Air Canada Aeroplan is probably my single favorite frequent flyer program. Not only does Aeroplan have more airline partners than any other airline loyalty program, but Aeroplan also allows stopovers on awards for just 5,000 points, which is an exceptional deal (given how few loyalty programs allow stopovers nowadays).
Well, there’s a very exciting development when it comes to Aeroplan’s stopover feature.
In this post:
You can now book Aeroplan stopovers online
Up until now it has been necessary to call Aeroplan’s contact center in order to plan an itinerary with a stopover. We’ve known that Aeroplan has been working on bringing this technology to aircanada.com, so that customers can book stopovers without having to pick up the phone.
This feature is finally available — you can now book Aeroplan stopovers directly on aircanada.com. This is such a fantastic development in terms of being able to book all your Aeroplan awards online. Not only does Aeroplan’s call center often have long hold times, but it’s not open 24/7, so this makes booking awards so much easier.
As a reminder, Aeroplan stopovers are stops that are a minimum of 24 hours, and a maximum of 45 days. Furthermore, stopovers aren’t allowed in the United States or Canada, regardless of the destination.
Keep in mind that even if you’re not loyal to Air Canada, Aeroplan points are easy to come by. Aeroplan is transfer partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One, and Chase Ultimate Rewards. On top of that, in the United States there’s the Aeroplan® Credit Card (review), which is pretty lucrative.
Not only is Aeroplan in the Star Alliance, but the airline has all kinds of other valuable redemption partnerships, as you can use Aeroplan points for travel on Etihad, Azul, Vistara, Air Serbia, Virgin Australia, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings Discover, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Air Mauritius, etc.
How to book Aeroplan stopovers on aircanada.com
The process of booking an award stopover on aircanada.com is super easy. Just go to the aircanada.com homepage, and when you search a flight, click the “Multi-city/Stopover” button, and also check the “Book with points” box.
You’ll then see a box that populates, allowing you to enter your origin and destination, as well as your stopover city and how long you’d like to stay there for. For example, I looked at an award on Oman Air from Frankfurt to Zanzibar with a stopover in Muscat.
When you search for award availability, you’ll then be presented with an overall itinerary, as you can see below. This particular itinerary costs 65,000 Aeroplan points in business class with the stopover (you’d ordinarily pay 60,000 Aeroplan points for an award of this distance, plus the 5,000 points).
Generally speaking you’re still going to want to search each component of the award individually, and only use the stopover tool once you’re ready to book. That way you can first get a sense of availability on the individual segments of the ticket.
Bottom line
Air Canada’s Aeroplan program has rolled out its much anticipated online stopover feature, so it’s now possible to add stopovers on award tickets directly on aircanada.com. It’s not only great that Aeroplan allows stopovers for just 5,000 points, but it’s awesome that these stopovers are now so easy to book. Well done, Aeroplan!
What do you make of Aeroplan’s stopover functionality coming online?
One big problem I see with AP site is that the Business class is almost always mixed and even at 14% it still charges the full reward price. That should be a percentage of the difference of the econ and bus. so if econ is 30k (with stop) and business is 50k (with stop) with 14% available business class. Then it should be 30k + ((50k-30k)*14%) or 32.8k
Also, I wish they would add the...
One big problem I see with AP site is that the Business class is almost always mixed and even at 14% it still charges the full reward price. That should be a percentage of the difference of the econ and bus. so if econ is 30k (with stop) and business is 50k (with stop) with 14% available business class. Then it should be 30k + ((50k-30k)*14%) or 32.8k
Also, I wish they would add the tech that AA has had for years on their site where you can ask it to find the next available flight on the route no matter how far out and you can ask for the next fully business class flight (all segments) in a 3ish month period. No need to page week by week. Automation should do the work.
This new automated stop over seems to work and is appreciated. If they keep refining without the constant devaluation, they will be number one.
Just booked a one-way biz class partner (UK/EY) award within the Atlantic zone with a 7-day stopover for 25k miles on the website.
Distance range for a DEL-BOM-AUH routing falls in the 1,001 to 2,000 mile category.
Did the price for this category reduce by 5k or did the website not tack on an additional 5k for the stopover?
JFK-AUH-ATH is not pricing at 110K, can I not have a stop over in the UAE on my way to Europe?
I've tried to use the Aeroplan site to book award travel on United to South America. Awards (albeit expensive) are available on the UA site but nothing shows up on the Aeroplan site. Am I looking in the wrong place or is something else happening.
Ben keeps talking about the great Aeroplan partners but I somehow I not seeing that.
Cam someone clarify this?
Does it show as the Saver award level on UA? If not, it's not bookable on Aeroplan.
Hi Ben,
Based on Aeroplan award chart north America to India on partner airlines should be 85K but I always see 100K points. Award chart has changed?
Yes from 1st Sept Award zones are increased although not all at same levels, download new one for your purpose
I am seeing some glitches. Trying to book bahrain to muscat to Kuwait on oman air, and for some reason it's pricing out to 17.5k in eco and 25k in business instead of 12.5k and 20k (one way prices are 7.5k and 15k respectively). Is this a known issue?
I booked a trip Nov 2021 to travel March 2022 with a stopover on their website. I used the multi-city option. Maybe I was a tester for the website or something but I’ve definitely had access to this for almost a year
The other multi-city option works by just combining the costs of each leg individually. Which may be lower or higher in price than the official 5K stopover fee.
One way tickets in the 6,001 - 8,000 range are showing up at 90K miles...they were 85K yesterday..
Yes, there was a minor devaluation as of today.
Not working for me yet, does it need to be the same airline for the 2nd leg..or can it be mixed?
Am unable to search when trying to search a stopover award. Looks like its not ready for BETA
Implemented on the day the latest deval kicks in. What a shock.
Great timing. I was, literally, about to call Aeroplan to book a trip. Thx!