Longtime lurker, first-time poster.

Any insight into average miles for business class fares?
YYZ-Caribbean
YYZ-Australia
YYZ-Asia

Some seem to be quite high, 200,000+ miles for YYZ-SYD return...

Welcome to FT, whiskysix!

Coming up with an average is difficult because of the variables. It helps to know what airline(s) you're considering, and whether you're looking for saver awards (probable) or will settle for non-capacity-controlled (usually double mileage) awards.

To use UA as an example, it would be (for round-trip travel) 60K to the Caribbean, 120-125K to Asia, or 135K to Australia or saver or Star Alliance awards. Standard Awards (no capacity controls) are all twice that.

Welcome to FT!

If you're interested specifically in Air Canada's Aeroplan, check the Air Canada forum on this site. That's where AC experts hang out, where questions about that airline are best asked, and where this one may have already been answered. If a search there finds that it hasn't been, you could click the Alert a Moderator button (black exclamation point in a red triangle under your name in the first post) to ask that this thread be moved over there.

If you're interested in another airline, any airline large enough to serve those routes has a forum here as well. Same recommendations: search; if not found, ask a mod to move this.

If you're interested in cross-airline comparisons, for which this would be the appropriate forum, please rephrase your question to explain it more fully.

Welcome to FT!

It's difficult to say because each airline has a different method/difficulty level of obtaining and redeeming miles. I see that you're an Aeroplan member, is that the airline you tend to fly with the most often and attribute miles to?

It's quite far too! Have you measured it on a globe?

Business awards in miles tend to cost 2x to at most 3x what coach awards cost, even though (discount) business fares in money tend to cost 5x or 10x what (discount) coach fares in money cost.

Once you look it these ways, business awards rarely seem so high, except of course when you have so few miles that "double" seems unreasnable no matter what it gets you...

And have you priced coach and business fares on these routes in money?

As others have said, the exact cost can very from ailrine to airline, and can vary depending whether you're using that airline or its partners. But in general the highest award costs are for places completely on the other side of the globe, and Australia and south Asia qualify for that if you're originating in North America!

It is near impossible to have a generalization (Average as you mentioned) because each program has its own chart, and the different degree of difficulty to earn miles as well as redeem awards.

For example, Delta miles are much easier to earn than say, United or AA miles. Little wonder that it takes more Delta miles to fly to the same place then the other 2 by way of Delta awards seem never be at the "Saver" level.

For the award charts of each airline's program, go to the corresponding website to print them out - lay them in front of you and you will immediately see, the "Average" method obviously has some flaws. For example, AA only needs 62.5K x 2 for a YYZ to Australia r/t J award, that is a 125K miles... which is slightly higher than the 55K x 2 to Asia 2 at a 110K miles total r/t J award... Can you see why an "Average" number would greatly distort the picture?

Ref: http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/a...rtnerChart.jsp

What you want to narrow it down to is to determine WHICH program(s) that you are most likely to use, and then go to that particular program's forum on FT and LEARN a lot more specific info regarding that particular program, rather than an overly general question and the answers may only confuse you than help you.

Also remember, you do NOT have to credit miles to the airline(s) that dominate your location because there are Alliances... and for YYZ you actually have many other airlines to choose from.