CanadaDH

You spent 75k miles, to book a one-way Business class reward, that only includes less than 4 hours in an actual business class seat, as part of a 5-segment 45-hour journey? What did your sister do to deserve this punishment?

expert7700

as a datapoint trying to get a trip booked for next week and having horrible luck. two agents thus far and there are now notes on our ticket which will prevent HUCA from working.

for example, at the end of the trip, they won't let us book pek-yvr-yyz if aeroplan doesn't show/suggest the particular flights as an option from pek.

several of the routes it DOES show us are denied as "phantom inventory as they have 2 systems that are not synced." one example is a nonstop pek-yyz that does show for us, but gave them only 2 of 5 sests. she was then dumbfounded when it still let us finish ticketing 5 on a separate ticket (as if we want to spend double the points...)

we used up our one open jaw OR one stopover earlier in the trip, so we can't test booking it to yvr then later try to add a leg to yyz....

WildcatYXU

I have another data point. I just booked an one-way J reward from YYZ to KSC on AC, LX and LO. A fairly simple itinerary, but it still had to be stitched together manually. The routing is YYZ - YUL - ZRH - WAW - KSC. The agent on the phone had absolutely no objections and she was able to book it without problems.

CanadianMike

To clarify: you found each segment available on AE site and called in to book?

But good to hear, sounds like you got really lucky...

WildcatYXU

Here's what happened: I found the YUL- ZRH - WAW - KSC route online. I needed to add the YYZ - YUL flight to it. So I called in. I explained what I want to the agent. She said OK and placed me on hold. After a short hold she came back and said she can't find the described YUL - KSC routing and asked for specific segments. I gave her the segments, she placed me on hold again. After few minutes she picked up the phone again and said that there is a 45 minute CNX at ZRH and said she has to verify it. After few minutes she came back again and said that this connection is legal and she switched to booking mode, including the YYZ - YUL segment I asked for. I'm not really happy about the short International -> Schengen CNX at ZRH (albeit I have done this before), but LX87 arrives at 06:15, so if the passenger misses the CNX, he's still has a good chance to get to KSC without problems. Also, the passenger, our younger son, is an experienced traveler so he knows what to do in case he'd miss the CNX.
The whole booking experience was exactly the same as a year ago when I was booking the tickets to KSC for Mrs. Wildcat and myself.

don_drapper

Currently calling Aeroplan to update my mRTW. 1h20 and counting as I am waiting for a CSR. I can almost confirm that calling in French does not improve your waiting time.

RZR

Apologies for probably a simple question. Is the following valid for reward itin. I don;t have much experience with booking rewards of this nature and Aero site "says" not valid

LAS - YUL stop
YUL - FRA stop
AMS - LAS end

canadiancow

No. One stopover or open jaw. Not both.

jugaadkabaap

Reporting couple of interesting DP's / observations regarding AE redemptions post Amadeus

• Modifying 2 stop MRTW (old rules) post Amadeus doesn't cause change in tax / fees. Somehow system maintains old fees. (no addition / reduction) - multiple DP's
• Somehow MPM is not enforced - i personally know 3-4 bookings done by close friends / contacts where the MPM is exceeded but ticketing was done without any hiccups - this is for segment stitched routing after multiple HUCA
• Most interesting one - 2 days back one of my good friends was allowed to have a FREE upgrade to F on a J redemption (no additional miles). Trying best to figure out what on earth made this happen. Guessing an agent override / agent error.

Edit :

Adding one more DP - A recent DP of exceeding 16 segment / tix rule; the pax called in and asked to add 2 segments (terminal) to an existing mrtw. Agent added those segments and that effectively made the booking to a 18 segment one (albeit 2 of them are married segments)

don_drapper

Well, for what it is worth, I can DP that changing mine booked under the old rules did cause a tax and fees recalculation. Speaking of which, I need to call them to figure out where my refund for previous fees are.

jugaadkabaap

was this recently ? I had tax recalculated on my 2 stop change done the day before migration but couple of folks who modified it in the last 2-2.5 weeks weren’t charged extra.

regarding the tax refund - the new charge they list is above & over the prior charges.

example I had a dummy itinerary booked prior to rule change which was a simple YUL - IST RT; I got it changed to a 14 segment mrtw in October.

They agent told the previous tax will be refunded and new tax will be charged (this was what used to happen) - however my refund was partial so I escalated and got someone from their ticketing call me after 2 weeks & we went through every bit.

their automated system had sent me wrong tax calc in email but actual tax charged was correct - cross verified it with GDS so it’s accurate.

i was told that taxes and charges that existed in both itineraries are preserved and others are refunded or added.

so partial refund was for the charges that were no
longer needed for my revised itinerary but they retained some of it as it overlapped with my revised itinerary.

don_drapper

Called in first week of January. Representative told me that they would refund 350$ of my previous taxes (out of 470$ if I recall correctly), and charge 880$ + change fees (223$). I paid the full amount right on the spot and asked the rep again and confirmed it should be done automatically. For what it's worth, the person who finalized my booking was not the same who started it, and I have one segment that goes over the 24h rule.

Eitherway, I will have to call-in and figure whats going on because that means that, if it was legit charges (which they are not, cause each segment one by one comes to 800-900$ max based on each segments cost with YQ and taxes), there was clearly a calculation error or something that wasn't done properly. My booking is interesting at 880$ plus fees, but at 1350$, I would have chose other flights. If thats actually not an error, I will have a long conversation on the phone because it was essentially misleading. I had other options for flights and went with this because it was a right balance between time and cost, but now it definitely shifts the other way.

jugaadkabaap

Are you flying LH, AC, OZ, OS, NH or CA ?

if not, I can’t figure how it will result in so much YQ even if you do a 16 segment milk run

don_drapper

Three AC segments (YOW-YVR-NRT - YUL-YOW), Four OZ segments (NRT-ICN-SYD-ICN-PVG), 2 LH segments (TXL-FRA-VCE) and the rest is all no YQ. I was expecting YQ to be relatively high, and I am fine with it given my travel dates, but at some point jumping from airport to airport was just not efficient. It was more worth it for me to pay YQ on OZ and AC than to do a routing though BKK and have segments in Y over J.

EDIT: For what it worth, the "tax breakdown" on Aeroplan says a total tax amount of 975$, 480$ of it being YQ. I currently paid Aeroplan (in total) 1300$, plus change and booking fee. The refund should bring me inline with what was shown on the ticket, and of what the rep told and charged me for.

jugaadkabaap

not surprised. I will say this YQ calc isn’t exorbitant.

that Yvr - nrt alone has 123-128$ yq