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

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

Old Jul 21, 2011, 11:50 am
  #16  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 524
Originally Posted by Away from YYZ
Oh one more site you wish to mention is https://awardnexus.com it does help me somewhat to book my mini-RTW. But it is also not too newbie friendly, it does take me a while to get use to the tool, by then almost all credits were used... But it can be really helpful (I have to say better than KVS) especially you can look for 7 days in advance.
Is there a good comprehensive thread comparing KVS to EF to AwardNexus? What do you think makes AN better than KVS - the multiday window? Also, doesn't AN not have SkyTeam or something like that?
FrequentFlyer9000 is offline  
Old Jul 21, 2011, 4:02 pm
  #17  
 
Join Date: May 2007
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Great post. Thanks a lot for putting this together.
SensFan is offline  
Old Jul 21, 2011, 4:30 pm
  #18  
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
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My thanks as well ... while I've been following (off-and-on) assorted discussion threads on this subject, I really appreciate the clarity in some of your explanations of the basics. I finally feel like I get it!
catgirl is offline  
Old Jul 21, 2011, 8:37 pm
  #19  
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Toronto
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Nice compilation of information. Thanks for this.

FYI: According to the Aeroplan website, online booking, you are only permitted one stopover and one destination. However, if you call, you get two stopovers and one destination. I'm not sure why this logic exists. Thoughts?

http://www2.aeroplan.com/use_your_mi...p=staralliance


BTW, if you aren't interested in doing your own research and spending the hour with Aeroplan try out this booking service:

http://www.bookyouraward.com/1701.html

or PM and I'll send you the email of another individual. They were a big help in sorting out all the nuances of my mini-RTW booking. A big time saver.

Azreal
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Old Jul 21, 2011, 10:13 pm
  #20  
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
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Originally Posted by Azreal
FYI: According to the Aeroplan website, online booking, you are only permitted one stopover and one destination. However, if you call, you get two stopovers and one destination. I'm not sure why this logic exists. Thoughts?
If you read carefully, the website says that only one stop or OJ can be booked with the online tool. It says you have to call if you want to book something more complicated than that.
Santander is offline  
Old Jul 21, 2011, 10:16 pm
  #21  
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 524
Actually, despite pretending to be an expert when I wrote the original post, I have some questions for the real pros:

Do the stopovers you select (as well as the layovers) all have to be parts of published routes? Thanks.
FrequentFlyer9000 is offline  
Old Jul 21, 2011, 11:41 pm
  #22  
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: YYZ
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Posts: 1,967
Originally Posted by FrequentFlyer9000
Is there a good comprehensive thread comparing KVS to EF to AwardNexus? What do you think makes AN better than KVS - the multiday window? Also, doesn't AN not have SkyTeam or something like that?
I am not sure if there is a thread compare all options (e.g. KVS, EF, ANA, AwardNexus)

However based on my experience on KVS, ANA, AwardNexus. AwardNexus will be my first choice.

Yes, mainly is the multi-day window search. Also one could do searches for multi-segment across multi-day window all display in one screen. Which sometime make decisions easier on which flight to take.

KVS for sure is way better than ANA, but it is only good for simpler point A to point B and only display one day at a time. Yes, it can do the job, but just takes longer and less convince.

And yes, AwardNexus doesn't have SkyTeam, but I don't care, cuz my AP miles is only good for *A anyways.

Just my 2 cents.

===

Added: According to Peter's website https://awardnexus.com/page/guide each 'phases' (depends on what you are looking for and availability) saving could be from 15 minutes to many hours compare to manual search....

Last edited by Away from YYZ; Jul 21, 2011 at 11:51 pm
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Old Jul 21, 2011, 11:46 pm
  #23  
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: YYZ
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Originally Posted by Azreal
FYI: According to the Aeroplan website, online booking, you are only permitted one stopover and one destination. However, if you call, you get two stopovers and one destination. I'm not sure why this logic exists. Thoughts?
Er. Limitation on the PDP11 programmer skill?

Would be nice/cool if one can book 10 segments via the web w/o calling in... It may save some frustration at times.
Away from YYZ is offline  
Old Jul 22, 2011, 7:49 am
  #24  
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Originally Posted by FrequentFlyer9000
Actually, despite pretending to be an expert when I wrote the original post, I have some questions for the real pros:

Do the stopovers you select (as well as the layovers) all have to be parts of published routes? Thanks.
Published routes are only used to validate routings that are over MPM. The agent should require you to follow the published routing.

IME if your routing is under MPM you can go through whatever cities you want to reach your destination.
yycworldtraveler is offline  
Old Jul 22, 2011, 8:04 am
  #25  
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Originally Posted by yycworldtraveler
Published routes are only used to validate routings that are over MPM. The agent should require you to follow the published routing.

IME if your routing is under MPM you can go through whatever cities you want to reach your destination.
Thanks. I ask because I just booked a complex award with Delta, and my stopover was not allowed because it was not on a published route. I had to change the stopover to one of two cities which were valid for published routing between my origin and destination cities. I wonder if this is a Delta vs. Aeroplan discrepancy, or if I got unlucky.
FrequentFlyer9000 is offline  
Old Jul 24, 2011, 8:57 pm
  #26  
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BTW, might wanna sticky this to avoid more basic questions threads.
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Old Jul 25, 2011, 4:30 am
  #27  
 
Join Date: May 2007
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Originally Posted by FrequentFlyer9000
BTW, might wanna sticky this to avoid more basic questions threads.
Please don't. As if there are not currently enough rookies trying to grab the limited F seats!
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Old Jul 25, 2011, 6:47 am
  #28  
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Originally Posted by jarusoba
Please don't. As if there are not currently enough rookies trying to grab the limited F seats!


I feel so fortunate to be a Y cheapo.
FrequentFlyer9000 is offline  
Old Jul 28, 2011, 5:00 pm
  #29  
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
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tips to maximize F mini rtw

for mini rtw asia 1 newbies: if you are saving the points for a long time for the mini rtw in J / F, and since you are allowed 3 stop, try to book the stopover as far as possible from each other.

if from NA, one stop in northern europe (CDG or FRA or whatever in europe), 1 stop in south east asia (BKK or SIN), one stop in north east asia / australia

reasons are :

1. flights intra europe are dirt cheap. you can book and pay your own to almost anywhere in europe.

2. J /C europe is nothing to get excited about. it is the same seats as economy, except no one in middle seat. no F in intra europe.

3. flights intra asia (BKK and SIN) are also cheap (with discount airlines like airasia etc)

4. it is the long haul flights more than 4 hours that it worth it to be in F. otherwise Y is ok.

to maximize F experience, you can depart from FRA in F (or C then later F) to get access to first class terminal. you can depart BKK in TG F for the spa and TG fist class ground experience.

for example, from BKK you can go to HKT (phuket) then catch a direct flight to DPS (bali) then to SIN, then to REP (Siem Reap), to SGN etc... with discount airlines it is cheap.

from LHR: to CPH to LED to ARN etc...

it will allow you to have a truly RTW trip. first class RTW travel on budget.
globaltravelers is offline  
Old Jul 31, 2011, 7:08 pm
  #30  
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
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So it's still 2 stopovers + destination with Aeroplan if we book from the call center?

Website still mentions only 1 stopover:

STAR ALLIANCE REWARDS
  • One stopover is permitted in addition to the point of turnaround for inter-continental travel only. One stopover is also permitted between Canada or Continental U.S.A. and the Caribbean, Central America, Hawaii, or Mexico.
  • Maximum of 10 segments per reward on allowable routings.
  • Routing cannot include the same city more than once in each direction.
  • Outbound and inbound travel must be over the same ocean.
  • One open jaw per reward is permitted in addition to the allowable stopover.

http://www2.aeroplan.com/terms_and_conditions.do
thyeri is offline  

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