So, how did I counter Ted’s final act of revenge?

Last week I posted about Ted’s final act of revenge on me, whereby I was booked in first class on a 757 from Tampa to Chicago as part of my Aeroplan first class award to Europe/Asia, and the flight got downgraded to Ted in the meantime. Ya’ll provided great feedback, and I went with the majority in this case.

Anyway, I called Aeroplan about an hour ago with the goal of switching to the Ted flight two hours later. I wasn’t going to connect, and I figured that if I was going to fly Ted, I might as well sleep in a bit. Unfortunately the later Ted flight didn’t have award availability anymore (although it did when I booked), so I was going to request that they call up United and ask them to open up a seat (which I’m confident they would have done). 

Anyway, before making that specific request I wanted to first see what they’d come back with. The agent simply said that there were no other first class seats available nonstop that day, and that if any of the flights switched to two cabin flights I could call back and get reseated in first class for free. I was about to cut in and suggest they put me on the later flight, at least allowing me to sleep in, when the agent said something I liked: “If nothing opens up, though, give us a call after your flight and we’ll refund a portion of the miles based on the distance you were downgraded.” Now, I’m guessing it’ll only end up being 2,000-3,000 Aeroplan miles, but that’s worth $50 or so. Sounds like a deal to me! I’ll gladly sit in the International First Lounge at ORD browsing the web and snacking on hot nuts and sushi for two hours, knowing that I’m earning Aeroplan miles.