Awesome: New Air Canada Aeroplan & Gulf Air Partnership

Totally OT: Just got this from CX: CLUB NOTICE
*Permanent closure of The Bridge at Hong Kong International Airport*
Having been temporarily closed due to the reduced flight schedule, The Bridge lounge at Terminal 1 of Hong Kong International Airport will now be closed permanently.

Air Canada Aeroplan is dipping their paws into a lot of Middle Eastern carriers with partnerships/cooperation. This after Etihad and Qatar as well. Not sure how having this many partnerships in one region of the world will benefit them/work...

I'm not sure I see the value in this. Checking the Aeroplan page, yes I can book LHR-BAH-BKK in Business with no cash surcharges, but it's 124,289 points. The standard award is 80k + CA$442.89. For around the same cash price I can use AA miles to book CX FIRST for just 10k miles more.

I suspect this is more ideal for hard to reach niche middle-east locations.

@ Super -- The "surcharge" you're referring to is the UK Air Passenger Duty, which isn't imposed by the airline. Offsetting that with miles isn't a good deal. The cost is 80K miles, before government imposed taxes and fees.

@euro canada has very strict foreign operation and fly over laws, Qatar, MEA, gulf air and ethiad only have very limited access to the country and can essentially only operate at one airport in the country if they chose to operate to Canada without a partner in the country... this allows them to have flowing traffic to their networks... This is why Air Canada operates many routes that other north american carriers simply can't.... for Air Canada they gain revenue from these flights as well as program utilization from a global standpoint... also theres a reason aeroplan has a partner and phone booking fee $$$$

My perception is that Aeroplan is moving towards the lower quality of the aviation market and aligning with airlines that most Canadians would prefer to avoid. The better quality airlines for the Gulf region are Qatar & Emirates, neither of which are part of Aeroplan. It is exceptionally difficult to redeem J&F reward flights with ANA, Singapore and EVA. Instead, Aeroplan pushes redemptions to carriers like EgyptAir or Air China. To be blunt, flying over danger zones proximate to Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan is not high on most westerners' preferences. IMO, this is of little value to the vast majority of Aeroplan members who would prefer easier access to reward flights and less of the "mixed cabin" redemption farce.

Unless I've overlooked it somewhere, I really miss the NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons on each post. They are especially useful since I can only read the blog from time to time.