jmcintosh

I flew last year on AC as Elite while collecting A3 miles last year. Easy way to do it is keep your AP number on the original booking -- this will allow easy access to eUpgrades and premium seating. When you OLCI just change your number to A3 (assuming upgrades have cleared). If your upgrade clears you can change to A3 with no problem and use your AC *Gold for lounge, etc. If you are waitlisted, just ask the GA or lounge agent to change to A3. Many don't know that Aegean is A3 coded so I have had to tell many to use A3 -- others often say, "oh, sir your Aeroplan number is wrong" and I respond, "no it's not!"

I like A3 ... I have the opportunity to fly them with some regularity so I win both ways -- they treat Gold members like royalty IMHO. I also don't mind the redemption schedule they keep -- mini-RTW are of little interest to me so I use them to book AC flights while avoiding YQ.

Now that I collect to A3 I regularly shop for whoever has the cheapest *A fare and go for it ... I'm less concerned about "loss of access" to upgrades as I just buy discounted business fares when it's important for me to fly up front (i.e. overseas or longer flights ... e90 aircraft J is not much of an improvement over Y for me and therefore not worth the cost ... widebodies, that's another story).

Just my experience.

Away from YYZ

@jmcintosh: Thanks for sharing

I'm SE for 2012 and switching to A3/TK for 2013.

shawbridge

Thanks, rehoult and jemcintosh.

I'm trying to figure out whether to switch from Aeroplan to something else for my Star Alliance miles. It seems like A3 is the choice but it is possible Asiana and Turkish require more miles. I value lounge access and using the miles to get kid or wife to Canada (or elsewhere). I've never gotten an upgrade in my history with AC and usually fly AC from BOS to YYZ or YGK (who cares about upgrades on 1 hour flights anyway). [In the past, as a OneWorld Emerald and a Star Alliance hoi polloi, I always got treated better on AA when flying to YYC or YVR].

Although I probably fly over 100K miles a year, I fly a fair more on OneWorld -- I'm always BA Gold -- but have some business in Canada (plus my in-laws and a daughter who just started university there), some flights on Continental to EWR and on US to Philadelphia. When I credited an EWR-SIN-EWR (fantastic flight by the way) trip to AC, I made the 35K cutoff this year (but that flight was roughly 19K miles roundtrip and there appears to be a 5K increment beyond that plus I had a couple of Swiss flights). Most of my AC flights over the past year were made on a flight pass. This year, AP says I have 50,522 Status miles on 25 segments and last year there were 10,500 status miles on 21 segments.

Singapore is likely a repeat for 2013 but there is no guarantee I'd hit 50K if flying on Amex. A3 looks good. Turkish Air gives you 2 years to hit 40 as does Asiana. I credited my last Swiss flight and a US flight to AP but probably could retroactively change my December flights to A3 (or Turkish or Asiana to get a headstart as at least Asiana does October to October). Is A3 the winner?

sdf123

Yes. I am not sure why there was confusion about Tango fares. On Air Canada you always needed to fly on Tango Plus fares or higher to get status miles. You never got status miles on Tango fares, only 25% of the miles are credited to your account. It seems A3 does not even provide this 25%. Also, I do not know if there are any Tango fares when travelling internationally. I only encountered Tango Plus fares on international routes at the minimum. I, too am, considering switching to A3 to maintain Gold status. I have been successful in getting upgrades few times on Air Canada, that will be missed dearly. Since I will be splitting my miles between A3 and Aeroplan because there is no credit card that allows accrual of M&B points, it will take me sometime to redeem those points. There is some confusion about using A3 Gold status, but not using their M&B on the boarding pass. I wanted to get the minimum 20K on M&B and then start collecting on Aeroplan again. According to some people this is not possible, while others say it is allowed. Something to do with the terms and condition of A3.

Solomon2

So just to clarify, after you check in you go back into your reservation and change that FF number to A3?

djjaguar64

Sorry to bring this up again. I have been upgraded to J. Now how do I change my FF number to Aegean? I mean do I check in on-line and do it? So when I drop off luggage there will not be an issue?

global happy traveller

Manage my Booking

djjaguar64

Tried OLCI and entered Aegean number and got the message below. There is nothing wrong with the travel documentation. This is terrible. Now what do we do?
I have 2 different reservations, that is for 2 different passengers.


Your check-in cannot be completed at this time.
Please see an Air Canada agent at the Airport to verify your travel documentation.

Tedgrrrr

Is it also possible to simply remove the AE number and leave it blank at OLCI (assuming upgrade has already cleared)? That was an issue no one addressed in the "Manually rolling eUpgrade thread". Thanks!

djjaguar64

There are 2 of us. One of us was able to change the FF number to Aegean but I was not able to. It is weird, because after he changed his number he was not able to check in. At check in I asked and she said it is not possible since we were upgraded already. BS.

mabramovich

Hi all,

How long does it take for A3 to broadcast silver status to Air Canada? My parents hit A3*S on 27 May 2012, and I just called in to AC to get the A3 number added to the reservation*. They accepted the numbers with no problems but could not see the silver status.

*I called in because these bookings were made with that ridiculously awful small business rewards tool and it just completely locks you out of doing anything on aircanada.ca. At least with other bookings, the website will say that the booking was made somewhere else and you can't do much -- with the small business booking, I just get that my booking is "temporarily" unavailable to view, where "temporarily" is since I made the booking on 2 April

witlesspax

I don't know about A3*S (and I didn't call in), but they day after I got A3*G I was able to select preferred seats on an AC flight online, where I had been unable to a few days earlier. I didn't even have to remove and re-enter my A3 number from the booking. Having said that, I've just realized that I don't see any way in "Manage My Bookings" to tell for sure that AC recognizes our statuses.

djjaguar64

This is an update. Somehow we were able to change out FQTV to the AEGEAN number online after the upgrades cleared. All Asian airports were able to do so except NRT where we had an issue initially at the connections gate but once we went to the gate the agent did the change without any questions. Even though the agent in NRT (NRT-YVR) changed the FQTV it did not impact our upgrade from YVR to YYZ.

Its kinda sad as we now have Agean Gold but not AC after all these years.