One of these days....
Sep 8, 2006, 9:02 am
#1
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Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: YYC
Posts: 23,864
One of these days....
OK, I finally purchased our upcoming trip to TPE. Although the process turned out to be quite a bit more painful than it should.
As always, wife on an Aeroplan reward, myself on a revenue ticket. We first thought of going on the BR codeshare. I had determined that (1) yes one can get Aeroplan rewards on that flight, and yes there is instant KK, so 115k miles for a business class seat. Furthermore, they had C class at around $3500.
However, the schedule is not great and BR business is old style, with something like 44 in seat pitch. Plus, a star J class reward is only 100k miles, and it turns out one can get an M class round trip with transpac on AC and connections for $2400. So we'll go through HKG and back through ICN. On the days we wanted, with confirmed upgrade for myslef and a business class reward for my wife.
Now for the painful part of it. I had determined using the Aeroplan page that there were reward seats on Thai on the days I needed, and I had checked that there was I inventory on the AC flights. So, step one was to call the SE line and check what the M fare was on the itinerary I had in mind. There was, price was good, so I booked. Then I called Aeroplan, I gave the booking reference, and asked for a reward for the same itinerary.
Mistake here: I had not checked the itinerary before doing that. As expected, took about half an hour to get the thing completed, but no problem, with seat assignments an all. Then I call the SE line again, get my ticket issued, and ask to book the upgrade.
Minor issue here: the agent on the SE line tried to tell me it was too early to request upgrades. I had to tell him, politely but firmly, that yes, M class can be upgraded at the time of purchase. He quickly found out that I was right and swallowed his price. Usually, people are not that clueless, what is going on?
Anyway, get seat assignments etc, everything is fine. I go to the AC web page and check the bookings. Turns on that on the return, the last leg, YVR-YYC, was the next day after arriving, instead of a same day connection.
To fix this, on my ticket, should be a non-issue, but with Aeroplan? So I call them first. Ticket had not been issued yet, so no problem in theory. But it took about an hour or more on hold until the guy managed to get the thing done. Then changing mine also took an inordinately long time. Apparently in part because of the confirmed upgrade. Also, price somehow dropped by about 50 bucks...
Anyway, the whole exercise took over four hours on the phone. Whole afternoon. Of mine, and of the AC/AE people. What a way to run a business...
"Why make things simple if one can make them complicated?" seems to be the AC motto?
As always, wife on an Aeroplan reward, myself on a revenue ticket. We first thought of going on the BR codeshare. I had determined that (1) yes one can get Aeroplan rewards on that flight, and yes there is instant KK, so 115k miles for a business class seat. Furthermore, they had C class at around $3500.
However, the schedule is not great and BR business is old style, with something like 44 in seat pitch. Plus, a star J class reward is only 100k miles, and it turns out one can get an M class round trip with transpac on AC and connections for $2400. So we'll go through HKG and back through ICN. On the days we wanted, with confirmed upgrade for myslef and a business class reward for my wife.
Now for the painful part of it. I had determined using the Aeroplan page that there were reward seats on Thai on the days I needed, and I had checked that there was I inventory on the AC flights. So, step one was to call the SE line and check what the M fare was on the itinerary I had in mind. There was, price was good, so I booked. Then I called Aeroplan, I gave the booking reference, and asked for a reward for the same itinerary.
Mistake here: I had not checked the itinerary before doing that. As expected, took about half an hour to get the thing completed, but no problem, with seat assignments an all. Then I call the SE line again, get my ticket issued, and ask to book the upgrade.
Minor issue here: the agent on the SE line tried to tell me it was too early to request upgrades. I had to tell him, politely but firmly, that yes, M class can be upgraded at the time of purchase. He quickly found out that I was right and swallowed his price. Usually, people are not that clueless, what is going on?
Anyway, get seat assignments etc, everything is fine. I go to the AC web page and check the bookings. Turns on that on the return, the last leg, YVR-YYC, was the next day after arriving, instead of a same day connection.
To fix this, on my ticket, should be a non-issue, but with Aeroplan? So I call them first. Ticket had not been issued yet, so no problem in theory. But it took about an hour or more on hold until the guy managed to get the thing done. Then changing mine also took an inordinately long time. Apparently in part because of the confirmed upgrade. Also, price somehow dropped by about 50 bucks...
Anyway, the whole exercise took over four hours on the phone. Whole afternoon. Of mine, and of the AC/AE people. What a way to run a business...
"Why make things simple if one can make them complicated?" seems to be the AC motto?
