Flying to Canada
 

Hi everyone. My family (wife and three kids) and I fly to Canada from UK at least once a year, usually on the lowest fair we can find on a decent carrier (mainly BA or Air Canada). I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on whether I should be collecting miles. I already collect Airmiles (only 4000 or so), but is it worth me collecting either BA miles or Aeroplan (Air Canada) instead, or none as I only go once a year or so. Thanks :).

If you want to earn maximum miles from your flights when traveling UK-Canada on cheapest available tickets, Air Canada gives 100% miles on the international segments (and 25% miles on the domestic segments if you have any). But with one trip per year or so it would take you several years to get enough miles to be able to use. Air Canada miles expire after 7 years. Living in the UK it would be hard to earn Aeroplan miles except when flying.

BA will only give you 25% miles for flying, but you can get a household account to pool them. There are also credit cards and shopping partners in the UK that you could use to earn more miles when not flying. BA offers upgrade awards that can be a very good use of miles. I'm not a BA expert. Check out the guide in the BA forum for details.

If you were really interested in collecting miles I'd have to lean towards BA because of the household account and the 3rd party miles earning opportunities with BA for UK residents.

I disagree! It is only 15000-25000 Aeroplan points to fly within Canada depending on distance.

With 4 of you flying you would easily earn that every year. Then you will have 1 free flight per year in Canada, or free flights for the 4 of you in only 4 years.

5 of us! Thanks, i'll do some math and try to figure it all out.

Aeroplan do not do Household accounts though, so we cannot pool our accumulated miles etc. Bit of a pain really.

Good luck finding reasonable availability for 4 or 5 identical itineraries at those levels. Maybe you want to do YQB-YQT as YQB->YUL->YYZ->YOW->YSB->YQT, the last two legs on Bearskin. It's one thing to accumulate, quite another to redeem.

Don't forget: the Air Canada / Aeroplan account requires at least one transaction every 12 months or you will loose all your miles. This can be any type of transaction (e.g. a fill-up at an Esso station in North America). Also keep an eye on the Air Canada forum here on FT, fellow FT members often post tips to add miles to your account without flying that also work for foreigners (there is currently a 500 mile sign-up offer for Aeromove).

We travel to Canada 2-3 times a year and use the earned miles for internal flights.

Nothing to lose by opening an account and collecting the miles. IIRC, children's aeroplan accounts do not expire until they hit 18. I am not positive about this, but my sister was told by Aeroplan that her children's miles were fine.
Any activity to Aeroplan will preserve your account (BMI credits).

For me, I tend to use my miles on short haul flights (15k only). You can also use them for * alliance flights, which can be handy.