I love Aeroplan, which is Air Canada's spun-off frequent flyer program. For the past several years I've woken up every morning asking myself when the Aeroplan honeymoon would be over. It's thanks to Aeroplan that I've been able to take trips like this one (from Tampa to Chicago to Zurich to London to Istanbul to…
Continue reading: Aeroplan (finally) changes their award chart… ouch!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I read the news on another blog and was eagerly awaiting your analysis. So, for those of us who have Starwood points and it looks like Aeroplan is no longer the bargain it was, where should we transfer our Starwood Amex points? We typically travel to Europe.
@ Despina -- For Europe there unfortunately isn't really a better value out there right now. I'd say US Airways is a better value for Asia now, though with a straight 1:1 conversion isn't better for Europe. That being said, every July US Airways seems to run a promotion whereby they offer an additional 50% transfer bonus from Starwood to US Airways, so if they run that again, that might be your best bet. No guarantee they'll run it, but it's worth watching for. Though if you're just looking for a place to "store" miles, I wouldn't want to keep miles in a US Airways account for too long.
@ Cecilia -- It should be for ticketed travel by then.
Like you, I don't blame them for raising their prices. But a smarter approach, from a PR perspective, would have been to introduce slight increases over the years rather than these large, sudden increases (advance notice notwithstanding). It's almost like a new director came to Aeroplan and said, "What the heck is this -- raise everything, we're bleeding!" 🙂
The changes themselves don't bother me, since they're still below the competition, but when you add that to the 7 year ironclad expiration policy, it feels like a bigger hit. Other programs might charge, say, 135,000 miles for first class to Europe, but if they don't have the rigidity to their expiration policy, you have more time to earn the extra miles.
Aeroplan's expiration policy seemed reasonable because of their lower award prices. I don't really blame them for raising their prices, but now there's less room between them and the other programs. That, in turn, makes me look more at programs with less stringent expiration policies.
@lucky Both your "this one" link both refer to the same blog post, I think the second one should refer to different post.
@ A. S. -- I kind of agree and kind of disagree. If you're constantly increasing your award prices, even if it's only minor increases, the program is perceived to be subject to constant inflation. This change stings, but it's the first one we've seen in a long time and probably last one we'll see for a while. I guess it's a function of whether you'd rather be subjected to a lot of pain for a short time or a little pain for a long time... sort of.
@ Mike -- Thanks for the heads up, fixed!
Huge increases in the program, given their de-valuation of various elite status in the past year is somewhat painful. Maybe Aeropesos is now somewhat justified. Not enough notice for my liking but what can you do.
Thanks lucky...
This is the first time I know that United has a really low redemption rate for Asia...
So...you're suggesting we cash in our points by 7/15 and do your "this one" example and set off into the sun? If so, suggest some cool example for May and June (if you want)!
I did hurry to book some flights before the hike! YUL-MUC-HKG / SIN-MUC-YUL both in first class (120,000 points + 351$). If I want to make change to this ticket however after July 15, I will be charge the 55,000 points needed! So no way!