MileagePlus vs. Aeroplan....Which is the better program to use?
 

I just returned from Europe where I spent time in Norway, Denmark and Sweden...first on business then for pleasure. I wanted to fly my wife over to join me and looked first at United for an award ticket. I am a Premier Platinum member and had miles in my account for a "reasonable" business class ticket to Europe. With the devaluation of United miles, the award ticket was going to be 70,000 miles each way for four stops and 100,000 miles for a decent itinerary. Then I remembered I had some miles left in my Aeroplan account from my 7 years in Canada so I checked for an award ticket there. Lo and behold, the cost for the exact same itinerary on United was only 45,000 miles each way. So I pose the question, "Why would one want to earn miles on United when you can earn more valuable miles on Air Canada and fly United anyway? I'm considering using my Aeroplan number when flying United as the award tickets are much cheaper. Other thoughts?

fuel surcharge

/thread

What were the all-in taxes/fees/surcharges for each? About $30 vs $300 each way?

If you're generally flying lower-fare economy, Aeroplan earns 0.5 miles per mile flown. United earns 1.0 mile.

Thus to earn your 45,000 miles with AC you'll need to fly 90,000 miles, compared to only 70,000 miles with United.

I've bolded the error for you.

Determining value requires looking at more than one single redemption.

AC imposes significant fuel surcharges (or, "scamcharges" as they call them on the AC forum) on most award redemptions. While there are a few instances when an award will cost less on AC, most of the time the AC redemption will be more costly.

There is also the issue of elite status. If you credit your UA flying to AC, you're not going to earn status on UA. So there go virtually all of the FF perks (which, despite the negativity on this forum, are still substantial).

Finally, as already noted, AC is rather stingy with their mileage credit on discount fares.

Go spend some time on the AC forum, and you will see how AC's frequent flyers feel about AP these days.

Uh, the irony! Indeed, if you want to fly on United, then Aeroplan miles are where it's at. On the other hand, if you want to fly on Air Canada, then fees and taxes will kill you at Aeroplan, but are negligible through Mileage Plus. The difference was more stark prior to the new partner chart at United, but it is usually still better to use each airline's miles on the other airline's flights.

not following

a) you say the itinerary was mostly on United - therefore it should be 50,000 miles, not 70,000
b) the 100,000 is a standard award

However, the AE 90k to Europe award is still a great deal - if you dont have to pay $1000+ in scamcharges by flying on UA or LX metal.

And then there's Rouge!
 

An increasing share of AC's network is being given over to Rouge - a sub-carrier that offers services and space like Ryanair or Spirit, yet at rates that are little cheaper than AC used to offer.

It's worse than United Express, as far as I can tell.

I have miles in both accounts. UA awards beat ACs in many instances. But fuel surcharges make using the AC miles impossible in some instances.

You should try to accumulate in both programs, AS LONG AS YOU STILL QUALIFY for GOLD in ONE OF THEM. After being 1K for the better part of a decade, I think star gold is enough. AC's gold gets you worldwide lounge access on everyflight. UAs excludes the lounges in USA for domestic travel. But, with AC gold you cannot get E+.

poe-tay-toes
po-tat-oes

Aeroplan used to be great - it had no close-in ticketing fee, no date change fees, had one way trips and short-haul trips. Now the fees and fuel surcharges are crazy. AE miles are also harder to earn, it seems.

I am actually considering moving my AE miles to US Air via points.com

I credit Hertz car rentals to Aeroplan (as their weekend day and weekly earning rates tend to be better than what I'd get with another airline for the price I'm typically paying), but I also have *A miles with United (and formerly US).

AC miles aren't inherently better, and for the awards I frequently book, are worse (due to fuel surcharges).

Problem with Aeroplan for those of us who are not work-bankrolled, is that one would have to pay a lot more for fares than earn 100% in Aeroplan when flying AC or UA. Most low AC or UA fares only earn 50%.

In the last year I have been gradually using up my mileage in my US account. I was always amazed that when I would look at UA mileage required to book a flight from Asia to Europe it would always be about 50% more than if I booked through US - for the same exact flights on LH... The difference after the recent changes is now far more significant. This is where I think UA is not competitive - however I wouldn't be surprised if US/AA is going to change that going forward. To give a specific example - from NRT to VCE to MXP and then back to NRT in business class this August cost me 80k miles from my US account on LH. A saver Economy award today on the same flights is 90k miles from UA! 90k miles! Bottom line to me is that UA is not competitive - and US mileage accrual rates are/were comporable to UA's for the past few years.

Why would you FLY united? I don't know. Aeroplan is inferior, in general, but Air Canada offers a superior product in the ground and in the sky (Rogue excepted).

AC's lounge product is materially better than United's, and AC's north american J product is superior to United's.

Um, because UA flies where most of us need to go, while AC flies to . . . Canada.

(And nothing against Canada, it's a very nice country, I just don't need to go there very often.)