Adam Smith

I'm looking at doing a whirlwind tour of Asia next year with a friend who's currently living in SIN. Trying to see whether anyone here has any good insights on doing this with Aeroplan, which so far isn't looking so good.

The itinerary is as follows: YYC-TYO-ICN-PEK-HKG-SIN-YYC. Those are the stopovers, not the flights.

I can book this, with J or better on all legs, for $7-8K cash, which is fine. Trying to see whether I can do better than that with Aeroplan, but I'm not having much luck here.

My key parameters in booking this are:

Parameters:

• Time is the most important factor: I will be trying to cram a lot into a short period of time. So I want to hit the cities in precisely the order above, or in the exact reverse order, but don't want to be backtracking. I also don't want to make superfluous connections.
• J or better on all legs: that's just how I roll, especially when flying somewhere I don't know, on airlines where I have no status (*G doesn't count).
• 2 cpm floor on redemptions: I don't redeem Aeroplan miles for less than $0.02 per mile, and generally aim for much more than that.

The stumbling blocks seem to be:

• TATL adds significant time - RTW no good: I looked at doing this as an RTW, but going via FRA/LHR seems to add quite a bit of time, like 5-10 hours, depending on the direction and flight combos. That's meaningful in the context of such short trip.
• No one-ways or open jaws within Asia: Since AE only allows one-way redemptions to/from/within Canada, I can't book the intra-Asia legs using one-way rewards. And as far as I can tell, no combo of the intra-Asia legs is valid as an open jaw. So this precludes booking an open jaw + stopover on AE, e.g. YYC-NRT (stop)-ICN; SIN-YYC, and then booking the legs in between on AE.

The only thing that seems to work is booking something like YYC-NRT (stop)-ICN; SIN-YYC on AE and then paying cash for the intra-Asia legs. But the issues I'm seeing with that are:

• Limited J availability on TPACs: It seems tough, even with SE priority, to find availability on the TPACs, e.g. YYC-NRT or HKG-YVR. This makes life difficult with time being the #1 factor. I'm not keen to arrange the trip based on when AC has TPAC J space, especially since that could easily shift me a couple days on one end or the other.
• Low cash cost of adding on the TPACs: Depending on the dates, exact flights, etc, the intra-Asia legs often price out close to $4K. So that starts getting very close to my 2 cpm floor for redemptions, sometimes below, when you consider the 150K AE points (or 210K, if the itinerary includes a flight in F) might only save me about $3K.

At this point, I'm expecting to just pay cash for this itinerary, which is fine, but curious to see whether anyone here has some tips that I might not have thought of.

w000t

well the first problem i see is, you can't have that many stopovers unless you're booking an around the world for 300k. if you do that you must have a TPAC and a TATL, which you don't seem to be interested in. so you must book book this with multiple rewards.

if you insist on booking with aeroplan, you're allowed to do 2 stopovers + turnaround. so you can probably do something like YYC-TYO (stop)-ICN (stop)-PEK (turnaround)-YYC. i think you can do an open-jaw for asia redemptions, so maybe do PEK-HKG/SIN-PEK on a separate reward? and then buy your own separate SIN-HKG ticket. as for TPAC award space, you could see if there's any on NH via but that would involve YQ.

Adam Smith

w000t, thanks for the thoughts. Here's what I see with those.

Exactly.

Yes, but then I would need to buy a separate PEK-HKG-SIN-PEK, which involves a bunch of backtracking. Plus then I'm combining separate PNRs on my return journey.

Yes, but again, backtracking. And I thus far haven't found a combo like ICN-PEK-HKG or NRT-ICN-PEK that's eligible for open jaw.

drvannostren

Let me stop you right there.

If the 7-8k is fine, go with it. Don't wanna be a Debbie Downer here, but to me the reason to use the miles is either A) you don't have the money to do it (like me) or B) because you have miles to burn (which may be your situation).

That said, you're almost never going to do better with a redemption vs cash. Sure a RTW redemption offers the stops and such, but for what you're trying to do if you run into a problem as an award ticket it'll cause more problems than just cash and if you're already cool with the price I'd just go for it.

Adam Smith

Fair enough, although I would say I see view miles as a currency. I decide what I'm going to do, then figure out what is the best way to pay for it. If AE works, great, and I can make some small tweaks to accommodate (e.g. rather than pay cash for YYC-NRT, I could tolerate doing YYC-YVR-NRT on AE, but not keen on doing YYC-YVR-SFO-NRT), but if not, I just pay.

For instance, the girlfriend and I are going to Helsinki for the World Juniors at Christmas. I redeemed Aeroplan for YYC-FRA-HEL and CPH-FRA-YYC in J for 195K points and a few hundred bucks of charges. That saved us over $10K versus buying the tickets for cash, and we got exactly the flights we would have wanted. That, in my mind, was an excellent use of points.

As I said in the OP, I figure there's a good chance this doesn't work out with Aeroplan, and that's fine, but I figured maybe someone here who knows more than I do might have some tricks.

drvannostren

That is a great use of points, World Jrs. should be very cool. I hate that they draw like flies whenever it's outside Canada though.

I see your point and I'm the same way on a smaller scale, I can't afford the $10,000 YVR-CPH fare or whatever, so I'll use the points. I do the same thing though I look to see what I wanna do, 2 canucks road games in one trip for instance, then I see the UA/AA fare is 1000$, so I pass, but I'll use the miles even though I know I can use them for better value elsewhere. So for me the miles are basically for experiences I wouldn't/couldn't otherwise pay for. I'm sure you'll have fun either way, and it'd be sweet to save that coin and use the miles, I just think with THIS particular trip, shelling out is probably better, but that's just me

phbl

didn't bother reading your long op, or any of the long replies, but i will tell you that imo the best deal for errorplan are the asia zone 1 rewards (bkkicnbkk, sinhkgsin etcetc) are a steal: 20k rt in y or 30k rt in j. never had issues with availability 6 months out, but no stopovers permitted. i dunno, this is how i'm using up the rest of my 60k errorplan points (going to mileage plus)..or 25k towards for those f'n expensive yyciah flights (with a stop over in sea yvr sfo den elp)

grandgourmand

I agree. However, what you could try to do is book a RT ticket to SIN or something like that. Or ICN. Or NRT. There have been a few premium fare deals out of YVR to most major cities in Asia on AF/KLM for CAD$3000. I think there was also a pretty cheap JAL flight out of YVR to SIN (with stopover in TYO). Pick a base and then use the 30k Aeroplan RT in J fare from there to go exploring. you can probably hit all your spots on 2 rewards. One I'd definitely try to do is NH in F between SIN and NRT on the 777, although that'd be a few more points.

So let's compare:

$7500 (midpoint of your cash range) and you'd get, I'm just ballparking but 20,000 of some sort miles that are worth $400, so let's just stay $7000 net cost

vs.

$3000 cash fare to Asia base plus 60,000 Aeroplan points for two RT J trips. You value those points at $1200. Plus maybe a couple hundred in fees (not YQ I'm assuming because you're SE). So you're at, say, $4500 of total cost. and then there's the positioning flights, possibly. and you might not put any value on the KLM or AF points earned (maybe AS?).

You don't seem too bothered by the cash cost, so I'd put the $2500 price difference against the convenience of the cash fare, which could allow you to plan your itinerary a lot easier and maybe stick to *A carriers that would help you maintain your SE status (assuming that's a consideration).

Anyhow, that's how I'd look at it.

EDIT, I just noticed you don't like the TATL thing due to timing. So maybe look for one of those TPAC fares. I actually see YYC to NRT for $3k which isn't bad. And you can do a leg on NH on their 777, which is a nice J seat (plus the great service)