Steadfast

Hi: quick directional question regarding how you experts book flights. Use agent or book your self?

I am booking flights to Europe from Toronto. This is a multi city trip. Will pay for flights for some of family, and use my points for the rest. Four to six people in total travelling.

Are there agents that specialize in this sort of booking? And any benefit?

Or should I just find the flights with the Aeroplan website, and Air Canada separately?

thanks.

YEG USER

4 to 6 people travelling to Europe. I assume this is in Y?

If so, you might want to consider making a revenue booking for everyone. Points likely won't be a huge discount because of the scam/surcharges. It could also be helpful to have everyone on a single PNR in the event of IRROPS.

If you do want to mix the 2, AFAIK you'll have to deal with both separately as AC won't do AE bookings and vv. In this case, I'd research the flights and then I'd book the revenue tickets on AC.com. Then I'd book the AE tickets. That way if you can't get the AE tickets on the same flight you can cancel the AC.com tickets within 24 hours. My experience has been that it can be rather expensive trying to get identical routings via both AC and AE; you might want to consider routing revenue and points people differently and meeting up in the various cities.

Stranger

I would often use miles (with IKK) for a J class reward for my wife, plus a confirmed upgrade from Latitude for myself.

Which required two R seats. I would (1) buy the revenue ticket for myself (can be canceled within 24 hours). (2) upgrade it. Then (3) deal with Aeroplan. On the web for simpler itineraries. Phoning for more complex ones.

But without IKK, Aeroplan is more or less worthless anyway. As already mentioned, for Y tickets, I would not bother. Not even sure if I would care about Aeroplan at all.

tyberius

I do it myself.

I agree it's not worth the points spend for economy. Only if you just don't have the cash and it's the only way to bridge it over.