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

https://www.hsbc.ca/1/2/personal/ban...ewards-details

HSBC Premier World MasterCard cardholders enrolled in the HSBC Premier World Rewards Program can convert Rewards Points into frequent flyer miles of participating airlines.

To my knowledge, partners as I just said are CX, BA, and SQ. I recall it was a 1:0.9 transfer ratio.

You are not comparing apples to apples. Business class is triple of of economy for long-haul flight, not short-haul flights with Avios. Even after the devaluation, New York-Madrid on Iberia Business class is still only 34,000 miles each way for a return trip of 68,000 miles in transatlantic Business Class without any fuel surcharge. Compared to Aeroplan, which will be asking 110,000 miles + another $900 worth of fuel surcharges, Avios still comes out on top.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/738/2...e4aa83b181.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/718/2...1156bde917.jpg

Also, BA gives up to 300% miles when flying F + another 100% bonus for BA Gold elite members. How many miles can you earn while flying Air Canada on F fares with LH/NH/OZ? Only 150%. Even UA gives more miles for flying based on ticket price paid so for Aeroplan to benchmark itself against United Mileage Plus in terms of redemption but ignoring the much lower earning potential vs. United is a major miscalculation on the part of Air Canada and Aeroplan. Logically, if you are one of the few corporate travellers who can fly paid Business / First Class fares, there is an incentive for you to direct your business to UA since you can book most of AC flights out of Canada using UA code anyway and have UA being the ticket issuer. Considering that UA Mileage Plus doesn't charge fuel surcharge, the decision to stay with Aeroplan vs. UA Mileage Plus if you fly paid Business / First Class fare becomes plainly obvious. This will further push Aeroplan away from being a frequent flyer program into a frequent credit card churning program since earning Aeroplan miles via flying is no where nearly as effective as credit card churning. Over time, the retailers like TD and Esso will notice a drop in customer volume due to these devaluations, forcing them to sweeten the deal, hence we are seeing TD up the ante with the Infinite Privilege card giving a 50K bonus until end of October. The vicious cycle continues but even among sheep, there will likely be a ceiling when and where even the sheep will jump the fence.

Well, no. You are assuming every mile is born equal. They are not. The reason why Asia Miles' pricing is generally above average vs. other partners such as AA, AS or JL is because Asia Miles is too, a frequent shopper program. It is extremely easy to earn Asia Miles, sometimes easily more than 5 miles / $ spent on pretty much everything you spent. Asia Miles also have far more credit card partners worldwide than Aeroplan. They have issuers in Canada, USA, Japan, all over South East Asia and of course, Hong Kong. From a redemption standpoint, the cost of Asia Miles award are not cheap but once you factor in how easy it is to earn Asia Miles via shopping or credit card spending, you almost have to divided their redemption cost by a factor between 1.5 and 3 to get to a comparable cost vs. most North American based FFP. In other words, if you have to spend $100K on your CC to get a return trip in Transatlantic Business Class with Aeroplan whereas the same trip will only require you to spend, say $30K on your CC to get a comparable trip on Asia Miles, which one is cheaper? The opportunity cost is more accurately measured based on how much spending you need to make on your CC vs. the number of miles required since we all know CC spending is the easiest way to earn lots of miles whether it's Aeroplan, Asia Miles, Alaska Mileage Plan or BA/IB Avios.

I wouldn't worry about those last minute equipment change for a few reasons:

1) So long as the segments ex-Japan or ex-China are protected in F, they are the ones that really matter. The shorter hops are less of a concern.

2) CX/KA will pay you a cash compensation (or miles) if they switch equipment on you, even when on award. How much you can get depends on your negotiation power and skill. Speaking for myself, they paid me the fare difference between F and J + $50 USD, after some smooth talking on my part of course. Once you establish a precedent and you know who to talk to, this is no longer a concern. I rather like collecting those fare differences vs. a short hop of little difference in J vs. F, as long as my segments to HND/KIX are protected in actual F, which they always are.

3) You still have F lounge access if they equipment swap on you, they will simply write you a F lounge invitation if necessary and CX F lounges in HKG. If you are OWE, then this is irrelevant.

You are benchmarking against the wrong program even from the perspective of a Canadian flyer. When using Avios, you should always transfer them from BA to IB if you want to fly Transatlantic long-haul in J. Like I said, long-haul J with IB starts at 34,000 miles each way without any fuel surcharge. This is not a secret and people on FT have been doing this for years. It surprises me people in the Aeroplan forum are awfully unaware of a FFP that is widely and easily available in Canada. If you want to redeem within Asia on CX F/J for mid-hauls (greater than 1150 miles but less than 2500 miles each segment), always go with Alaska Mileage Plan. On short-haul flights within Asia (<650 miles), BA Avios is good with Economy starting at only 4500 miles each way or double for Business, still much cheaper than Aeroplan, just get a RBC Visa or HSBC Premier, and you are good to go. Better still, cancel your TD/CIBC Visa, cut it in half, send it back to TD/CIBC with a letter explaining why you are cancelling your card.

Better still, if you have had your Canadian AMEX (those with Membership Rewards) for a while, just borrow a US address from a friend then tell AMEX you plan to relocate to the U.S., they will promptly give you a US based AMEX even without a Social Security number. You can keep both cards if you want, no need to cancel your Canadian AMEX. You can transfer your Canadian MR points to your US Membership Rewards account once a year based on the prevailing exchange rate. But once there, you have far more transfer partners than in Canada, including to SQ. See, there are a million ways to tell Aeroplan to get lost, if one just uses their head and think for a second and stop being a sheep.

Sure, here you go: https://www.hsbc.ca/1/2/personal/ban...ewards-details

The caveat is they are looking for people with $$$. If you qualify, you don't even need to pay an annual fee and the card gives up to 2X points or 1.5X for grocery, gas and drugstores.

Yes, to my knowledge, the only CC in Canada that has a direct transfer option to SQ assuming the SPG transfer does not count as direct transfer. If you transfer to SQ, you can use their miles to fly AC if you so choose to. But then again, why would one want to transfer points to SQ and use them on AC instead of SQ? @:-)

(yes, qualification means that one has to have 6 figures in "stuff" with HSBC - so TFSA's, RRSP's, cash, InvestDirect etc).

And wow. Thanks folks. ^^ (learned something new today)

I have emailed my banker prior to getting this card. I will report back with transfer ratios and participating airlines.

I would assume if you try to make any changes after Dec 15, even only dates, you will be upcharged the new miles. Or just hope for an opportune sched change!

The transfer ratio is 1:1 indeed but BA runs promotions with HSBC times to times. Most recently, they had a 20% transfer bonus until August 31st with HSBC, effectively making the ratio: 1.2 to 1. Grocery, gas and drugstores are also 1.5X like some of the more expensive Aeroplan VISA or AMEX except HSBC Premier World MC has no annual fee as long as you meet the requirements of HSBC Premier account (aka. need to have more than $100,000 with HSBC). They also had a sign up bonus promo of 20K a few months ago, better than most other Aeroplan Visa. If you want to fly SQ Suites or First Class on long-haul aircrafts, you will have to redeem using SQ's own miles.

No, it's 1 to 1 for miles but 1.25 to 1 to use it as cash booking for travels.

Ask them to give you a sign up bonus, the most recent one is for 20K. If he feigned ignorance, ask him to go to their own website and check. If he said the deadline has past, shame him by asking him as a long time customer, why haven't you told me about this before.

Thanks for the tip, and for the thoughtful posts on the election in the other thread :)

Guava, you're revealing a little bit too much ;)

Maybe I am, I am usually very quiet these days after almost 15 years here? Makes me feel old. :o The new sheep need to be herd towards the right direction however or we will soon see 1 million Aeroplan miles to fly to Europe in Y. ;)

I live in Vancouver (as stated under my handle)

The Iberia comparison to JFK you keep using has so many caveats that it's funny.

Requires off season travel.
Additional mileage required if you need to connect at all. Given that we're in Canada, that's a minimum of 4.5k extra if you're on the east coast, or 7.5k from the west coast (YVR to lax in economy), and that's not even counting if you aren't looking to just stay in Barcelona or Madrid.
Pricing only valid on Iberia metal, which means extremely limited destinations.

So for me: CX J to JFK is 37.5k plus your 34k to Madrid is 71.5k. Even if I took economy to JFK that's 46.5k total assuming I want to go to Madrid only.

Heck, Aeroplan doesn't charge yq on Turkish, United, Swiss or Brussels, so why only compare Iberia against Lufthansa? LH surcharges are comparable with BA's

AA has travel partners, credit card partners (with huge sign-up bonuses, like some people getting multiple 100k signups from Citi), dining partners and shopping partners

AS has travel partners, a credit card partner that allowed people to sign up for 5 cards at once up until recently, dining partners and shopping partners.

I don't see Asia miles being materially different to the above, and am certain that AA will go through it's own correction to align more closely to United and delta.

The Asia 1 devaluation is bad, and will requiring shifting the short haul and mid haul to Avios, but Aeroplan is hardly the worst program there.

My family is in Hong Kong so that's where I'll visit the most (remember yq is capped to HKG)

Alaska would be 100k round trip (but with 10 percent cash fare for infants)
Asia miles is 120k roundtrip (infant fare 10 percent cash fare)
United is 140k assuming I fly United, or 160k on partners (10 percent cash fare)
Aeroplan is 150k with $100 flat rate infant fare
Avios is 180k roundtrip plus 10 percent in miles plus 10 percent cash taxes (so 18k plus twenty bucks or so)

Redemption Levels increasing
 

I didn't see this posted anywhere else but effective Dec 15th it will cost you more points to travel in some markets. Intra Asia has basically doubled.



https://www3.aeroplan.com/static/pdf...s-Chart-en.pdf