https://www4.aeroplan.com/whats_new/...xxx_2015_09_30

so glad I dumped AC, and these cuts are just the beginning. Penguins cant fly :)

How could this be any worse? 1 million miles to fly to Europe? If you look at the proposed new chart, ex-North America, all the changes are major increases in cost without a single decrease anywhere. How many people are going to care about a decrease from Africa to Australia, seriously? Aeroplan is based in Canada / North America, not Africa. It is doubtful there are many bookings for 290K miles out of Africa to down under to begin with and must fly back to Africa.

10 years later, the Aeroplan crowd is still the same sheep I remember. Easy to please and appease, no wonder Aeroplan can afford these ridiculous inflation at such amazing pace every other year.

Geographically it does make more sense now, and the Europe devaluation was less than I expected, but that intra Asia 1 devaluation is steep...wow

Minor price increases on mini rtw unless you use HKG as the destination, but based on new rules might as well use Perth as turnaround

Edit: actually, India and the Maldives might be better

As a point of clarification -

Do these changes only to come into play based on your date of booking rather than your flight dates? i.e. if I booked a flight today for dates after December 15, 2015, I assume the current mileage levels apply?

Thanks

what do you mean by that?

Well, I'm just as anoyed at the Europe J increase as the next person, but I should point out (hesitantly, as I don't want to give AE any ideas) that Europe 1 Y redemptions have been at 60,000 for as long as I've been redeaming AE miles, which is since the early '90s. And the realignment of Poland into Europe 2 makes more geographical sense, even though it sucks for LOT redemptions. Actually, these changes will probably inspire me to go for Europe 2 redemptions more, as there's a much less jump from Europe 1 now.

Yes, that is correct. For instance, just this week I booked 2 Europe 1 tickets, at the current 90,000 miles level, for next summer. As long as I do not make any changes after the new mileage levels kick in, I will not have to pay the difference; however, if I make a change after December 15, the mileage will be recalculated and I will have to cover the distance. As I managed to book our perfect flights, that won't be happening... :D

Most people use Singapore or Bangkok as turnaround right now, which is 150k

Since they're moving to Asia 2, they're going up to 155k. Therefore the best major city for an Asia 1 mini rtw will be HKG for location and fuel surcharge purposes

There goes the 15K AE points just given to maintain my AMEX Aeroplan CC . :(

Yeah, wow! What a hit that is.

By coincidence, I have an Intra Asia in J (FUK-SIN-HND) booked for early November nested into a Japan trip. I was thinking over the past few days of cancelling the award part to SIN with the rationale that I could book it some time on a future trip.

So much for that theory..keeping my FUK-SIN-HND trip on SQ and NH and going to enjoy burning those 30k miles. Heck, I might even try and fit something else in now as well!

It was, yes.

Wow - these guys are thieves. Another devaluation in just 4 years. At this rate, the next one will be coming in 2019 before the kettles save up for their next award. With the fuel surcharges, the limitations on MPM routings, it no longer makes any real sense to fund this program with your miles. The could have at least added a stopover to one way awards to appease some of the take aways.

The interesting part is, in the US, there are many credit cards where you can earn 4.5 points per dollar on your spend. It's no where near that level in Canada and the sign up bonuses are not as rich. For those that are earning based on credit cards, the point earning power is much weaker north of the 49th parallel.

Damn this sucks for EU! :(
+20k J and 15k F :( I still have yet to fly F from Canada to Germany.

Looks like AMEX will have an increase of applications lol

Damn greedy .......s! They didn't even wanna start in 2016, they want to start just before the Christmas holidays.

Actually, this is the second devaluation in less than 2 years. A change took place in Jan 2014. That time the Asia J/F rewards were crushed...went from 175k to 210k AP points in F, for example.

North America to Asia business class is double the cost of economy, and just under triple for first.

North America to Australia business class is double the cost of economy, and just under triple for first.

I fully expected North America to Europe to go up to those multiples, which would be 120k for J and around 160-170k for F. So yes, as it stands, the devaluation ex-NA was not as bad as I expected (some of it most likely due to elevated YQ collected to Europe). It's more or less in line with United's current chart too.

BA Avios raised business class to TRIPLE the price of economy and first class QUADRUPLE. Up until this year I had benchmarked Aeroplan against BA charges and thought that would be the upper bound of pricing, but now, I fear for the future.

At 200k for a J ticket to Asia, that would be when I will have to tap out and give up

Thanks. I too am booking Europe 1 for next summer in J but Swiss and Turkish haven't opened up yet for July/August.

Given the prices charged by Asia Miles for their own members (HKG-HND in F is 40k one way and 70k roundtrip), AS and AA's award charts are extremely ripe for a devaluation. I don't expect those to last long either, especially if Asia Miles goes through their own further devaluation as expected.

CX has tons of equipment swaps to BKK and SIN, I would not rely on those seats to stick if you book them far out. The only reliable flight is the 747 to HND parked overnight.

This sucks big time

This is where BA points come in handy (to redeem for CX Asia 1 to Asia 1). Although their long haul first/business class awards are even more expensive compared to Aeroplan, their short haul awards are relatively a better deal.

BA uses a distance based award chart as opposed to zone based.

The strategy for those who have a Canadian AMEX Platinum or Gold Rewards card would be to convert AMEX MR points to Aeroplan for your transpacific first/business class flight. For flights within Asia, convert AMEX MR points to BA Executive Club to get the short haul awards.

I can't believe the Asia 1 business rewards cost is increasing 167% (2.67⨉)! I love the current 30K deal. That has to be the biggest one-time increase we've ever seen! :(

They increased my favourite mini-RTW by about 40%, but I was unsurprised that it is finally getting enhanced. For a while I really just thought they didn't know.

Although those points I accidentally threw over to AP this summer (VDBd up from bargain basement 50% fare into 125% fare + cash) now go not as far. Oh well.

Maybe the Asian carriers (OZ, TG, SQ, NH etc.) complained that too many of their own passengers were accruing points on AC as opposed to their own programs? Perhaps this is a move to discourage Asia based flyers from accumulating points on AC?

I suppose if one is used to being robbed, after a while, it doesn't feel so bad:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/563/2...da545bfa72.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5702/...0821b8340c.jpg

Aeroplan charges 60,000 miles + $900 CAD for a return redemption North America-Europe-North America on LH. Assuming each mile is worth $0.02 CAD, that's another 45,000 miles you have to pay in the form of cash co-pay for a total of 105,000 miles. While you may remember the 60K miles level has not changed since as far as you can remember, surely, you can also recall there was no $900 worth of co-pay either back then. The effective mileage cost of such a trip is in fact 105,000 miles even though the base cost didn't change.

Likewise, I posted Iberia Plus redemption as a point of comparison. Iberia Plus and British Airways Executive Club share the Avios program, their equivalent of Aeroplan for which you can transfer your BA miles to IB, one to one. As you know, Canadians have a number of ways of earning BA miles, namely though RBC's Avion Card or the BA co-brand Visa, or through HSBC, or AMEX Rewards or SPG. Essentially, you can earn those Iberia Plus miles simply using your Canadian based BA credit cards, then transfer them 1 to 1 to Iberia without any fee or surcharge and the transfer is instantaneous. More importantly, Iberia does not charge any fuel surcharge on its own metal regardless of your elite status. While my screenshot is in Spanish, they have an English website which you can use to redeem your points, so don't be afraid if you can't read Spanish. So the cost comes to 22,000 miles + $185 USD, which is about 22,000 miles + $240 CAD. Using the same formula, $245 CAD is really worth 12,000 miles most of which is actual taxes that you have to pay anyway. The effective cost of the award is 34,000 miles roundtrip vs. 105,000 miles with Aeroplan.

In a nutshell, even in Y, you are paying more than triple of what would have cost you in miles vs. another frequent flyer program readily available in Canada via numerous other credit cards via RBC, HSBC or AMEX. Not to mention, BA often runs bonus promotions for points transfers from these banks, sometimes up to 50%.

The bottom line is Aeroplan can afford to make these changes by killing the sweet spots of the award chart because it knows the sheep won't do anything about it. They also use backdoor ways to increase the effective award cost without changing the number of miles required in other instances, like return trip to Europe in Y.

Europe 1 to Asia 2 at 105? I thought that was pretty good before the Aeroplan MPM changes

Please explain.
HSBC is my primary financial institution but I've never looked seriously at any of their credit card products.

IMHO Asia 1 - Asia 1 devaluation was just a matter of time.
It was too good to be true.

Personally I'm more disappointed in NA - Europe 1 J going up by 20K.
If it went up by 10K then maybe it was alright, but 20K is a bit too steep.

Come on Aeroplan, show us you can revert devaluation announcements. :)

I believe HSBC transfers to BA, CX, and SQ. SQ :P

They mentioned a new android app, anybody been able to find it? Is it as brutal as the last one?

Searching Aeroplan in the play store, it's currently maybe 10 apps down the list for me. Will go up as more people search for it and download it

One way to avoid the increase is to travel in Y, and on non-YQ carriers if possible :)

Aeroplan is so hooked on collecting money for cheap miles from Credit Card companies, that they have no choice but to inflate rewards. We are paying the price. What AC needs to do, and do so quickly, (indeed I think other airlines as well), is to give proper award charts for Airline earned mileage points, without co-pay.

so glad I burned all of my AP miles in June on a last minute flight from NCE-YYZ for 30K :D, no more AP credit cards for me unless they give me a 20-30% bonus sign up.

WAIT. Full stop.

Which one? I can't seem to find this. I've been a Premier customer with HSBC for years and I've never been told about this. Please elaborate - thank you.

It could have been worse, there could be either blocking or inflating reward costs for peak season. That would have hurt.

I was going to say "I haven't received any notice", but it came in while I was distracted away from this thread.

I don't think it's the NUMBER of miles, but the PRICE.

If the airline wants $400 for a NA-Europe1 flight in J, and you're selling miles at 0.8 cents each, you're losing money.

If they charged their partners more for the miles, they wouldn't need to do this. Their desired profit seems pretty obvious looking at the value of gift cards and toasters. They want the same thing on flights.

As for the new Android app, I'm disappointed they don't have Google login :p But other than that, it's actually quite nice. There are a few things I'd change (the app icon being the most obvious), but it seems to do its job fairly well. I may have to retire my app (or at least the Aeroplan component).

Can this really be blamed on credit cards, considering that conventional wisdom suggests that the vast majority of redemptions are for domestic/TB Y?

I'd wager that people booking premium longhauls RTWs probably earn as a result of FF activity, not signing up for Aerogold (although of course, yes, some do it through the latter route). And it's more than likely that they represent a tiny percentage of overall AE redemptions anyway.

I think due to my expenses on CCs I earn about 50:50 flying/charging. And the 50% flying is about 50:50 status v/s bonus miles earned. So true flown miles are at best 25% of my total. That doesn't include the Amex MR points some of which I occasionally transfer to Aeroplan.

I have been buying "toasters" and gift cards with Diner's points.

I was planning to do a mini-RTW late next year with an Intra Asia 1 in J nested in the trip. I currently don't know the dates, but would it be a good idea to just book the Intra Asia 1 now (or before Dec 15) and change the dates later?

I think so. But your city pair probably need to remain the same, while date changes should be alright. Just my 2 cents on that.

HSBC premier world MasterCard has travel partners, but it seems like you need to log in to see what the rates are. I expect it to be 1:1, but no guarantee