canadiancow

I'm glad the pricing is so predictable, capped at 60k.

Those flights are all J9C9D9ZnPnRn, where n >= 2.

Hard to imagine what would make it cheaper.

If I class opens, the price should drop significantly.

seanp7

Long-haul Business Class
GRU-YUL Jan 2: 60K
GRU-YYZ-YUL Jan 3: 595.5K


GRU-YUL

GRU-YYZ-YUL

canadiancow

It wouldn't surprise me if YYZ-YUL were overbooked on Jan 3.

Domestic flights the Sunday after a holiday... They're always full

YOWgary

And then we pull back the curtain just an inch, and see:

GRU - YUL Jan 2: J9 C9 D9 Z9 P0 R1 O9 E9 N0 Y9 B9 M9 U9 H9 Q9 etc.
one-way business seat selling for $6,465.

GRU - YYZ Jan 3: J4 C0 D0 Z0 P0 R0 O2 E0 N0 Y7 B6 M6 U5 H4 Q3 etc.
one-way business seat selling for $10,423.

It's going to be the best and the most frustrating thing about the new pricing model - under the old program, an award search would simply have showed no seats available on that Toronto flight, because it's nearly full a month before departure, and they can probably sell at least some of the remaining seats for cash.

Now, we see 600,000 points and it looks like an outrageous gouge.

Honestly, "500,000 miles" is another way of saying "there are no award seats left on this flight", but AC committed to "every seat, every flight" no matter what, and they appear to be sticking to it, but it's not like that was ever going to mean "every seat, every flight, for cheap" any more than the same is true of cash fares.

Where AC have really backed themselves into a corner with that policy, though, is the sheer number of times when a full flight makes it look like points seats are expensive. Once the world gets back to normal, for example, it's reasonable to predict that you'll never find a cheap J award on a YYZ-YVR widebody at 6PM on a Friday, any more than you'll be likely to find 4 cheap J seats on YVR-HNL the first day of Spring Break.

The rumour between August and November this year was that the supply of flights at the cheapest price levels was likely to resemble the supply of Classic Award seats in the old program, and so far that seems to be borne out by facts.

Honestly, right now a lot of award prices are better than we were told to expect - whether you believe that's a side-effect of COVID killing demand, or you go with AC when they say they're trying to "underpromise and overdeliver" is a matter of opinion.

canadiancow

I don't see much under promise and over deliver.

Not nearly as much as I see over promise and under deliver.

YOWgary

Anything specific?

After my first thousand searches or so, I can't say as I'm seeing terribly different availability - better OR worse - at regular price levels than we used to see on fixed-price or not-insane market fare.

I have yet to hear from a single SE who doesn't see the new rules as a kick in the junk, but for the most part it works out better for 25-75K.

canadiancow

I wrote a blog post about my experiences.

You said 'they say they're trying to "underpromise and overdeliver"'.

They promised 80% of flights would be within the published range. That is simply not the case.

YOWgary

I can't remember which member(s) of the exec team used that specific phrase, as well as "surprise and delight", in a seminar at Loyalty Summit this week, but yes.

Care to take a guess at a different number?

I'm also wondering whether your search history this month, like mine, is heavily focused on some of the higher-demand routes, and they'll come back saying "averaged out over the whole program", sort of like Singapore never make any of their "good" routes available to partners, but you can always find SIN-CKG in F.

canadiancow

Well Mark seems to have back-pedaled and said 80% of dates. But I'd accept 80% of weeks.

YOWgary

You figure that >20% of weeks don't have award space that fits within the projected ranges?

canadiancow

First one I checked (and wrote a blog post about) didn't for Y.

But if you want to expand it to "any flight any cabin for the whole week", then it's probably lower than 20%.

Maybe if I'm bored I'll do a longer analysis.

painintheuk

If I filter by eupgrade to business, I think that I get some odd results. If I book the (not quite in the normal range) business class award, I'd also need 2 e-ups. Or I can apparently e-up immediately from Economy class for 4-11 e-ups, no waitlist. On other flights on the same day I can also get Flexible PY for fewer points (and 2 fewer e-ups) than Latitude.

jlisi984

OK this is a total first.

YYC PHX, Dec 19

business class

not logged in: 28.7K

E35K + TD Core, S100K (two accounts) + no CC: 19.7K (one family plan, checked each account separate)
TD Core card no status: 19.4K
TD Premium card no status: 21K
CIBC regular card no status: 19.5K


So E35K + TD is more than TD without E35K?? TD Premium more than regular? Some shady business?

I should add, FWIW, that before linking up the accounts in my household, E35K + TD was always pricing lower than S100K. Leaving aside how annoyed that makes me as the S100K MM, now we are all pricing out the same? But higher than others?
Edit: re - the last point - it seems pooling accounts also gives any account member access to the lowest pricing. Can anyone confirm this?

EagleBoss

Did you clear browser cookies or try searching on a different day? Based on my experience, Air Canada will be very dynamic with their pricing if they know you really want the flight.

jlisi984

As luck would have it, I was searching multiple dates and I had written down the price as I was doing my (first) search. Unchanged.