Guy Betsy

I couldn't find any BR J award space ex-YYZ for the whole month of Nov and Dec so decided to go on to YVR (which I had intended to get a separate rtn myself) and then try from there. Nada on BR to TPE too. So ended up with CA via PEK to HKG.

jerryhung

I booked 2 Y seats in March 2014 for Dec 9, 2014 and that's the last I see ANY availability in December

BR is very popular now for Aeroplan to Asia, so one almost has to book 9-12 months out, especially during high seasons (X'mas)

nicok

Really frustrating situation right now!
Looked YYZ-TPE and TPE-YYZ for trips in april/may 2015 on Aeroplan the 25/06, J seats were availabe for my dates, but they were not showing on ANA tool, but seemed also available on united...

Then the 26, no more seats on Aeroplan, still no J seats on ANA but economy available, and united still showing the seats both economy and J....

Called Aeroplan yesterday and the lady told me they had a memo saying there was a glitch and IT are working on it... could'nt tell for how long, maybe a week usually she told me!

beep88

Or very late, like I got 2 J seats one week before departure around Easter. Those spaces sat around for a few days before I actually booked them.

My colleague also got one close to departure around that time, .

Clipper801

I book a pair of J reward tickets YYZ-TPE for late November 2014 in late December 2013 before points required went up in January 2014. Availability was quite plentiful for 3rd and 4th week when I booked. Most seats were probably snapped up in December 2013 because of the increase in points effective January 2014 by Aeroplan.

beep88

When I booked my Easter trip before the "price increase" initially there was no BR. But it's well worth the 90+tax change fee to switch to BR when they became very available on multiple days ~ a week before departure.

phiraod

I can't find any Eva Air award ticket to/from YYZ on Aeroplan. I did see a few last week. Is there any change or is it just a glitch?

heraclitus

Yeah, wow, good question. I was specifically tracking a YWG-TPE-HKG-YWG trip, partly because the BR flights were so ideal and... no scamcharges. Up until a couple of weeks ago there were tons of them, now for spring 2015 they have virtually disappeared

The only routings showing up now for my planned itinerary are dreadful 3 stop, 40 hour abominations... what's going on?

echino

Business award space inconsistency is now fixed - BR award space is gone.

However, Aeroplan continues to have problems with BR economy award space. While other A* websites (ANA, United, LM) show plenty of BR economy award availability, Aeroplan shows none. For example, YVR-TPE on May 7, there are 6 X seats available, Aeroplan shows none.

Shareholder

I think most business class awards on the 777s from/to YYZ through the end of this year were snapped up in the rush to beat the last increase in the AE chart. There is generally front cabin award space ex CDG and AMS to/from TPE so you just have to find the right flights to position you in Europe. Nice product, flew TPE-CDG last month.

nicok

I see on the ANA tool and United a lot of J seats YYZ-TPE in april/may 2015...
TPE-YYZ looks like still available until april 30, then nothing in may...

So basically, it's the Aeroplan site that is still failing... (see my previous post, called them last week and been told there was a glitch that IT are working on...!)

tyberius

I tried to book HND -> YYZ through TPE on BR today. Checked availability and it was there last night at 3am for my flight choice (March 10th). Called in today and the agent could see the TPE->YYZ but nothing from HND to TPE.

So I went back to the ANA tool and they had all vanished overnight. She mentioned to me as well the memo about BR booking, and since I was going to get nailed with scamcharges by switching to ANA from HND to TPE I just took the AC 787 direct.

I hadn't even bothered to see if it was open, AC is so far from my mind.

Anyway the BR thing seems to be related a bit to BR rather than Aeroplan I think as this issue was echoed over at ANA. I don't think that from 3am to 1pm last night two or three flights from HND to TPE would all book up in economy and business for March 10th 2015.

Anyway, I flew once with BR and would like to again. Just so hard to get that flight. BR036, so many suitors.

nicok

tyberius you are right, even the ANA tool stoped showing J buisness class at some point last week , but not united, and now it's back on ANA...

Did the agent see a BR J seat that was not on the Aeroplan website and could have booked it?

Shareholder

Even flying ANA for a medium-length segment from NRT-TPE shouldn't cost anywhere near what an HND-YYZ on AC would cost in fuel surcharges. I suspect that HND is a very popular airport (over NRT) so airlines are limiting premium award seats on their routes to/from, even intra-Asia which tends to be an easy region to get premium award flights, keeping them for revenue sale. (Given the value of our FF miles, I suspect FF programs pay about 10% of the revenue fare for award seats, so it's in an airline's interests to limit premium redemptions to any contracted minimums.)

tng11

Just out of curiosity, did you ask for availability from TPE-NRT or HND?

If it's HND, you won't see anything from TPE. HND flights on BR leave from TSA, which is very convenient if you are an O/D passenger from Taipei.