ChiefNWA

Just curious as this will be my first time redeeming under Aeroplan. Are there zone restrictions when booking a one way J award? The only restriction I've found during my brief research is the MPM restriction.

I'm looking at flying JNB - West Coast US. SFO seems to give me the most flexibility at 16,873 MPM. Would routing via Asia be acceptable in that case? I've found South African JNB-HKG to be open then a few EVA flights or Air China that could work in my favor, all routings coming in around 15K miles or so.

Any other route recommendations that won't impose huge surcharges? I'm not a huge fan of flying SA considering the A343 product is rather mediocre for the 13 hour flight to HKG, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of other Star options out of South Africa since I can't redeem on SQ.

ChrisA330

MPM is the main limitation. The other is you can not connect in the same city more than once in each direction.

Otherwise, the routing is flexible.

There have been recent examples of finding SQ availability - mainly on their A350 routes.

Seat13F_AC_CRJ

Have you looked at LH, LX, TK?

ACYYZ/SD

A less obvious option but have seen an increase in transfer Customers on this route:
>SA JNB-GRU
>AC GRU-YYZ-USA

ChiefNWA

Interesting one. Would I have to book as two awards in order to take advantage of the no fuel surcharge policy for ex-Brazil?

ChiefNWA

^^ Life saver right here. Didn't bother looking at SQ since I figured the 350 was off limits. It is indeed bookable on Aeroplan's website the day I would need it JNB-SIN!

ChiefNWA

I'm going to call Aeroplan after work today to ensure this is bookable, but here is what I'm looking at.

JNB-SIN SQ J (9 hour stop)
SIN-PEK CA J (10 hour stop)
PEK-LAX CA J

MPM checks out and there's no backtracking.

The goal is to eventually swap PEK with TPE and fly either BR or UA back (UA an option due to Polaris lounge access) to LAX, I believe the change fee for that is $100 CAD up to 2 hours prior to departure?

Jasper2009

That routing is indeed valid and you are correct about the change fee.

FlyerTalker70

Out of curiosity, why not JNB->SIN SQ J followed by SIN->LAX SQ J seems more direct albeit depending on your travel goals circuitous routing may be appropriate

-James

Jasper2009

Simple answer: Because SQ blocks award availability in J and F to partners on all flights to the US, as well as on most other long-haul destinations (SIN-JNB is very much an anomaly).

FlyerTalker70

Fare enough! What about a routing like JNB>SIN>NRT>LAX? Looks to be about the same milage as OP posted and he (might) be able to fly NH J and experience the lovely J lounges at NRT instead of the tragic lounge CA has set up in PEK!

-James

Jasper2009

Any reasonably direct routing between the West Coast and South Africa via Asia would work in terms of MPM.

E.g. LAX/SFO-NRT/ICN/PEK-PVG/TPE/HKG-SIN/BKK-JNB

It's just a matter a finding award availability (and to a lesser degree whether you're willing to pay fuel surcharges in return for (potentially) flying a better airline).

ChiefNWA

^ That. If it were available I'd do it. The goal is to eventually end up on Eva as I'd like to have a day (under 24 hours) in Taiwan again, plus I haven't flown Eva before. Air China is just a stop gap in the meantime so that I can secure the SQ space.

ChiefNWA

I'm trying to avoid NH due to the fuel surcharges. BR and to an extent, UA Polaris (for the Polaris lounge on arrival) are my goals. I hope I don't end up flying on CA. It seems UA and EVA get a bit easier on availability close in.

ChiefNWA

So I ticketed the res today. Total came to 75K miles (expected) and $468.20 CAD. Piecing together each segment on Aeroplan's website and adding in the ticketing fee, I'm only getting $286.90. I thought $468 was a little high considering I'm flying on carriers that don't impose fuel surcharges (unless I'm not up to date on that)?