RandomBaritone

Does AC ever release saver J award seats YYZ<>DEL? I'm planning a BOS<>DEL trip for 2017, and I've heard fairly good things about AC's 789 service to DEL. In fact right now AC J is so cheap -- $3K round-trip -- that I'm thinking of just buying the seats outright and keeping my miles.

But if I do choose to use miles, will BOS>YYZ>DEL ever be an option? I've been checking *A saver J availability for weeks, and while there's LH/LX/TK/AI as far as the eye can see -- and occasional UA when booked close-in -- I've never found a single AC saver J seat.

I'd be using either UA miles or transferring AmEx MR points into my Aeroplan account, though from what I've learned the currency doesn't matter: *A availability is the same across airlines, only the number of miles changes.

Thanks!

alc

Random Dates in May 2017

Stranger

I don't believe that Aeroplan has saver awards.

But indeed for $3000 I would not go for abn award anyway. 150,000 miles plus surcharges just is not worth it.

alc

To provide a bit more info on what Stranger respond, looking at the random dates that I selected above, to purchase it, the price will be about CAD $4000, which is ~USD $3000.

The surcharge on the Aeroplan Ticket is CAD $1,321.34 (see screen shot for breakdown)

So, you are using 150K Aeroplan (or your AMEX MR in this case) to save ~CAD $2500 / ~USD 1900, hence it is not worth it.

If you are going to use your UA MP, you do not need to pay the high surcharge, might only be ~USD $100 in fee. But when I did a search for the exact same dates, the Air Canada option does not show up, so you might need to call UA MP in order book this under the Saver Award, not sure if you have status with UA to waive any booking fee.

I make sure I did the above search from a non-status AC/AP account. So, maybe you can try calling them with the above dates that I got and see if they can indeed ticket it.

Good Luck.

mountaingrl

You can't be looking very hard. I picked a random date YYZ-DEL in March and found a business seat. Obviously you need to look YYZ-DEL return and find the BOS-YYZ leg separately and feed an agent your dates if you can't build with multi-city (if you want to fly AC for a reward, but $3000 is a great price for a revenue ticket).

alc

That was my first reaction too until I try to do the search on UA and that is when I think OP is doing all the search on the UA and those Air Canada options are not showing up for some reason.

RandomBaritone

I assure you I did! But as alc guessed below, I was using UA's *A award search tool, which is phenomenal in most cases.

Question: would the fact that I was looking for BOS<>DEL have tripped me up? AC wouldn't have a problem flying someone BOS>YYZ>DEL and back for 150K Aeroplan miles, would they? I know for example that BA charges for each segment, but I don't believe AC does.

I had never heard that AC isn't routinely bookable using UA's online award search tool, but now I know. LO and SQ awards are similarly not available via UA's online search.

Now that I know awards on AC aren't as stingy as I'd feared, I may go ahead and use my AmEx MR points for my spouse's ticket and buy mine. Thanks for all the great information. Let me know if you think of anything else helpful.

CrownRoyalForever

I can't figure out a rhyme or reason but had the same problem searching for YYZ-DEL J space.

But I also noticed it in the past on flights like YYZ-ORD where Aeroplan would show YYZ-YXU-ORD but United would not.


Cheers

agjil

I never knew India was also a crazy YQ destination.
I thought Europe was the worst but India seems to be pretty close.

rankourabu

AC has a pretty nice scam going too, if you fly AC to a destination with lower YQ, and onwards on AI to India (no YQ due), they will still charge you the $1166 India YQ instead of what's just due to AC metal

RandomBaritone

And just to repeat my question, since it's kind of buried: if I call AC and book the award by phone, they wouldn't have a problem flying someone BOS>YYZ>DEL and back for 150K Aeroplan miles, would they? I know for example that BA charges for each segment, but I don't believe AC does.

So much easier and cheaper having the whole trip on one PNR rather than only being able to book YYZ<>DEL as an award. I'm hoping not to have to pay cash for the BOS positioning legs.

alc

Correct, 150K for a BOS-YYZ-DEL Round Trip. If you book it by phone, you will need to pay the booking fee (~$35 I think) If the flights show up on the AP web site, you can just book it online to avoid that fee.

BTW, I am not familiar with the AMEX MR in US, can you also offset any travel related transaction at 1000 AMEX MR = USD$10.00? If so, it might be better to just purchase the ticket at ~USD $3000 and use your planned 150K AMEX MR to offset it the charge. It does sound like you pay ~$400 more, but you also get points (from your credit card charge) and miles (for flying revenue ticket), so it might be about the same and help your spouse build some status too. Just a thought.

RandomBaritone

Interesting idea, but he doesn't really need status, as he flies only a small percentage of what I do -- and when he does, it's usually with me. Plus, the 1¢/point redemption value would rankle when I could get 2¢/point value by using the points for his actual ticket. But thanks for thinking outside the box. Much appreciated.

mountaingrl

My comment about searching for YYZ-DEL was meant to help you find reward availability for the TATL leg first - and then find BOS-YYZ as a reward - and then call the AC agent to book the entire trip as one PNR. Aeroplan does a great job at not showing you all of the available routes so often best to find segment by segment and then call in to book the reward.

RandomBaritone

Excellent, thanks. Sounds like a good strategy.

Another question: my understanding was that a large co-pay/fuel surcharge would apply if I flew certain *A airlines ... but that if I flew LX, TK, UA, or AC the charges would be modest. But when I checked a few AC routings just now, there appeared to be massive co-payments in every case.

Of course it is very possible I was doing something wrong! Roughly what should I expect the co-pay on a round-trip BOS<>DEL award to be? How about on two one-way awards instead?