Aug 12, 2020, 12:02 am
Last edit by: Adam Smith
You must call in for stopovers, multi-city, or complicated routings, until the new booking system launches in 2021.
I hope others will significantly improve this wiki!
There are four zones: North America (inc Central), South America, Atlantic (including India and Western Russia), Pacific (inc Eastern Russia) and the chart is based which one you start from and which one you end up in, there's ten of these.
Cost is based on distance, which zone pair your flight is in, which class you are flying in.
Partner airlines (again) are a better deal because while Air Canada will calculate cost on a wide ranges but partner airlines are fixed to the bottom of the range.
YQ is eliminated. There's a 39 CAD fee for booking a ticket which contains a flight on a partner airline. Aside from this, there's no incentive any more to book a return flight it seems and every incentive not to.
Note: The partner booking fee is refundable, so it's basically a YQ, rather than a booking fee.
Most flights are devalued. However, the elimination of YQ sweetens this significantly. Within North America, a lot of flights became cheaper, YVR-HNL very significantly. YVR-TYO is much cheaper while YVR-AKL is a little cheaper.
A vastly more powerful booking system is promised for 2021.
There are a lot of new tricks to be learned. https://princeoftravel.com/blog/new-aeroplan-flight-rewards/ is a good start.
Information that is harder to find:
I hope others will significantly improve this wiki!
There are four zones: North America (inc Central), South America, Atlantic (including India and Western Russia), Pacific (inc Eastern Russia) and the chart is based which one you start from and which one you end up in, there's ten of these.
Cost is based on distance, which zone pair your flight is in, which class you are flying in.
Partner airlines (again) are a better deal because while Air Canada will calculate cost on a wide ranges but partner airlines are fixed to the bottom of the range.
YQ is eliminated. There's a 39 CAD fee for booking a ticket which contains a flight on a partner airline. Aside from this, there's no incentive any more to book a return flight it seems and every incentive not to.
Note: The partner booking fee is refundable, so it's basically a YQ, rather than a booking fee.
Most flights are devalued. However, the elimination of YQ sweetens this significantly. Within North America, a lot of flights became cheaper, YVR-HNL very significantly. YVR-TYO is much cheaper while YVR-AKL is a little cheaper.
A vastly more powerful booking system is promised for 2021.
There are a lot of new tricks to be learned. https://princeoftravel.com/blog/new-aeroplan-flight-rewards/ is a good start.
Information that is harder to find:
- SE IKK redemption from the old program can be changed ("within reason") without repricing. Dates, routings, no problem. Origin/destination should be fine. But nothing that would have required a repricing under the old program. This is from Mark Nasr in https://www.facebook.com/pointsmiles...44878252851420
- The "Activity" page only shows you the most recent ~48 transactions. See this post for information on how to get older data.
- A partial refund may not be possible (e.g. if you book RT and outbound flight is cancelled by you or AC, to delete the first flight segment, you have to cancel the entire ticket and rebook the inbound at a potentially higher fare. It seems supervisor can grant exceptions.)
2020 Air Canada Aeroplan Program
Feb 6, 2021, 10:45 am
#1231
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,358
You can use AC, UA, or any other source you want to find availability.
For the price, just use gcmap.com to calculate your route's distance, and look it up in the Aeroplan chart.
Feb 6, 2021, 8:13 pm
#1233
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: YYJ
Programs: Aeroplan,Alaska,Airmiles
Posts: 265
If there is an Air Canada segment in a multi leg partner award, is there a way to know what it will price at prior to calling in and feeding the agent the flights? This tool isn't available on line yet?
Feb 7, 2021, 6:11 am
#1234
Join Date: Feb 2020
Location: Canada
Posts: 129
Sorry newbie question here. What’s the difference between J AC reward that’s fully refundable and free changes to a J flexible reward? Does it mean that I can cancel the J reward and get all my points back if it’s fully refundable?
Feb 7, 2021, 3:31 pm
#1235
Join Date: Jul 2016
Programs: Aeroplan Elite 35K
Posts: 104
With the optimism of 🇯🇵 Japan Olympics and Australia reopen on Qantas starting selling tickets in the US and 🇬🇧 UK, I decided to book a reward ticket with an Aeroplan agent, business as usual, same as prior to November 9th, except points required, all flights based on business lowest, 105000 points each way+ partner booking fee+airport taxes, refundable due to current Covid waiver.
Feb 8, 2021, 3:34 pm
#1236
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: YYZ
Programs: SE100K, Bonvoy Ambassador, National Executive
Posts: 175
The new online booking tool is making my head spin, we decide to move our tip to the Maldives forward a day, on AC,com a Business award shows as 97% in business - YYZ-IAD on UA in Y, IAD-AUH on EY in J, AUH-MLE on EY in J. Meanwhile a First reward shows as 76% in First YYZ-IAD on UA in Y, IAD-AUH on EY in F, AUH-MLE on EY in Y.
I called in and asked for my First reward to be moved back a day but could they please book me in J for AUH-MLE (I want access to the FCL during the 5hr layover) this was no problem and I have a flight alert set up for the Y segment on UA
In a nutshell if you want to book a F reward with J segments, call in, as you cant do it online, and based on earlier feedback I have nothing on AC metal so moving to open i class shouldn't be a problem (hopefully)
I called in and asked for my First reward to be moved back a day but could they please book me in J for AUH-MLE (I want access to the FCL during the 5hr layover) this was no problem and I have a flight alert set up for the Y segment on UA
In a nutshell if you want to book a F reward with J segments, call in, as you cant do it online, and based on earlier feedback I have nothing on AC metal so moving to open i class shouldn't be a problem (hopefully)
Feb 8, 2021, 5:27 pm
#1237
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Toronto
Posts: 152
With the optimism of 🇯🇵 Japan Olympics and Australia reopen on Qantas starting selling tickets in the US and 🇬🇧 UK, I decided to book a reward ticket with an Aeroplan agent, business as usual, same as prior to November 9th, except points required, all flights based on business lowest, 105000 points each way+ partner booking fee+airport taxes, refundable due to current Covid waiver.
what were the taxes on this beauty ??
Last edited by Adam Smith; Jun 22, 2021 at 6:42 pm Reason: Remove large quoted image
Feb 10, 2021, 5:49 am
#1239
Join Date: Mar 2016
Programs: AC SE
Posts: 1,506
Has there been any chatter about when/if/how AC will deal with displaying mixed cabin rewards? It's so frustrating to see business class rewards that are actually only 7% or 13% in business class with the great majority in economy.
Feb 10, 2021, 6:54 am
#1240
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: YQB
Programs: AC SE
Posts: 2,139
It would be great to have a filter in which you could set a threshold, i.e. only display itineraries with >75% in premium cabin.
Feb 10, 2021, 7:00 am
#1241
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: YOW
Programs: AC SE, FOTSG Platinum
Posts: 5,734
As an example, search YVR-MLE on March 1st. In the top 3 options, you'll see YVR-DEL-AUH-MLE and YVR-FRA-AUH-MLE, both of which show as Mixed Cabin rewards, but if you click on each one, you'll see that the DEL routing goes to 100% business if you choose "business flexible" while the FRA routing doesn't, because the mixed-cabin portion on the DEL routing is operated by AC, but on the FRA routing it's operated by EY.
If you want to get into more detail, read on: A deep dive on mixed-cabin awards with Mark Nasr
I had the opportunity to ask about that, and the reason we probably won't be seeing that feature is that they are instead offering the option I described above. It's not a hard no, just a "not right now".
Feb 11, 2021, 9:04 am
#1242
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: YVR
Programs: AC*SE-MM, BA Bronze, Marriott Titanium & lifetime Plat
Posts: 1,820
This is working as AC intends. The short version is, they've added a feature that turns the "mixed cabin" label red if the mix is below a certain threshold, but they've also offered the option for "business flexible" awards that usually cost ~10-20% more, but bump all the AC-metal flights into Business.
Feb 11, 2021, 10:17 am
#1243
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,358
Am I right in thinking though that where that's not an issue (i.e., the entire route is already in J), it's just about flexibility? And if you're an SE for example, there's no additional benefit to going with the flexible version because you've already got those same benefits via status? Or are there other elements (maybe the Signature Lounge?) that kick in when on the flexible fare?
1. Puts AC segments in J
2. Gives you free changes and cancellations (so irrelevant if you're SE)
3. Gives you SS access, assuming you're departing YVR/YYZ on AC metal on an intercontinental flight, after the SS reopens
I have a SFO-YVR-LHR-YVR-SFO trip with the outbound in flexible and the return in lowest, specifically for SS access.
Feb 11, 2021, 12:53 pm
#1244
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: YOW
Programs: AC SE, FOTSG Platinum
Posts: 5,734
Flexible J:
2. Gives you free changes and cancellations (so irrelevant if you're SE)
3. Gives you SS access, assuming you're departing YVR/YYZ on AC metal on an intercontinental flight, after the SS reopens
I have a SFO-YVR-LHR-YVR-SFO trip with the outbound in flexible and the return in lowest, specifically for SS access.
2. Gives you free changes and cancellations (so irrelevant if you're SE)
3. Gives you SS access, assuming you're departing YVR/YYZ on AC metal on an intercontinental flight, after the SS reopens
I have a SFO-YVR-LHR-YVR-SFO trip with the outbound in flexible and the return in lowest, specifically for SS access.
...if you book after Feb 28, won't the same still apply to a ticket constructed in this way?
Feb 11, 2021, 1:12 pm
#1245
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,358
I can't find the answer to this quickly, maybe because it's currently overridden by the February flexible-booking promo, but in past, if you booked a return flight with the outbound in one fare type, and the return in another, the most-restrictive set of fare conditions applied to the whole ticket, for the purpose of things like cancellation.
...if you book after Feb 28, won't the same still apply to a ticket constructed in this way?
...if you book after Feb 28, won't the same still apply to a ticket constructed in this way?