Westwood818

I have been successfully booking Rewards flights on Business Class for YYZ–MNL every Christmas for the past few years. I usually book a year in advance.

For December 2016, the released rewards flights are either a Business/PE/Economy combination or Business with 2 stopovers. None of them is appealing to me right now.

We all know that EVA Air only releases its Business Class rewards seats 2 weeks before the scheduled flight. EVA Air is my first choice for obvious reasons.

Per the Aeroplan Contact Centre, Air China has not yet released its rewards dates and Aeroplan does not know when that will happen.

I think my best option right now is to book the best available flight and pay the change fee once a better one comes along.

Does anybody have any insider information as to the release dates of Aeroplan rewards for December 2016? In addition, what time are they exactly released in the system? Any information is greatly appreciated.

TIA.

jerryhung

Nobody knows as it's between 355 days to T-1

I do see space YYZ-IST-TPE already for X'mas 2016
so you may want to check TK availability

Westwood818

Thanks, Jerry! Unfortunately, there are no available business class TK rewards flights for YYZ-IST-MNL for Dec 17-22.

Last month, I took Turkish Airlines and was very impressed with its soft product. The food and service were excellent!

alc

for Dec 17 YYZ-MNL - I see:

AC 7581 - YYZ-ORD J (1hr 43min)
NH 11 - ORD-NRT F ((13hr 15min)
NH 819 - NRT-MNL J (5hr 00min)

107,500 Miles + $365.06 (non SE account)

I haven't been on NH F before, hence not sure if getting F for 13 hours worth it or not.

Consider there is no F for YYZ-ORD and NRT-MNL, this is as good as you can get if you want go to MNL from YYZ in "as much F as possible". (F seat I meant here ) But there is only 1 reward seat in F for NH 11 and 1 in J for NH 819, not sure how many seats you are looking for.

For return on Dec 22, I do see the 2 stops in J with both TK (777) & AC (788), while it is a long journey, but you get to be on both TK and AC and transit in IST (3hr 20min connection), it might not be bad either. There are 2 rewards seats in J for this route.

TK 85 - MLN-IST (13hr 30min)
{Connecting - 3hr 20min)
TK 1783 - IST-CPH (3h 20min)
{Connecting - 1hr 5min)
AC 883 - CPH-YYZ (8h 00min)

77,500 Miles + $187.30 (non SE account)

Hope this help.

Westwood818

Thanks so much, alc! Sorry for the confusion, my return is not until January 2017. I put the dates Dec 17-22 as my outbound dates. I'm a little flexible but I want to be definitely in MNL by Christmas Day.

I would love to fly NH F. But, I'm a little short on points. Also, based on experience, I'd rather only have 1 stopover. Too many things can go wrong with 2 stopovers especially during that time of the year. One Midwest snowstorm can mess up my entire itinerary.

I'm seriously considering whether I can sit in PE for close to 14 hours for this itinerary:

AC61 YYZ-ICN PE (13hr 50min)
OZ703 ICN-MNL Business (4hr 10min)

One advantage of it is, it has the shortest total travel time of 21hr 30min with only 1 stopover. It's also a noon flight, so I think my body clock can still be awake for another 12 hours.

One other option I'm considering is one with a longer layover, say in LHR, (even with 2 stopovers) where I can leave the airport and make a mini-tour out of it. I'm familiar with London, so I know how to get in and out of the airport.

However, when Air China releases its rewards flights, I think I would rather have a YYZ-PEK-MNL on Business Class. So, I'm monitoring the site everyday. Then, as I get closer to my departure date, I'll see if I can switch it to EVA Air. Fingers crossed.

For the return, in my experience, I have a good chance of getting an EVA Air flight on Business Class since I'm also flexible with my return dates. This just happened to me last week. I had a TK flight MNL-IST-YYZ. But, I was able to easily switch it last minute to EVA Air - MNL-TPE-YYZ. So, I'm hoping same thing can happen next year.

Thanks again!

alc

I was actually questioning why you only want to stay MNL for a few days only, but thought it is none of my business on this so I didn't question it

Something I learn today while looking up your flight in the afternoon is that EVA YYZ-TPE is not a daily flight, they do not operate on Thurs and Sat. On the TPE-YYZ, they do not operate on Wed and Fri. Dec 17 is a Sat, so if you are looking for YYZ-TPE, do not have high hope.

Good Luck.

Westwood818

Hi alc! Yes, there is no EVA Air Saturday flight out of YYZ. So I've taken the Sunday flight at 01:30 which I consider to be part of Saturday evening anyway. It actually works out very well since it's an overnight flight and arrives in TPE at 06:00. I then take advantage of the wonderful lounge in TPE (breakfast & shower) and get ready for my TPE-MNL flight which leaves at 09:30 and arrives in MNL at 11:50. The timing is perfect since I get adjusted to the local time very quickly.

If remember correctly, the YYZ-TPE outbound flights are on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Thanks again!

musicscrip

If you are looking to redeem this Dec's business class, EVA released A LOT of reward seats in business class until end of Dec. We just redeeemd aeroplan points for 6 tickets in business class YYZ-TPE round trip. LOVE LOVE LOVE EVA!