pm
  #1702  
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 291
I have a trip booked for next Feb and yesterday received an email from Aeroplan saying there is an itinerary change.

I was worried at first since it was a rather complex routing, but after checking, double and triple checking the new itinerary they sent me, all the flight segments are unchanged. The only change was one flight being pushed back 2 minutes, from 5:38PM to 5:40PM.

Is it customary to send out an itinerary change alert when a flight departs 2 minutes later? The paranoid part of me keeps thinking there's a massive change in the itinerary that I'm just not seeing...
GiantCow is offline  
Old Dec 12, 2017, 8:48 am
  #1703  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: YYC
Programs: Hilton Diamond, Fairmont Plat, IHG Spire, SPG Gold, WS Gold, Hertz PC, National E Elite,
Posts: 2,768
I thought I would add an interesting data point here. I booked last night a little mini-mini RTW trip. On my way home, I was looking to book CTG - (Rouge)- YYZ - (AC Mainline)- YYC in business class.

If I searched business class, it showed::
CTG - YYZ ECONOMY
YYZ- YYC BUSINESS

If I searched economy/premium economy class, it showed:
CTG - YYZ PREMIUM ECONOMY
YYZ- YYC ECONOMY

There was no possible way for me to get the Premium economy CTG - YYZ and the Business YYZ - YYC option. I called Aeroplan and spoke to two agents who acted like I asked them to solve the theory of general relativity, until finally I got a third agent who understood the problem. She had me book the Business class fare (YYZ- YYC ) with CTG - YYZ in economy, while we were on the phone, and then she manually upgraded me to premium economy. Seems like a wrong weird process.

Last edited by CanuckFlyHigh; Dec 12, 2017 at 9:05 am
CanuckFlyHigh is offline  
Old Dec 12, 2017, 2:42 pm
  #1704  
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Posts: 44,346
Originally Posted by CanuckFlyHigh
I thought I would add an interesting data point here. I booked last night a little mini-mini RTW trip. On my way home, I was looking to book CTG - (Rouge)- YYZ - (AC Mainline)- YYC in business class.

If I searched business class, it showed::
CTG - YYZ ECONOMY
YYZ- YYC BUSINESS

If I searched economy/premium economy class, it showed:
CTG - YYZ PREMIUM ECONOMY
YYZ- YYC ECONOMY

There was no possible way for me to get the Premium economy CTG - YYZ and the Business YYZ - YYC option. I called Aeroplan and spoke to two agents who acted like I asked them to solve the theory of general relativity, until finally I got a third agent who understood the problem. She had me book the Business class fare (YYZ- YYC ) with CTG - YYZ in economy, while we were on the phone, and then she manually upgraded me to premium economy. Seems like a wrong weird process.
I've had to do that too. Book the J online, then call in the get the Y moved to PY at no charge.
canadiancow is offline  
Old Dec 12, 2017, 3:07 pm
  #1705  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Canada
Programs: Marriott LT Gold, IHG Club, Hertz Gold, Aeroplan, Avios, SkyMiles, Thrifty, AMEX
Posts: 985
Originally Posted by GiantCow
I have a trip booked for next Feb and yesterday received an email from Aeroplan saying there is an itinerary change.

I was worried at first since it was a rather complex routing, but after checking, double and triple checking the new itinerary they sent me, all the flight segments are unchanged. The only change was one flight being pushed back 2 minutes, from 5:38PM to 5:40PM.

Is it customary to send out an itinerary change alert when a flight departs 2 minutes later? The paranoid part of me keeps thinking there's a massive change in the itinerary that I'm just not seeing...
I had something similar happen to me recently as well. I believe the schedule change was a flight arriving 5 minutes earlier.

If everything looks fine, I wouldn't worry.
Twickenham is offline  
Old Dec 12, 2017, 3:50 pm
  #1706  
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: YYC
Programs: Hilton Diamond, Fairmont Plat, IHG Spire, SPG Gold, WS Gold, Hertz PC, National E Elite,
Posts: 2,768
Originally Posted by Twickenham
I had something similar happen to me recently as well. I believe the schedule change was a flight arriving 5 minutes earlier.

If everything looks fine, I wouldn't worry.

This happened to me LOTS when I have a very complex RTW trip. Don't worry about it. I always get excited, because if it is a major change, the phone agents usually have alot of leverage to put you on whatever flight you ask for.
CanuckFlyHigh is offline  
Old Dec 12, 2017, 8:56 pm
  #1707  
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: YVR
Programs: AC*SE-MM, BA Bronze, Marriott Titanium & lifetime Plat
Posts: 1,820
Originally Posted by YXSflyer
Does the furthest point on a trip automatically become the POT? Looking at two scenarios:

1) India with a stop in Thailand (YVR-TPE-BKK-DEL). I know the stop in BKK would trigger Asia 2 mileage, but geographically BKK is further from YVR than DEL. So, if BKK automatically becomes POT, then routing to India that way would be impossible for MPM.

2) Cambodia with a stop in Thailand. According to GCMap PNH is 8 miles closer to YVR than is BKK, but you can basically only route there via BKK. So if BKK was POT, not only would mileage via PNH likely be exceeded but it wouldn’t work anyway to fly BKK-PNH-YVR.

Thank you!
Only places where you stop for >24hours count for consideration as POT. Others are just "connections". So if you just connected from one flight to another in BKK (less than 24 hours), PNH would still be your POT.
krayZpaving is offline  
Old Dec 13, 2017, 11:59 am
  #1708  
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Programs: AC E, BA Bronze, HHonors Gold
Posts: 208
What are the chances to get to AKL with Air New Zealand in business class (Dec 2018) from
a) HND
b) PVG or
c) ICN?
uni3052 is offline  
Old Dec 13, 2017, 12:08 pm
  #1709  
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Programs: AC E, BA Bronze, HHonors Gold
Posts: 208
(Created by mistake)
uni3052 is offline  
Old Dec 13, 2017, 12:11 pm
  #1710  
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Programs: AC E, BA Bronze, HHonors Gold
Posts: 208
Originally Posted by ennsy
Booked a mini-RTW via Aeroplan, it has ticketed and I have all my booking reference numbers, but when I put the booking reference number into the partner airlines, it errors out. Trip was booked 10+ days ago. How do I go about selecting my seat on SN, LX, TK when booking through AP?

Trip is in next Spring/Summer
Some airlines open seat selection only a few weeks before departure. Turkish is one of them (and Thai if I remember correctly). You can also call them just to verify.
uni3052 is offline  


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