yikes. intra japan flights were 20K? that's just stupid and now 40k?

Yup. Not as glorious as Avios @ 4,500 but some destinations, like Ishigaki, aren't served by JAL mainline so ANA is the only way. Hrmmmmmmm

Thinking about doing the same with a transfer of SPG points that I've had sitting around for a while.

Haven't booked Aeroplan or been through a devaluation before - if I book pre-deval and have to make changes, are they of the UA mindset (during the most recent devaluation) where you can keep the old price or will it be re-priced.

Don't have my Europe days firmed up so I'm putting in some guess-work and want to know how flexible I can be (or if I need to be pretty accurate and just risk an extra night or two somewhere in Europe).

United is 10k miles roundtrip within Japan (16k if over 800 miles), and with a stopover+openjaw to boot :p
But it has to be booked over the phone. 40k is ridiculous.

like other's i've also been focused on the Europe J award and intra-Asia J inflation...but the North America to "southern" South America region, or whatever it's called in J also went up 16% or so. That's a tough one because its not only costing more points, but the YQ is horrific, out of Chile for example. I guess the UA option is still pretty good to have.

Just booked and used up all my Aeroplan points for a trip next August. Had to buy some to do the 210000 cost for 2 people in business. Strange that the wait on the phone was less than 3 minutes on a regular line. Agent was very helpful and we went through several scenarios to reduce the "taxes and fees". Routing is CDG - CMB (stop) - CMB - SIN - HAN (stop) - HAN - BKK (stop) - BKK - CDG. Airlines are Turkish, Singapore, Thai, Turkish. Scam charges are $313 CAD per person which is acceptable. Lots of availability on Turkish with no scam charges. Lots on Thai with big scam charges. Glad to be out of the race!

Agreed. Absolutely ridiculous considering you can book one way economy flights in Japan easily for 10,800 yen or so (using flightpass or ANA experience Japan).

Hmm...let me think here. Tokyo to say Miyazaki and back for 40,000 AE or just pay $245 Canadian and be done with it (and earn 1000 miles with the revenue fare)

I think the funniest part to me is how in the email they sent they claim the reason for the devaluation is because "Aeroplan has the cheapest redemption cost of all frequent flyer programs in Canada"

That's like an only child claiming to be their parents' favourite child. I mean it's technically true but really not a qualification at all lol.

Frequent Flyer programs in Canada don't have to be Canadian. Aeroplan is cheaper than Avios, in some cases. It is more expensive, generally, than AA (which you can collect on Westjet). Either way, it's a false statement.

I'm pretty sure they were claiming "Canadian" though, like any patriotic Canadian would use a different country's airline FFP!

Exact quote:

"In 2014, members required fewer miles to travel than they would have with any other loyalty program in Canada", bolding by me.

I think many people are basing what they think will happen post Dec. 15 on their past booking experience, which I think is a dangerous assumption. It's obvious from this most recent reward chart devaluation that Aeroplan is specifically targeting areas where customers perceive the value is greatest. The more popular a reward is, the greater is the point inflation - the pattern is loud and clear. Aeroplan is betting on that the price elasticity of Aeroplan customers is fairly inflexible and that the price hike will not affect the demand very much. But seriously, who in their right mind will pay 80K in J for a return trip within Asia when the booking system pretty much limits what routing you can or cannot take to fairly short distances to begin with?

Following the same logic, it stands to reason many of the practices that members find useful such as being able to connect via IST (Europe 2) on the way to Europe 1, YQ elimination trick once the trip has begun, or rebooking an existing based reservation on pre-devaluation prices - all of them are at risk. We just don't know what will happen but we do know Aeroplan is aware of those as they are openly discussed here in this very forum and chances are, if they want to, they can put a stop to them without notice.

If anyone wants to speculatively book trips for next year prior to December 15, I think they should be mentally prepared to fork additional miles when and if they make a change because past performance doesn't guarantee future outcome and given that Aeroplan has never promised you can change pre-December 15 award at the old price post December 15.

When US Airways Dividends Miles disappeared earlier this year, AA gave written notices that awards issued by US Airways will be carried over to AA and that AA rules will apply. There were a number of significant differences between US and AA in that US allowed stopovers on award whereas AA did not. AA allowed free changes as long as origin and destination do not whereas US would charge $150 even just to change the time of a flight. To deal with these obvious contradictions, AA said awards booked under US terms will be honored, so they can keep their stopover(s) without charge and if they need to make changes, AA rules will apply and that is no fee for changes that do not involve change to origin and destination. I can confirm that AA kept their words because I have a US booking that has a stopover but needs to be re-issued due to outbound date change, not a problem. The fact AC never gave any such assurances is a cause for concern or someone should ask them on facebook or twitter to get them to come clean before December 15.

You should write to AC/Aeroplan and ask them for a written reply. It's more useful than asking the question here that no one seems to have a firm answer either way.

Lan Chile, of Oneworld and AA, do not charge any YQ to/from Americas. That's true even using Avios or Asia Miles. More good reasons to reconsider Aeroplan if you travel often to South America.

If, as some here believe, YQ is passed on to the operating carrier, then AE has no incentive to address YQ elimination tactics as it costs them nothing. In fact AE should attempt to acquire more award inventory from YQ-free carriers as it only improves their value proposition to the customer.

don't you just call up BAEC and book flights that JAL Transocean Operates? I was fairly sure that avios could be used on the three regional jal carriers.

Except that its not - its passed to the ticketing carrier - and that ticketing carrier (AC) is very happy to impose the charges on AE, leaving AE with no choice but to collect them.

Thanks, looks like I'll have to learn how Avios works.