EmailKid

FT is US centric, and you'll notice that ex Canada fares are generally quoted in both USD and CDN $, so the assumption here these are US $, especially since flights are ex US.

bocastephen

IIRC, the AC 330s are not the new lie-flat seat, but the old triangle-shape pod seats which are significantly less comfortable.

Polytonic

I didn't look too hard for hard product. Only did a quick 5 minute check. For the price, I think a slightly older seat TATL is fine. If hard product were a concern, probably routing LX/OS would be best, but then that doesn't help us with status acquisition.

rm456

This is a great flexible deal, especially with some matrix routing fun. Was able to get SAN-YYZ-FCO-ZRH-MAD and then a return DUB-FRA-YVR-SAN for $2062 in August.

Pat89339

Also available from SFO for $2,000.

https://flights.app.goo.gl/b3Fqn

Polytonic

I can also get this to come up cheaply for Warsaw and Bucharest (+$150 or so). Did some tinkering yesterday. Probably could get lie-flat on YVR-YYZ with some creative stopovers.

Dieuwer

Got another one (Cyprus) for even more PQP: LAX-YYZ-VIE-LCA-VIE-YUL-LAX for $2,153 all in.

kilo

Should be 40% of distance not 20%.

jfkeze

Per United website:
For ticket numbers beginning with numbers other than 016, MileagePlus members will earn Premier qualifying point(s) equal to the total award milesfootnote7 earned for the flight divided by 5 if you’re flying on a preferred partner; divided by 6 if you’re flying on another MileagePlus partner.

In this case it's 1/5 of the earned miles or RDMs which is 200% of distance in the case of Air Canada, the wording is off I do recognize that but the numbers are correct...

These fares book into P class which credit at 200% to programs such as United or 23796 miles. United flyers would obtain 1/5 of distance RDMs as PQPs or 4759 PQPs

kilo

But it is misleading to say it is 20% of distance. It is 20% of RDM or 40% of distance.

In order to take away the complication of having to check the RDM for each fare class it is better to quote the PQPs as a fraction of the distance not RDM.

Polytonic

It's also important to note that the 200% bit only applies to Air Canada so I'm betting LAX-YYZ-VIE-LCA-VIE-YUL-LAX (15538mi) doesn't actually earn as much as one might think, assuming VIE-LCA-VIE is operated by OS.

Actually we can do the math fairly easily, assuming P or higher across the board.

LAX-YVR-YYZ-FRA-OTP-ZRH-YYZ-YVR-LAX (16096mi) of which (16096 - 903-865) / 5 * 2 = 5731 PQP earned on AC and (903+865) / 5 = 353 PQP earned on LH/LX for 6084 PQP (35cpp).

LAX-YYZ-VIE-LCA-VIE-YUL-LAX would be 5202 PQP on AC + 506 PQP on OS, so 5708 PQP (37cpp). Anyway, considering the difference between all these routings is a measly 1cpp I think anyone could reasonably fly any of these routings and come out ahead on PQP.

Dieuwer

Try LAX-YVR-YYZ-VIE-LCA-VIE-YYZ-YVR-LAX.

Polytonic

Ah yes, looks like that is possible as well with wide-body on all longhauls. Does AC operate a widebody SFO/LAX-YVR? I wasn't able to pull anything up other than A3xx legs.



Comes out to 6426 PQP for 33cpm. Not bad for Europe!

bocastephen

Yes, they do but to YYZ only, not YVR - 787s and the odd 772LR, but beware of an A330 that might also pop up with the older pod seats. YVR is strictly A320/321

Adam Smith

For those of you wondering about the hard product in the 333s, yes, currently they are configured with the old J product. They're undergoing a retrofit to match the 787/777 fleets, but whether you get the new or old product if you book this deal is hard to say at this point.

That being said, even AC's previous generation of J seats compares favourably to a number of the J products in the market today. It's all aisle access and decent width/length of the seat. I would say it's easily better than BA's legacy J product (which is a joke), as well as IB's. Unlike LH, you'll never have someone crawling over you while you're trying to sleep. And I've found the 767 Polaris hard product to be cramped and somewhat underwhelming.

So even if you get the old pod, I'd say it's still a decent product.