Just got a call from Maureen at AC.

As a goodwill gesture,
they are crediting cancelees with the mileage
they would have earned. Including COS bonus.

I just got the call from the AC Tampa Res center too. Carla or Maureen is who you wanna talk to, 888-247-2262 if you have any questions.

I was told full refund, miles and CoS for *A flights only, and can only be credited to UA or AC. I asked about BD, and she told me that anyone with NZ, LH, etc, flights was given the option of crediting to UA or AC, or opening a new account with AC. All miles on the other carriers are forfeit.

Couple other things I forgot: she told me that my itin had ALREADY been cancelled, so there wasn't much I could do by hanging up. Also, they weren't willing to help me out with a flight I had previously cancelled (as in, refund my CAD $200 cancellation fee) or help me talk to UA in getting my return refunded.

are they status miles?

Hi all,

I would like to inform you all that despite this fare being an error, as a gesture of Air Canada's commitment to maintaining a high level of Customer Service, Air Canada will be offering the following options for those holding these tickets -

Option 1: The full amount of status miles that you would have earned for your original routing will be credited to your frequent flyer account (Aeroplan or Mileage Plus only) along with a full refund of the cost of the original ticket.

Option 2: The full amount of status miles that you would have earned for your original routing will be credited to your frequent flyer account (Aeroplan or Mileage Plus only) and rebook your trip to your original booked US originating point to MEX via YUL or YYZ on Air Canada.

Passengers with bookings will be contacted individually by our call centre.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

Best Regards,

Andrew Yiu
Air Canada

Just got message from Carla at Tampa rate desk advising fare not valid. As goodwill gesture AC is refunding ticket (wow, what a deal) and crediting miles to Mileage Plus. They said to call them back if I wanted to know the miles, but no option to decline their generous offer. Assume it's a done deal. Flight is (was) in September.

This is an amazing deal. we dont have to "fly".... we get our money back, and we get STATUS miles....
I just got 50k in free Q miles for NOTHING...........:D this is truly the all time best mileage run EVER!!!! I guess my cost was the "loan" on two tickets at $480 each for 6 weeks :)

Thank You Air Canada!

Let me make sure I understand the "option 1" deal here... folks are using the term "status miles" but I speak Mileage Plus and refer to EQM and RDM. Is the deal that both EQM and RDM get credited to Mileage Plus as though the segments had been flown?

The reason I ask is that UA has their own promotions (the threshold bonus program, for instance) that award EQM only.

Unless you already "flew"

For a while the people who hav "flew" were looking like the lucky ones... now im glad my flights were later^
Hey you still got to try the new Lay flat seats on AC I assume... for $480!

While its a great gesture, I still am pretty bummed. I was looking forward to flying LX, TAM and LA (and I had already counted on those LA miles for EXP qualification this year), and I actually love the thrill and experience of totin' around all these airports and countries. Also, I gotta figure out what to do with the return flight MEX-IAD-SFO...probably gonna get a oneway to MEX and make a weekend outta it, or eat more cancel and change fees:(

I'm going to pull up AC's CoC so I understand this better too, because I didn't like having an itin thats already ticketed get yanked out from under me:td:

Not this one..
"flew" to ORD and "flew" back home

Thanks Andrew for communicating clearly and for any role that you may have played in brokering this compromise. Your presence here has again proven invaluable.

I got a voicemail on my cell while I was in the air, at about 9pm EST from Carla at the Tampa rate desk.

Her message was basically the same as others have posted, except there were no options given, just a request to call her or Maureen to clarify what they are doing. That I will get a refund and will get the full miles that I would have received for the *A flights.

So no info yet about whether they'll offer me Option 2 as the "correct" routing and still give me full UA EQM/RDM. I won't say which I'd prefer but I'd like to have the option.

Also: what about the oneworld miles I would have earned on LAN and AA for their legs of the trip? I guess down the tubes. And nothing about positioning flights.

It was, however, a very polite message and almost apologetic in tone. I think they're moving in the right direction.

Now what I think they should do, in conjunction with Expedia, is offer to eat the airlines' rebooking charge for any positioning flights which were booked through Expedia. In my case, I booked US positioning flights. I can always use a US flight somewhere, but I shouldn't be required to pay the US change fees to re-use that non-refundable ticket IMHO.

So we're not quite at a meeting of the minds yet.

Since the price is still available (at least for the dates I checked) you could just take the refund and the miles then rebook the flight yourself, double dip miles (at least partially), and still use your positioning flights.

I received the call(s) or voice mails I should say from Maureen about 2 weeks ago and tickets have been refunded. Do I still need to call them back? I;m happy with the miles just want to make sure I get them.