seafox

Thanks for that info. I did'nt know Avion had a cap limitation, but at least there is no seat limitation.
It took me the last 3 years to accumulate 600K.
Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, the travelling came to an end this year!

Thanks

ogmios

You _can_ go over the cap, but they won't purchase anything but economy in T+. I just had my first Avion redemption recently, so this is all fresh in my mind :-)

Abby

Cornel, thanks so much for letting us know how things turned out! And it's terrific that you found something that works for you, even if it's not perfect. A bit of persistence and flexibility make all the difference sometimes....

I hope you have a fabulous trip, if you like to write about your travels, there's always the Trip Reports Forum.

Welcome again to FlyerTalk and hope you will come back and participate in other threads and topics.

PS - Is your return flight from BGI-YUL-YYZ all in Economy?

seafox

PS - Is your return flight from BGI-YUL-YYZ all in Economy?[/QUOTE]

Thanks for your good wishes Abby!
At this time it is economy, I'll ask when I get to the gate..
Thanks again for your help

Cornel

Vader

Was always curious about that... so they say you can do a long haul US/ Canada up to $750 in value... what if you found a Latitude fare (OK maybe unlikely) within that price... would they let you book it?

Vader

acysb87

Did not know that either,nor the unavailability of J.
This card now is useless to me and I will probably do a CIBC switch to dump points into AE where I have maximum benefits.

Thanks

mikeyyz

There is very good value in redeeming international tickets in J/F with other *A carriers - Toronto to Australia with a stopover in LAX or NZ or Fiji in Business on ANZ (basically as good as First on LH) for only 100k? Awesome!

And very good availability a few weeks out...

Tractor Boy

But Avion does allow the transfer to Cathay and BA - the latter offerring the 1.5 points per $ rate for the last few years. BA is an airline with far better J reward seat availability than AC - a family of 4 can actually get J reward seats together on BA - something that is pretty much impossible on AC for the 99% of members who are not SEs.

Argonaut1000

Not my experience, at least from YVR :

Tried booking 4 seats earlier this year on BA for travel in June/July - impossible availability when I began the search in January. Finally ended up with 4 seats from YVR-LHR-CDG in F and Y (on two different days) - returning flights were available only to SEA in J and Y plus SEA-YVR one way awards (10K each) on AC.

Will not be transferring any AVion points to BA this year!

Tractor Boy

I've never tried from YVR but from YYZ you can get wide open availability for 4 in J very easily to LHR. One potential reason you had problems could be the short haul leg LHR-CDG. Many of BA's short haul flights in Europe on 319/320s only have 3 J reward seats - thus if you were looking at 4 J reward tickets for YVR-CDG the system would show no availability (while to LHR there would be availability).

You can easily get around this by calling in and booking the tickets so that one pax sits in the back for the short flight within Europe. That way you can all be together in J for the long YVR-LHR leg. Hope this helps.

Noticed you are an AC SE - as such getting seats for the family in J isn't a problem for you with AC. Its only the other 99% of us who have to look for options with more enlightened airlines like BA.

OKCoaster

Not sure how close Avion follows their rules. I have been able to use Avion points for a Latitude (or Plus can't recall) and then used a cert to upgrade.

I like to collect Avion points, redeem them for travel on AC and earn status miles with the same Avion point redemption!

Argonaut1000

Actually it was the YVR-LHR segments that were the most difficult to find availability.

The reason we ended up using BA points was that I had taken advantage of the Avion 2x deal and then moved the points over to BA miles, effectively giving us 3X points. So I became points rich but status poor on BA - makes you appreciate the AE SE instant KK that much more!!

Hogtowner

I think that this is due to a couple of factors: there is one fewer flight per day between YVR-LHR than there is YYZ-LHR and, secondly, YVR seems to be a more popular tourist destination for Brits than YYZ is (and this applies equally in summer and winter (for skiing etc.)

I did a quick look at the BA site for 4 J seats in November and from YVR there were only 6 dates outbound and 5 dates inbound that had availability. For YYZ the comparable figures were 14 and 12 (and for JFK it was 11 and 15). [As an aside, wouldn't be nice to have a similar checking feature available on the AP site?] And, of course, for non-SEs the number of days with AC for 4-J availability was ...... anyone....anyone...Bueller......

With BA, reward availability is quite variable. If you want to go to the Far East or Australia you generally have to book 11 months out to get decent availability. For example, if you want 4 J seats to HKG (from LHR) there is nothing available in Feb.