Aeroplan is Air Canada’s spun off frequent flyer program (well, at least until 2020), and is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest. They’re generally a good program for redeeming miles on Star Alliance airlines, though not for travel on all airlines to all regions. For a while Aeroplan has been having…
Continue reading: Aeroplan Has Access To Air China Award Seats Again (For Now)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I flew Air China First from PEK-FRA recently, the one meal service they offered was a pizza. In first class.
Lucky...
Some Cathay Pacific flights are mow available on Aeroplan!
But only between Hong Kong and:
ChiangMai, Thailand
Phuket, Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand
Cebu, Philippines
Manila, Philippines
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Hanoi, Vietnam
The catch: for now the reservation is only available by phone at 1-800-361-5373.
"It’s very convenient to not be able to book award tickets on partner airlines, given the cost savings involved."
I'm curious about the cost savings regarding a partner airline. As a separate company, it seems to me that all airlines, including Air Canada, are partner airlines. So I can't work out how not booking on one partner airline would be any cost saving in principle. Presumably Aeroplan has to buy all the tickets they book as redemptions, including on Air Canada. Unlike most FF programmes even an AC redemption isn't just a simple allocation of seats with the attendant loss of revenue. Or is it?
I genuinely want to understand this. I'm not trying to be argumentative.
Does this mean they have fixed the issue of Air China not actually allocating the seat for an award ticket?
I've had such a horrible experience with them in the past when redeeming UA miles on an Air China flight. DEL-PEK-IAH for 3 passengers. For DEL-PEK the seats were issued but then PEK-IAH seats were only issued for 1 passenger and not the other two.
As far as United was concerned the reservation was actually ticketed and even assigned seat numbers for both segments but as far as Air China was concerned they were waiting on some push from United.
Check-in at DEL was hell because they could not see the PEK-IAH seat at all and no availability so they at first would not let the passengers check-in. They eventually gave the option of going to PEK and then figuring it out there...which we all know is HELL, especially since 1 passenger was medically ill.
Anyway, if i remember correctly issues like this is why Aeroplan pulled Air China awards all-in-all in the past.
I've flown Air China USA to PEK in both biz and first... In my opinion First is not worth the points or money when compared to other carriers. However I found biz class to meet my expectations and completely acceptable for the long haul.
this is all noise. all we care about is avianca and copa being fixed!!! tonnes of ways to get to asia but very limited to SA