Murphy123

My husband booked Toronto to NY last week to ensure he would be on the same flights I had already booked. As usual, too late. This has become a nasty pattern.

canadiancow

Yeah, I liked it better when I was flying in June last year. Only one fog incident

Anyway, how do so many people have the Altitude badge already? I signed up and I have status but I don't have that badge

alc

It show up about 5 min after I register online. I didn't even log out. Reason for me to check if I have the badge is that when I first register, there is only about 8 people with 500 wings. By after 5 min, there were over 50 people has wings. Hence, I knew it is not an overnight update thing. Hence, I click profile and show up I have 500 wings already.

flyquiet

Thanks yvr76. I did not see that. So much for the two or three itineraries I have already booked. That info should have been in the email.

Prewrappedbacon

Thought I'd start a new thread. Saw some comments in last year's thread.

Who is going for it this year? Any strategies you want to share?

I think I'm going to be able to pick off a couple South America destinations and other badges using domestic stuff... but I feel like I'm priced out of this year's game.

http://earnyourwings.aircanada.com/en/registration

YXXFlyer

I think that I'll keep going YYC-YEG-YVR instead of going direct as I'd intended to do from now on. Not going to spend any additional money now that I have my 95 AQS for the year.

Slalom01

Interesting that its not showing on the "Promotions" tab on Aeroplan.com. I didn't get an email either (SE 2014/2015) but registered through the link in this thread.

Sean Peever

Since it's only for Altitude members this time around they may not share it on Aeroplan.

cperciva

Ok, time to do some analysis. I'm assuming that people trying to win this are going to want to get most of their Wings via Globetrotter badges, since those are by far the most lucrative; and I'm also going to assume that people will want to get more than one Globetrotter badge per flight. Since we're talking about Air Canada here, I'm limiting consideration to flights which have at least one Canadian city.

This means that non-Canadian cities which only participate in a single Globetrotter badge can be excluded from EYW-running consideration. This rules out MIA, FLL, MCO, TPA, RSW (Citrus only), PHL, EWR, ORD, DCA (East Coast only), IAH, LAS, SAN, PHX (Sun Belt only), SEA (Mileage Run only), MXP, MAD (Palace only), MEX, KIN, MBJ, BGI (Happy Hour only), DUB (Castle only), CPH (Canal only), SYD, NRT, HND, ICN (Pacific only), GRU, BOG, LIM, SCL, EZE (Dulce de Leche only), NCE, FCO, BCN, LIS, ATH (Rouge only), HKG, PEG, PVG (Emperor only), MUC, GVA, and ZRH (Biergarten only) destinations.

This now rules out the Palace, Happy Hour, Pacific, Dulce de Leche, Biergarten, Citrus, East Coast, Sun Belt, and Emperor badges since there aren't enough "potentially worthwhile" cities left to make it possible to get those badges. Doing that allows us to cross off BOS, SFO, BRU, FRA, the Mileage Run badge, and LAX.

There are now 9 badges left:

Cross Channel (LHR, CDG)

Maple Leaf Lounge (LHR, LGA)

Castle (LHR, MAN, EDI)

Canal (CDG, MAN, VCE)

Rouge (MAN, EDI, VCE)

Theatre (3 of YTZ, LGA, LHR, CDG)

Scenic Drive (YWG, YHZ, YQB)

Prairie (3 of YWG, YEG, YXE, YQR)

Trillium (3 of YTZ, YOW, YQT)

With the exception of YTZ being an option for the Theatre badge, we now have two completely separate contests: The international contest, with 6 badges and 6 cities (LHR, MAN, CDG, EDI, VCE, LGA), and the domestic contest, with 3 badges and 9 cities (YWG, YTZ, YHZ, YQB, YEG, YXE, YQR, YOW, YQT).

On the international side of things, the most efficient option I can see (in terms of badges per flight) involves making round trips to LHR, MAN, CDG, LGA, and one of EDI, VCE; this would yield 13 Globetrotter badges. Along with the Destination badges (8x international, 2x US) and the default 100 Wings for non-Destination cities, this yields 13 x 2000 + 8 x 750 + 2 x 400 + 10 x 100 = 33800 Wings for 4 transatlantic flights (2 on Rouge) and 1 transborder flight. If you want to avoid Rouge flights, the best you can do is to hit LHR, CDG, and LGA for 6 Globetrotter badges -- 16400 Wings for 2 transatlantic flights and 1 transborder flight. Rough guess: $200 and 1 hour of flying per 1000 Wings.

On the domestic side of things, the only overlap between badges is YWG which appears in Scenic Drive and Prairie. I don't see any way to efficiently hit two of {YWG, YHZ, YQB}, and hitting all three of {YOW, YQT, YTZ} looks similarly awkward given the schedules Air Canada operates. On the other hand, with the Prairie Badge, consisting of 3 of {YEG, YXE, YQR, YWG}, we have a winner: A single $263 YWG-YQR-YXE-YEG ticket will net you 2 Prairie Badges along with 6 Canada Destination Badges, for a total of 5200 Wings. It doesn't look like you can hit both YXE and YQR when flying in the opposite direction, but still -- for a one-day "wing run", this definitely looks like the best area to hang out.

Canadiancow, over to you.

worldtraveller73

This promotion is less lucrative overall than the previous promotion that was offering 2000 Aeroplan miles to USA destinations, and 5000 miles to european destinations. That promotion ended Aug 26 for booking.

If I were to fly to europe now, (and got a badge by hitting several airports) I would only end up with 2,400 wings (2000 Aeroplan points). Maybe an additional 750+750 = 3,900 wings for select cities. Before the promotion, and with registration, I would have had 5,000 Aeroplan points easily.

The only way you can win with this is if you happen to be everywhere.

canadiancow

Great analysis!

With EYWv2, it didn't become really lucrative until the third mystery badge was revealed. I'm hesitant to book anything until we've seen those badges. Right now, it seems like 100k wings would easily get you in the top 20, but it would not surprise me if the mystery badges drastically change that.

I'd hate to spend a few thousand dollars and a few days on a run, only to have a new badge make those wings worthless

Or if you get in the top 20

DaveObee

Inspired by another thread, a question: What percentage of the EYW top 20 will be FTers? How many FTers were in the top 20 last year?

cperciva

Right -- compared to EYWv1, the wings are reduced (2000 for completing "sets" instead of 5000) and there are far fewer opportunities for overlapping badges (e.g., no flying YYJ-YVR-SEA / SAE-YVR-YYJ and picking up Canadian Olympic, TCA, AND Pacific badges). Given that the cut-off was 111500 last time, I'd guess that 50k Wings would get you into the top 20... assuming the mystery badges don't change anything.

But given that we have no idea how much those badges are going to change things, I agree that it would be premature to start booking seats now -- especially since the reduced Wings mean that it's absolutely not worth doing a "Wing run" if you're not going to get the 500k prize at the end.

BlueMilk

Well that's just great. Now my next two Eastward trans-cons will be 5 segments on Dash8s and CRJs.

Nuts.

scotchmeup

I feel your pain as my next J booking, just became YVR-YQR-YWG and a similar return , so much CRJ love....
and am working on a YVR-YXE-YWG-YQT-YYZ-YOW variation for Sept....
I think i have a problem...