How To Redeem Aeroplan Points Like A Pro

Great article Ben! Thanks for the step-by-step. You have me dreaming about an around the world trip using some of Aeroplan's more unique partners. I'm just not sure I can convince Mrs. DLPTATL that it would be the vacation of her dreams.

Quick question, is this worth joining if you are based outside the United States?

I'm in the UK and am flying Turkish in a couple of weeks to Senegal and wonder if this is the year to try and start doing something with points.

Unless I can do Emirates, I don't particularly have a favourite airline.

@ BuiltInYorkshire -- Absolutely! Aeroplan often sells points at a reasonable cost, where it could be worth buying points exclusively for a premium redemption on a partner. There's lots of value to be had when originating in the UK.

@ DLPTATL -- Hahaha, I hear you, I'm not sure Ford would be down for a trip like this either. But you can always compromise, and do a semi-fun routing with a stopover, so that the trip is broken up a bit. Even if you're trying to go somewhere like Oman or Mauritius, it could be fun to have a stopover on the way.

@Ben I am looking at booking tickets for my family of four to Maui next December. Have you seen good redemptions for Hawaii with Aeroplan from the West Coast?

Thanks for that, I've got an embarrassing amount of holiday days to use this year and want to make the most of it 🙂

@ zagman1112 -- Hawaii is always tricky with miles. If you're coming from the US West Coast, it all comes down to what saver level award availability United has. It could be a good use of Aeroplan points, though it's not going to get you any disproportionate value.

Thank You for such a detailed informative post ..so had no Dora Aeroplan was such a great program ..shall look forward to redeeming some award for my future trips

Can you book first class with Aeroplan for partners that offer it?

@ Samuel -- Yep, you sure can!

Will it just show up as a 4th column only when available?

Awesome post!
Recently booked 2 R/T tickets on Air Mauritius from CDG-MRU in J, 240k using Air Canada Aeroplan miles in total. Very happy.

@ Samuel -- Exactly. You won't see the column unless first class is available. In fairness, fairly few partners make first class award space available to other airlines. This includes Lufthansa (up to 15 days in advance), Oman Air, Etihad, ANA (though space can be really tough to come by), Air China, and Air India.

I'm also a big fan of Aeroplan. One thing that I like about the program, which you didn't mention, is that you can "buy down" the points redemption with cash. You get four options, ranging from 100% points (and no cash) to roughly 50% points. The effective cost of the points varies, but I've found that it ranges from just over 1 cent per mile to around 1.3 cents per mile (this is in USD, at the current CAD-USD exchange rate). If you value Aeroplan points at more than 1.3 cents per mile, you'd almost always want to choose the lowest-point and highest-cash redemption option. This is also great for people who don't generally have huge point balances. I recently booked LAX - HND - SYD in business on ANA for 52,500 points plus ~$600. Pretty good deal, I think.

Thanks Which of their partners is more likely to have TATL J from LAX?

OS used to regularly drop a couple of J awards when their schedule opened, but that was years ago.got the post!

Two things I'd add based on my personal experience this past week. I was trying to book three tickets from BOM to YYZ and a simple search on Aeroplan Website showed most itineraries would require an economy hop to Europe, followed by United Polaris to US and then to Canada with AC or United.

1. At first, I saw an AC 5th freedom flight from BOM-LHR which offered Premium Economy seats. I wanted to see if I could get PE on that flight and then connect from LHR to YYZ (through ERW or IAD or ORD) on United. The website would let me select the flights and take me all the way to seat selection page and error out. I tried several times and called Aeroplan three times to see if the agents could price it. No luck. My potential lesson learned - you can not have a custom itinerary that includes an AC flight since AC tickets are dynamically priced.

2. I then saw Etihad business class availability from AUH to ORD for 9 seats. Unfortunately Etihad only had 2 seats from BOM - AUH for my dates. So, this time, I tried to select 3 economy seats on Etihad from BOM - AUH, followed by 3 Business seats from AUH - ORD - YYZ (ORD - YYZ on United). This time as well, the online tool would price the itinerary and take me to seat selection page and then error out. I was confused since this time all my flights were on partner airlines (so no dynamic pricing), the cost quoted was 110k points per seat, which is what it would have costs for all Business seats, but mind you mine had 2 legs in economy. To me, it seemed like a valid itinerary, but Aeroplan's tool won't allow to ticket it. I again contacted Aeroplan 3 times, and each agent had the same issue. One of the agent confirmed to me that this was likely due to first flight being in Economy, due to which Aeroplan didn't allow next segment(s) on business. They said if I chose a business seat to AUH (the routing was BOM - MUS/BAH - AUH with first leg in economy and second short leg on EY business), the system would allow it to be priced. The other option would be to add a stop over in AUH (BOM - AUH still in economy), which would also be priced correctly. In the end, I decided to just book AUH-ORD-YYZ online (for 90k points each), and then add BOM-AUH separately for 12.5k points each. I can stay in AUH as long as I want and it would only cost me 102.5k points total for the journey rather than 115k points if I had chosen AUH as stop over.

So stops under 24 hours are allowed as a connecting flight?

Thanks for the detailed experience.
I would consider this booking very lucky.
Definitely lacking some drama that I was expecting.

At least a long wait time or an agent who refuses to listen to your explanation.

Ben, what kind of hold times did you deal with? What time of day was your call and lastly did you use a call back feature? I need to call to discuss a couple redemptions, and I’m wondering what I’ll be dealing with..?

It's not on its own but if you have Air Canada / Aeroplan Elite status and have some priority rewards, then Hawaii can a nicely valued redemption. The priority reward vouchers give you 50% off round trip reward flights, and even at the lowest tier they're good for 50% off economy flights within Canada or the US - including Hawaii. Picking some random days next month I could do YVR to HNL round trip in economy for 28k points / 2 for a total of 14k points per seat. Not too shabby.

@ Jimmy’s Travel Report -- Great question! Hold times can be rough, though personally I have no issues getting through when I call right as the Aeroplan call center opens. I'll update the post to reflect these details.

@ Ever -- Correct, that just counts as a connection, and not as a stopover, which is great.

@ World_Traveller -- Excellent point! Let me update the post to reflect that.

@ Beachfan -- LAX is always tricky with transatlantic award space. I find that Lufthansa, LOT, and SWISS all pretty regularly have award space, though it can require flexibility and booking at the right time. Good luck!

Quick question….I get why Aeroplan would be compelling for people who fly business.

But for people who always fly coach, are there any competitive advantages or reasons to use Aeroplan (over other programs) besides stopovers and the large number of partner airlines? Coach prices often seem a little higher than other programs. Am I missing something?

Hi Ben. I think this article is a bit too generous toward Aeroplan.
1. Aeroplan closes late at night and there's no non-Canada phone number, so you can be screwed if there's any problems at check-in on a partner airline ticket in Asia or other parts of the world. It's hard to take Aeroplan seriously as a global loyalty program until they fix this.
2. The 39 CAD partner airline booking fee is overly-punitive on cheap itineraries like intra-EU or intra-Japan.
3. Unfortunately Aeroplan has nasty phantom availability issues with Copa Airlines (CM). Nearly everything I saw on Aeroplan around the holidays wasn't really available (especially in business class), and of course I had already transferred from AMEX to Aeroplan when I discovered the availability didn't exist. Aeroplan did offer to transfer the miles back to AMEX though.

Yup, booked Etihad first with a stopover in AUH and then continued to Seoul in business class. It's not as intense as Ben's booking, but was still a good option for us as finding two F seats with award availability is often a headache. We're traveling ANA F, Etihad F, and Qatar F this year as a couple all on points so we'll get to compare! Not sure if we'll ever be able to book so many F tickets as a couple as it seems like the airlines are tightening up F space.

A question about cancellation policies-

I booked an award flight on Etihad, but the departure time changed by 8 hours, and I can't fly it now.

Making a cancellation through the website states CAD 150, and through call center is 175. However, this should be free given the major change in flight time / duration etc. Why'd be the best way to fix this?

I don't disagree with these comments, but there is great utility with Aeroplan when booking long business class trips. The number of partners is also outstanding. They also have had transfer bonuses with Amex and Chase as well. As award availability gets more and more difficult to find, Aeroplan's number of partners will become their differentiator. I honestly think having to call for difficult bookings is a plus sometimes because fewer people do it. I think it's one of the reason the Virgin Atlantic sweet spot on ANA hasn't been devalued yet (it's a hassle to book with their long hold times).

Call and explain the situation. They should waive the cancellation fee for an 8 hour departure time change.

Whoa:

Aeroplan did offer to transfer the miles back to AMEX though.

That's burying the lede! Did this wind up happening?

This was a helpful comment, thanks for sharing so much detail.

Are there any options for Premium Economy awards on partner airlines? Charts seems to show this option only for Air Canada flights.

Thank you Ben, great post and I’m looking forward to the rest of the trip report.

90% computer says no
10% routing allowed.

If AC flight involved, 99% computer says no.

Hyping up this program in order to push Chase credit cards is dishonest.

No mention of the $150 per direction per person change/cancel fees?

Call. Wait 5 hours on the phone, but they'll waivw the fee.
Be ready for more hold when your taxes don't get refunded automatically.

@ Bob -- "No mention of the $150 per direction per person change/cancel fees?"

Did you read the post?

To be more constructive, I'm curious what kind of routings you were trying to book where you got a "computer says no?" Because Aeroplan's routing rules are even more generous than I outlined in this post...

@ jcil -- Unfortunately not. Even though premium economy has become so popular, partner redemption opportunities for the cabin remain limited.

@ hungry -- Yeah, the change fee for that absolutely should be waived.

@ Mr. S -- I find Aeroplan's economy pricing to be competitive, though it won't usually be lower than you'll find through other programs. I think the variety of partners, ability to have stopovers, and ease of earning the points, are the main advantages of booking economy awards through Aeroplan.

Aeroplan might be good for business class tix, but I have wasted many hours trying to ticket mixed-class itineraries that include aa frist-class segment. As Ben noted, the cancellation fees are a bummer, and if you want first class as part of your itinerary, the cost-benefit may not work out.

It is a decent program for sure, however you make no mention of high taxes and fees on Aeroplan award tickets in Europe. The points are paid at a reasonable rate but then they add taxes and fees and this can often add up to much more than just buying the ticket outright with cash. (especially if you fly the discounters, but even if you buy the exact same ticket it's close.

@ Phil -- Aside from the partner booking fee, Aeroplan doesn't pass on any carrier imposed surcharges. So the taxes and fees are what would be charged by the airline as well when booking a revenue ticket.

There's no denying that value is sometimes limited redeeming points for intra-Europe economy on a route that's also served by a ULCC like Ryanair, but that's not because Aeroplan is tacking on fuel surcharges.

Excellent article Ben, thanks!

Ben, The most educational and informational posting by you in quite a while. I learned a lot. In fact I had posted a comment not even 2 weeks ago about my "bad" experiences with trying to redeem awards in business class at reasonable rates.
BTW, I have heard from so many close friends who a frequent fliers ( I live in the Pacific Northwest) that Air Canada totally sucks.... Although you Toronto-Miami flight sounded awesome. But there are a lot more horror stories of poor service, poor hard product even on their Dreamliners.

LAX based here and agree it is tough. I find better availability out of SFO as well as DFW and IAH. SFO is a quick hop on Alaska/AA from either SNA or LAX and you can usually bag F for $60 more than coach on Alaska. Lounge access is included as well on Alaska, at least for another month.

Hi Ben, would you mind elaborating how exactly you booked that for 114 K miles? 'I flew from Chicago to Hanoi via Vienna, Rome, Bahrain, Singapore, and Ho Chi Minh City.'

That's the main part that was left out. You can clearly see each of those segments when added up prior to calling are far more than what was redeemed. I guess it's a feature that can only happen by calling in and the system just calculates it at the agents end. I think it was kind of mentioned but lost in translation lol

Others on here too have complained how difficult it is to try and redeem with Aeroplan within the award chart's mileage calculator, so it would be nice to see how this was booked.

The computer isn’t naturally suggest 6 flights for a single award flight. He explained it very clearly in the article that it’s best to search segments individually. Also, if two flights are together quote then together in case their is married segment issue. I’ve done bookings with aeroplan with no issues. Agents are pretty solid.

Excellent and informative article, Ben, thanks. Have some points now with Aeroplan, Amex, Capital One, and Chase. Individually they won't go that far (for a party of two), but by converting and combining Aeroplan points and using some of the tricks you mentioned, I can see some interesting possibilities.

What about the checked in luggage ? Did you have to collect them at any airport and check in again ? Also did you require any transit visa at any of these airports ?

I always only see one seat on LOT (to ORD), any others that you know of that have two more often?

I’ve had agents consistently try to price a stopover as a multi city especially when changing existing bookings. I’ve tried to explain it but they say the price has gone up by the cost of the segment. Has this happened to you?

@ JGeo -- I didn't check in any bags, but generally if you have continuous travel you should be able to check bags through to your final destination, even if traveling on different airlines. I didn't need visas for any destinations based on my combination of having a US and German passport.

@ mauipeter -- I built the itinerary myself, and then the pricing of 115K miles was based on the award chart, which I referenced at the beginning of the post. A one-way between the United States and Asia that covers a distance of 11,001+ miles in business class costs 115,000 Aeroplan points.

Great article as always - thanks Ben. I've had terrible luck though lately trying to get through to Aeroplan on the phone. They give me a wait time of 57 minutes, but still no answer after 3 hours. I tried to get through the next day, waited over an hour, and was disconnected. I ended up trying to call in 8 times over 10 days to get a ticket refunded (this particular one couldn't be done online) and never got through. Took screenshots of all of the call logs and had to contest the original ticketing charge through my credit card, which was successful. I guess each person has to evaluate if the hassle of having access to all of these great airlines through Aeroplan is worth it in the end when something goes wrong.

So then if these were booked individually it would be 180K and $313

Chicago-Rome 70K + $104
Rome-Singapore 80K + $103
Singapore-Hanoi 30K + $106

However when booked with an agent and since all are within the permitted total mileage it drops down to 115K and $112 in taxes and fees.

Amazing. I had no idea this could be done.

Does the same apply with booking two sectors each with a stopover or are those priced separately as you don't need an agent to book those.

Wow...instead of explaining how three sectors when viewed separately ORD-FCO-SIN-HAN that add up to 180K and $313 in taxes as per your screenshots, become 115K and $112 in taxes after booking with the agent..... you just decide to delete my reply to you as well as your previous response to mauipeter as well as another username lol. It is your blog after all....Cheers!! Like I said the system probably calculates the distance and groups together as in the past with the RTW trips bookable with Aeroplan.

Just ignore. You did not delete. (Facepalm) No idea why it didn't show up. Thanks for the detailed write up and insight

One nuance that I ran into with the feature where you can choose between four different combinations of points and cash is that when you change an itinerary, you are locked into that option (proportionately) even if the points requirement for the new itinerary changes.

@Marco

Yes, this applies to stopovers when booking two sectors. I booked IAD to AUH in F with a stopover and then AUH to ICN in J for 145k points (before the recent devaluation). Separately it would be 130k for the first flight in F and 60k for the second flight, so 190k total.

I'm currently studying in Europe (Paris) and would need to go to Hong Kong to take care of some documents this summer and would like to continue on to Canada/North America to visit my family.

According to the post, this should be impossible or at the least, very unlikely?

It appears Paris-Hong Kong-Canada cannot be booked (exceeds the mileage?) and would need to be booked separately. As well as stopovers are not allowed in Canada or the US, the Canada to US sector will need to be booked separately as well.

Even though Aeroplan works mainly for J if you are going with Economy your best bet would be to check with Cathay Pacific directly.

Thanks Andrew. To think I was going to book Canada-Indian subcontinent as one (87.5K) and then Indian Subcontinent to Singapore (60K) as another, which can now be booked as Canada-Indian Subcontinet-Singapore all as one for (87.5). Am I right?

This now makes Aeroplan really great 🙂

Likely calling in first thing in the morning also meant less-grumoy, more helpful agents 😀

How far in advance did you book this trip?

@ Rick Meier -- I booked it a few days before departure.

Do you have any distance calculator you use, or is any airport to airport distance calculator adequate?

How do you search for and book on another airline where air Canada flies the same route? For example YYZ-FRA, only AC or code share flights will show, not Lufthansa flights that would be needed for onward train connection on DB

Trying to get a business class award ticket from SFO to TPE, I checked over 100 different dates in 2023. Nothing available for less than 250K+ miles.

I am looking to take the family to Europe next March so I need four tickets in business at the 70k mark which I can do from Chicago or New York. Problem is United hasn't released their schedule that far out yet. If I book the transatlantic part of my trip now and then add the United flight will the 70k reward re-price or do I just pay the change fee to add the segment.

Thanks for the very informative article Ben.
A couple of questions:
1. It looked like you were charged 87.5k points for your return leg (the price of a business class Partner airline between NA and pacific 7501-11000 miles even though the last 2 of your 3 flight segments for that leg were on AC). When its a mixed carrier (non AC and AC) route, what determines whether you will be charged the AC (and hence dynamic) price or the partner (fixed) price for the route? Is it the first leg ?
2. When I search the AC website (either indicating paying by points or paying by cash) for flight between two non Canadian cities, the flight options invariably have connections through Canada (ex SEA-FRA, all the options go through YVR or YYZ). If I filter to show only non AC direct flights, it says no results even though I know that UA and LH have direct flights showing on their website for that date. I guess my questions is if it doesn’t show up on the AC website (for whatever reason), is it worth even calling the call center to inquire or is that an automatic computer says no situation ?

Thanks again

Also should be mentioned that most times there are significant fees. Flying round trip to Europe might only save you $500 After covering with 100% of points. If you’re out to save money, it might be cheaper to fly another airline all together

I disagree, with European flights there is almost certainly a hefty fuel surcharge involved

Hi!
I am booking a flight to Lisbon from Ottawa x 2 people. I only have enough Points to cover one flight of 1 person.
When I put the full itinerary - it says I don't have enough points - obviously. But How to I get the flight of 1 person covered by Points?
How do I do this? Thanks!

How do you avoid the steep fees that air canada charges? To use my points roundtrip for 2 people, they are charging me upwards of $1800 dollars in fees!

Maybe it is time for OMAAT to re-review Aeroplan given that it now takes 300-500k to travel one-way business class from the east coast of N. America to Europe. This nowhere near the 60k estimated in the Aeroplan rewards chart.

This is a deal breaker. Other loyalty programs have much more business class availability at much lower point costs.

You need to look better, just found availability to Europe for 70k points.

Dear Ben, thanks a lot for your interesting article.

I have a technical question regarding a booking with and through Aeroplan. The thing is that if i want to book a (complicated) awardticket, i am not sure whether that is possible when i start a call with Aeroplan. In that case i don't want to have already transfered my points to Aeroplan ofcourse. So i was wondering if you know if it possible to tranfer points to Aeroplan (from AMEX) on the moment you got to know that your preffered ticketroute is indeed possible (that that is confirmed on the phone). Or do you know a better way to deal with this?

Any idea for the next selling auction ? 9th of March is the rumor.

Interesting, I sectioned out your itinerary, but starting in YYC. and then added up the points needed just to get to Ho Chi Minh. just getting there was 210000points. Granted I looked at an August departure. But this seems quite a bit higher than what you could find. So, maybe the time of year plays a huge part.

Thanks for the post

@Ben - I just tried to call Aeroplan to do a similar itinerary, the first agent I spoke to started the booking, however, the call disconnected. The second agent I connected to was absolutely useless and quite rude and adamantly said it was not possible. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and he said it could take an hour to speak to a supervisor, he then put me on hold for 30 seconds and I was immediately connected to a 'supervisor' who also insisted my itinerary would not be possible. Any recommendations?

how many points do I need to be a elite aeroplan member?

So did you take a backpack with a change of clothes for stopovers since your bags were checked through?

Hi. If you had to choose between joining Flying Blue or Aeroplane which would you pick?
Thank you.

I am trying to transfer rewards points from my partner, just deceased into my account and you won't accept my aeroplan number or my email. We have been members since inception and have not redeemed points for 8 years but would like to now using the original orange card. In spite of having several hundred thousand air mile points I have had to book a flight to California and pay cash. My partners account has a similar total. We have submitted documents as asked but I can't get past email or account numbers. Help! At 87 perhaps it is my technical skills