WWannabe

I appreciate the help, thank you. I'm seeing the Oct 3 flight too. Just griping about Aeroplan, mostly. Used to be you could get non-stop flights, now it sees impossible, a few years back it seemed easy to use miles, now, not so much!

I'm going to wait a while and see if something on Oct 2 opens up.
And yes, I'm looking for 2 seats. I flew from Toronto to Papeete once before in one day, and it's a very long day, with something like a 5 hour layover in Tom Bradley--not pleasant.

Adam Smith

Supply and demand, I think. If one could get hold of the figures, I feel fairly confident that, over the period you're thinking of, Air Canada's capacity (i.e. supply of seats) has grown far less than the amount of miles issued by Aeroplan (which translates to demand for seats), even adjusting for the periodic devaluations of miles.

Bartolo

I did something similar on a trip to New Zealand many years ago. AE would only provide seats to LAX on a flight with a long layover, 5+hr layover at LAX. Took a shuttle to a local hotel and had a delightful lunch on the patio of a restaurant near hotel followed by a walk. Shuttle back to airport and went to lounge. Time flew by.

Anywhere across the Pacific is a long journey.

steveholt

I recently found EWR-YVR-SYD availability for next March with flat beds on each leg on AC metal. I was pleasantly surprised.

grandgourmand

With Aeroplan you need to figure out if the system works with your most likely travel habits. If I was regularly looking at YYZ-LAX or YYZ-YVR or YYZ/YVR-LHR etc...planning on point redemptions might not make the most sense. Popular routes that AC can dominate just won't be as available using points. In these cases, find a different program (although your reference to AA is kind of weird...availability of their sAAver rate awards on domestic routes is worse than Aeroplan's by a wide margin) or pay cash and use some sort of card strategy to make your travels more enjoyable/lower cost.

Alternatively, use your points for destinations where it is possible to use Aeroplan points pretty easily. Europe is pretty easy in business class. OS is wide open these days ex-YYZ, but at higher fees. LH can be done last minute VERY easily, but again high fees. AC can be pretty easy to some destinations. LX ex-YUL can be really easy to get with some planning. TK via IST is a nice and readily available option with low fees, but is a roundabout way. Asia is also very easy, on AC and others (e.g. BR) or several others if you are OK connecting via the US. Generally, they are lower fees destinations as well.

For all the complaints about Aeroplan, if you know what you're doing it can be amazing. I just redeemed for 4 business class tickets from SIN-YYZ next March (very convenient schedule). It took some work and a lucky bounce (BR availability opening up) but those points have really opened up some amazing travel opportunities for my family.

ACYYZ/SD

As the one area of the world that I travel to and utilize miles most, I would say bar none, Air New Zealand is the most challenging carrier to find space availability on - anywhere.

Bartolo

Agree but when one does, it's amazing in F. AF F is also next to impossible unless you are in their program (not a partner's).

WWannabe

Well easy if you want to plan your travel depending on points availability. That's not my plan. I thought YYZ-LAX would be a decent way of using up points, my bad I guess.

As for AA, what was weird about what I said? All I said was that I collect miles. That's because our travel patterns are not always out of YYZ, but out of Florida, and we've travelled in recent years on BA and Cathay from there. We collect Delta because of our travel on AF, mostly to Tahiti, but also from Toronto to Paris. (A lot of this is because we like PE, and for long trips will choose the airline that has this class of travel.) I just wish there was a way of consolidating different plans--that continues to be the holy grail for me.

Well then that just means that Aeroplan is less viable, right? It's not delivering on its claims.

segacs

OP, you sound like my father. He switched from Aeroplan to Avion several years ago because Aeroplan just wasn't meeting his travel needs anymore. He's not a frequent flyer, but he used to rack up a ton of AP points via credit card spending. And then when it came time to redeem them, he could never find anything on his dates for his destinations for him and my mother. Not to mention the high YQ charges. (He never had any kind of status.)

Because he had specific travel needs infrequently and without much flexibility, the program's benefits weren't that useful to him and its drawbacks were considerable. So he switched. With Avion, he still earns considerable points through credit card spending, but then he just applies them to whatever flight he wants to book. For some people, the redemption rate might be lower. But for him it's probably higher, since he can actually use the points.

You may want to look into a program like that as an alternative, if Aeroplan isn't serving your purpose anymore.

grandgourmand

I admit that I don't look at YYZ-LAX too often. But if that's a frequent need for you, then Aeroplan might not be a good option since they limit availability so much. My comparison to AA was simply to point out that they are no better, possibly worse. Any time I've looked for sAAver domestic availability, it's been extremely limited. "Weird" was not a good choice of words.

There are two ways that get you close to consolidating plans:
1) Switch to a travel cash back card. Avion is sort of that way. But there are others where you can get 2% cashback on your purchase applicable to travel. Might as well get a straight up cashback (i.e. not just applicable to travel). In that case, you're simply reducing your costs
2) Move your spending to a flexible points program. Unfortunately, in Canada, there are limited choices. SPG is great, but won't be around in two years. If you're in the US, do you have US credit cards? Chase Ultimate Rewards, US Amex all seem to be better optoins than what we have here.

Aeroplan is both extremely frustrating and extremely rewarding. The extremely rewarding requires flexibility and effort. If you're not willing to put up with those headaches (not judging, many people aren't) then your gut instinct to move on from AP might be the right one.

WWannabe

Your mother. We are high-end travellers, typical retired boomers who spend quite a hefty amount on travel. Most of my points are from travel spending, although I do use my Amex now for a few other things. But we only travel a couple of times a year.

No, YYZ-LAX is not frequent. Done it a few times over the years, to take trips to Tahiti, of all places.

I have a US credit card, but can't get others, since I'm not a resident (my US card is RBC, i.e., Royal Bank of Canada US.) I'll look around next summer when my Amex comes up for renewal.

I usually pay for travel with Amex Gold, since I get points, and then transfer them to Aeroplan (or Airmiles, lol, which is useless). Or I can keep the reward points and use them for travel booked with Amex, which is also pretty useless, but not completely I guess. Don't think you can use a combo of points and cash, and they don't book PE online--I asked them about this, and they said to just book economy and then phone them. Yeah, right. Just looked and I would need almost 200K points pp to book Biz to L.A.

I only mentioned AA because I have these useless points and would love to use them some day. My husband had status on AA for a couple of years, which meant priority boarding and some upgrades, but doubt that's available now. I guess I should look at flights to Florida for my son--that might work.

(Edited to add that I have enough points on either AA or Delta to get my son to Florida in March, which is great.)

1Newflyer

It is certainly challenging to find award flights that are convenient and direct. I had historically spent lots of time to match the availability with my needs. But despite these challenges I was able to book trips to Europe and then connect to Asia and even Oceania for the last many years. And I don't start in YYZ which should be easy in comparison to starting in the west. I always use the 3 stops on my trips. I would not change my AP membership to other points as these still provide a better options for Business travel with multiple stops. Need to be flexible as you apparently are. Keep on looking.

alc

OP, I see lots of rewards J seats available for Oct 21. 2 flights (AC792 & AC786) have up to 8 rewards J seats released. AC792 is B789, hence, I would suggest grab these 2 seats for your trip now (i.e. book a one-way return, which will save you some tax/fee as well)

WWannabe

Thanks. Don't want to fly Oct 21 if I can help it. I see the 20th is available too, but would really rather fly on 19th (or even 18th redeye) Flying two days after our return from Tahiti would leave us hanging around L.A. with not much to do (visit friends and family, but.) Plus no sense booking one-way if I can't get the other, if you know what I mean. I agree AC792 looks like a good flight.

I'm going to wait a while and keep looking. Thanks for all the help.

Adam Smith

What's wrong with booking a one-way? The cost of a one-way Aeroplan booking is equal to 50% of the round-trip cost. If you like what you can get in one direction, you can book Aeroplan that way, then buy a revenue ticket the other direction. Or sit around and wait to see what opens up and either book a second one-way Aeroplan ticket.

You could also book a round trip Aeroplan award, but continue monitoring the leg you don't like to see if something better opens up later, then make a change at that time.