I often write about the positives of the Air Canada Aeroplan program, like the generous routing rules, stopovers for 5,000 points, and huge array of airline partners. In this post I wanted to address a question that I get on a daily basis about Aeroplan — what happened to Etihad Airways and Oman Air awards, as they haven’t been available for quite some time?
In this post:
Aeroplan’s lack of Etihad & Oman Air awards
Air Canada Aeroplan has roughly 45 airline partners. While Air Canada belongs to the Star Alliance, the airline also has all kinds of independent airline partners, which is one of the things that makes the program so great. I mean, you could book a single award that includes travel on Air Mauritius, Gulf Air, and Bamboo Airways — how fun is that?! Okay, I’m going to have to figure out what routing that would entail, but I digress…
For some members, two of Aeroplan’s most valuable airline partners are Etihad Airways and Oman Air:
- Etihad Airways has an awesome first class and business class product, and generally has good award availability
- Oman Air is a lovely boutique airline, and not many programs have a partnership with Oman Air, making it all the more valuable
Yet for whatever reason, awards on both airlines haven’t been bookable through Aeroplan for quite some time. For Oman Air, awards haven’t been bookable for several months, while for Etihad, awards haven’t been bookable for a couple of months.
What happened to these award seats?
Suffice it to say that something is going on with Aeroplan awards on Etihad and Oman Air, or else we wouldn’t see availability pulled for so long. Officially, Aeroplan representatives tell me that the partnerships with Etihad and Oman Air haven’t ended, and that’s confirmed on Air Canada’s website, which still lists both of these as airline partners. However, there’s not an exact timeline for when awards on these airlines will be restored.
With that in mind, all I can do is speculate, and share my take on what might be going on. I’ve written before about award availability discrepancies between airlines, and what can cause that. Admittedly in this case it’s not a discrepancy, but rather availability just isn’t there at all on some partners.
In general, there are three most common reasons that an airline may not have access to partner award availability for an extended period of time, without ending a partnership:
- A program is intentionally throttling the award availability it shows its members in order to limit expenses associated with award redemptions
- There’s a technical glitch that’s preventing award availability from displaying correctly; you’d be surprised by how long it can take for some tech issues to be fixed
- There’s a dispute between airlines and/or loyalty programs, often in situations where one side feels like it’s drawing the short end of the stick
Specific to this Aeroplan situation, here’s my assumption:
- If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that Aeroplan is very focused on offering as many redemption opportunities to members as possible (this has been a huge focus of the program, since it was relaunched), and I’m confident it’s not Aeroplan intentionally blocking partner award space
- I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the Etihad and Oman Air problems (whatever they may be) are the same, since availability was taken offline at different times; when you have dozens of partners (with many using different systems), it takes a lot of effort to just keep everything displaying correctly
- I believe that if Aeroplan actually knew these redemption opportunities wouldn’t come back online, then the program would just officially remove these as partners
So, what’s my speculation? With Etihad I honestly have no clue what to think. The airline is used to having a high number of partner redemptions, given that you can also redeem American AAdvantage miles on Etihad. So it’s not like the airline is worried about people booking their awards with partner miles. For what it’s worth, American seems to have technical issues with Etihad awards every so often as well, so I hope that’s also what’s going on here.
Meanwhile in the case of Oman Air, I can’t help but wonder if it might be a bit more complicated. The folks at Aeroplan are amazing at adding partners, and when the partnership first started, I wondered if Oman Air was ready for the volume of inbound award bookings it would get.
After all, Oman Air lacked “mainstream” airline partners with efficient redemption opportunities. Furthermore, I imagine there’s some imbalance in redemptions here, with a lot more Air Canada Aeroplan members redeeming on Oman Air than Oman Air Sindbad members redeeming on Air Canada.
Whenever you add a small carrier with limited partners to your redemption roster, I think they’re not quite ready for the influx of award bookings that come in (I have to imagine Starlux Airlines might feel the same after yesterday). 😉
Another interesting thing to keep in mind is that Oman Air is joining the oneworld alliance in 2024, which is super exciting. Now, the airline can absolutely have partnerships with non-oneworld airlines, so it shouldn’t have to one or the other. However, perhaps Oman Air is suddenly more focused on that going forward. After all, the Aeroplan partnership launched before Oman Air revealed its intentions to join oneworld.
Anyway, we’ll have to mark this all as developing, and hopefully we get an update one way or another pretty soon.
Bottom line
For quite some time, Air Canada’s Aeroplan program hasn’t had access to awards on Etihad Airways and Oman Air. I know these were among the favorite Aeroplan partners of OMAAT readers, and I’m also sad to see the lack of availability.
The good news is that these partnerships aren’t over, at least officially. The bad news is that there’s no exact timeline for them coming back. If and when we learn more, I’ll be sure to report back…
What’s your take on this award availability situation?
I found award seats on Omar Air, but when I tried to go through with the booking, I got an error message. I tried multiple times on different days. I also called Aeroplan, and they weren't able to confirm the seats either. They remain visible in the search engine, but they seem to be phantom seats. It's very disappointing.
Even Gulf Air flights can’t be found for sometime, anyone has clue about it?
@ Ben Schlappig Any updates from the Aeroplan folks on what's going on with Etihad business and first availability? Thanks!
Same thing is happening now on Aeroplan with regards to ANA. No award routes from SFO to Tokyo from partner airlines for over a week. Not sure what's happening.
Looks like Etihad awards are back on Aeroplan
What class are you seeing. I only see economy. Also spoke to Aeroplan and they are not seeing first or business availability on dates where Etihad is showing Guest availability.
@ Ben Schlappig, any updates from on the issue here? I seem to recall plenty of people booking EY Apartments through Aeroplan earlier this year when booking first opened.
They aren't at all.q
Turkish, too. I've been using AP to book Turkish business class fares for several years now, this year the availability has been slim to none.
I think this article was pointless. The end result is that you have no idea so it is not even a good educated guess. If the program has for the most part given you value and then there are a few glitches here and there there is no need for an article complaining about it.
Etihad Economy seats are still appearing on aeroplan award search. Only J and F r not appearing for now
Hi @Ben Schlappig,
I want to share my personal experience here. I have travelled Etihad FC on Mar 15th 2023, AUH-IAD. This booking was made using Aero Plan sometime around Sep of 2022. There was plenty of availability during that time period for 2 people. On Mar 13th or so, Etihad upgraded their systems and I had difficulty checking in using their app during my travel. It took Etihad couple of days to fix the...
Hi @Ben Schlappig,
I want to share my personal experience here. I have travelled Etihad FC on Mar 15th 2023, AUH-IAD. This booking was made using Aero Plan sometime around Sep of 2022. There was plenty of availability during that time period for 2 people. On Mar 13th or so, Etihad upgraded their systems and I had difficulty checking in using their app during my travel. It took Etihad couple of days to fix the issue.
Ever since Etihad system upgrade, I am not able to find any award availability in Etihad BC or FC using Aero Plan, where as AA able to find plenty of award availability for BC and FC. I miss booking Etihad using AeroPlan.
The AP inventory was pulled sometime after the EY system upgrade, it is unlikely that the 2 are linked technically since there was still plenty of J and F for couple of weeks after the upgrade.
One data point to support the theory that Etihad is holding availability:
On June 24th I booked MXP-AUH departing in late September on Aeroplan, albeit in Economy.
Thai Airways also hasn't shown for many months.
I will echo others’ experience in the comments about how bad Aeroplan is. It still takes 1.5 to 2 hours to get through via phone, the call center is still closed overnight Canadian time despite partner flights taking off all day and night across different time zones, and phantom availability is still a huge problem, especially with ET and CM. I am still waiting 2 months later for Aeroplan to return 110,000 points back to...
I will echo others’ experience in the comments about how bad Aeroplan is. It still takes 1.5 to 2 hours to get through via phone, the call center is still closed overnight Canadian time despite partner flights taking off all day and night across different time zones, and phantom availability is still a huge problem, especially with ET and CM. I am still waiting 2 months later for Aeroplan to return 110,000 points back to AMEX MR following a phantom availability booking situation.
In addition, the stopover booking tool is cool, but it doesn’t show all the available flight combinations, and if you ask an agent to help you, they charge 30 CAD, even though you can’t book the combination on the Aeroplan website. Talking to a supervisor doesn’t change things. They never waive the 30 CAD fee.
The change and cancellation fees are uncompetitive with the US big three. You also can’t make changes to an itinerary for free even though you’re within 24 hours of booking. They will still charge you 100 CAD. So you have to cancel and book again, except the miles don’t immediately show up in your account.
But the biggest issue is that AMEX MR transfers are no longer instant. This is also true for getting your points back after cancelling an Aeroplan booking. In both cases, the miles only show up after you get through to Aeroplan and an agent looks at the account. It’s very mysterious and the call center agents can’t explain it. I keep losing availability while waiting to get through to an agent so that the AMEX transfer gets through.
Thanks, Daniel.....Very well said and you literally write each and every point which I have been facing all these months...
Aeroplan has become complete trash, and I don't know why it took this long for it to be called out.
They jam their program with partner airlines and it looks great on the surface, but is a horrid experience of incredibly limited to no availability; it's all window dressing to market the program and nothing more.
They benefited from Bens's blogs encouraging others to buy Aeroplan miles and the traveler bought miles with no proper availability seen and the frustrations involved
For me, Aeroplan is just a husk of what it was when it re-launched with much fanfare.
I booked and flew Eiihad (SYD-AUH-CDG) in Business earlier this year, and recall there were many on-line options to choose from on and around my preferred date on Aeroplan. Now, nada!
With the gloss now gone, even a 100% bonus is of little use, and the wallet is snapped shut. (Same goes for Alaska, having seemingly been consumed by a cosmic black hole.)
The last two flights I booked were on EVA and Thai. Availability showed on United but not Aeroplan. After making many reservations with Aeroplan I have to say they are turning into a disappointment.
I found Etihad awards on Aeroplan earlier today. Is the problem that you can’t actually complete the purchase?
Not 100% true in the case of Etihad.
Last month, I was able to find J availability between places in Europe and AUH and Y between US/ Canada and AUH. All through the Aeroplan/Air Canada app and website.
Surprised this post doesn’t mention the elephant in the room. Etihad long-haul J redemptions have been blocked because Chinese points brokers were booking them en masse and reselling them on Chinese social media. Indeed, Chinese brokers are a huge problem for airlines at the moment. Part of the reason why Cathay has that new queuing function on its website. To try to weed out their bots scraping its award availability.
This. Along with seats.aero making it ridiculously easy to find J and F AP bookable flights meant they seats were probably hoovered up by brokers and resold. (My speculation).
I always think partnership means only 2-3 years, even they are still existing, usually start with a new partner, then roll out a massive cheap award redemption, then afterwards costs getting higher until it is no longer redeemable or disappears, then the partnership either left there unattended until they remarried to a different one. But luckily there were always marrying, divorces and remarrying going on in this world.
Oman Air is available via Aeroplan! They havent showed up online for months but I called and they were able to book me AMM to MCT a month ago and I asked them to check a number of routes in Business and all were available with a lot of dates.
Call Aeroplan reservations to book Oman Air
I've called numerous times and have not once been able to book oman via the phone. All agents have stated that they can only see what i see online and that they do not see any Oman award space. Can i ask what route you book or what you did to help them find award space?? I know someone else who had to call multiple times to book it, but Im at 10+ hours on the phone and no one can see anything.
The issue with Aeroplan is far more reaching. Honestly, I’m starting to think most airline partners, including Star A, are throttling back or just not releasing space to Aeroplan. I personally despise LifeMiles (clunky site and poor back end service) but have been using them for LH space lately as it won’t show the same flights on Aeroplan.
Not really 100% true!
EY has good availability for example MUC-AUH, MXP-AUH sometimes all the way to BKK too in Y, J or F is a different story.
On very few days AMS-AUH is available on EY even in J.
For winter schedule (after Oct. 27th) there is a lot of EY availability, but most routes only in Y, most flights ex Europe to Middle East, Indian Ocean or Asia too.
...
Not really 100% true!
EY has good availability for example MUC-AUH, MXP-AUH sometimes all the way to BKK too in Y, J or F is a different story.
On very few days AMS-AUH is available on EY even in J.
For winter schedule (after Oct. 27th) there is a lot of EY availability, but most routes only in Y, most flights ex Europe to Middle East, Indian Ocean or Asia too.
Oman Air hasn't bern listed since the past March!
Tried to get Sansibar flights on WY, but not a single day was available, not from any airport in Germany, Italy or France.
No one cares about short haul J or long haul Y. Long haul J redemptions are gone, and that’s what matters.
Finally a blogger who talks about this topic.
More than 6 months that Oman Air took away all their award space from Aroplan. I consider this will be final and they will never come back, since Oman will become part of One World in 2024.
And the same happened with J and F EY flights...there's been a few months with put J or F EY seats available.
Aeroplan lost its gems!!!
Not just Etihad and Oman Air. Aeroplan has been having issues with Egypt air and Gulf air as well. Egypt air awards are usually widely available and shows up in United and EF but doesn't show up in Aeroplan website or manual booking. GF awards show up online but errors out while booking
Adding to all these, all awards to India are blocked online except for flights from US and Canada (which are non existent).
Very frustrated with the program and customer service.
Aeroplan also isn't showing any Thai awards that United and even LifeMiles show. Calling Aeroplan didn't help either when I tried.
As for Etihad, I am pretty sure the disappearance is due to those brokers holding the seats. This is very similar to my comment in your “where is JAL first class” posting. When we were able to use aeroplan miles to redeem Etihad, hose brokers held almost every business class seat between US and China by flexible reward and posted them on social network for resell. If I were the airlines, I wouldn’t allow this happen.
Perhaps if the problem is really bots and brokers snatching all the seats as they are released, surely there is some intelligence in the Aeroplan system to identify real people much more securely, preventing the plethora of fake accounts that brokers , by necessity, depend on for their fraudulent activity.
One of the other big problems with Aeroplan is that the awards on the Air Canada flights price out to insanely ridiculous fees. Like 300,000 points one way in business to Europe. Seems like the only availability they have to anywhere in Europe in business for a reasonable cost is with brussels airline or Air Serbia at 70k.
Try Singapore airways. Just booked JFK to FRA to CAI for 70k points in business. It was on Singapore and air Egypt.
Canadians don't have much choice in many cases but to use AC or WJ. Aeroplan used to be great but since it has gone to dynamic pricing, it is more difficult to get redemption on partners' airlines (especially when the travel party is 2 or more). Once AC flies direct into a new destination (BKK, SIN, DXB), it seems that there is less redemption from partners' airlines to/from that destination (and if there is, the...
Canadians don't have much choice in many cases but to use AC or WJ. Aeroplan used to be great but since it has gone to dynamic pricing, it is more difficult to get redemption on partners' airlines (especially when the travel party is 2 or more). Once AC flies direct into a new destination (BKK, SIN, DXB), it seems that there is less redemption from partners' airlines to/from that destination (and if there is, the departure time is terrible or more connections are required). It isn't a surprise that AC is promoting their routes (and more redemption points are required). If one is flexible, one can still find here and there on partners' airlines especially within one month before departure, better yet a week before departure (usually for one person). It takes a lot of work now. For me, Aeroplan is not exciting as it used to be. Sometimes (more often now), it is better to use cash and have that flexibility to choose airline of choice, better departure time, reduce the number of connections, and more choices for length of stay at stopover locations.
Bingo, hence the blocking of LH/CM/AV out of Canada. But you can pay 300k out on AC
Regarding Etihad, I think it goes back to when the A380 first class space bonanza earlier this year. There was definitely something up with that. Most of us that booked through Aeroplan got emails from Etihad saying our flights were canceled due to a plane swap even though they were still bookable on 380's. According to one Aeroplan agent I spoke to Etihad swapped all the flights to 777's that don't have first class just...
Regarding Etihad, I think it goes back to when the A380 first class space bonanza earlier this year. There was definitely something up with that. Most of us that booked through Aeroplan got emails from Etihad saying our flights were canceled due to a plane swap even though they were still bookable on 380's. According to one Aeroplan agent I spoke to Etihad swapped all the flights to 777's that don't have first class just long enough to cause the tickets to be canceled, and then switched back to 380's. The agent said it looked deliberate to him based on the timing. It took a lot of calls and emails to get the tickets re-issued in first class. I know Nick at Frequent Miler was in contact with Air Canada to help resolve it. Supposedly Air Canada was going through each reservation manually and correcting it. I would speculate that the compensation from Air Canada to Etihad wasn't acceptable. I haven't heard of anyone having this issue if they booked through AA.
Like others said there is way more to this. TG gone. AV/CM blocked where available with other miles. LH to/from Canada likewise. GF throttled/gone.
You also cannot to make India bookings online due to fraud.
Stopover itineraries sound good in theories until one realizes that only a few basic things price out properly.
Aeroplan went for short term profit selling fools gold to banks and customers (hello 100% bonus sales) and is now inevitably dealing...
Like others said there is way more to this. TG gone. AV/CM blocked where available with other miles. LH to/from Canada likewise. GF throttled/gone.
You also cannot to make India bookings online due to fraud.
Stopover itineraries sound good in theories until one realizes that only a few basic things price out properly.
Aeroplan went for short term profit selling fools gold to banks and customers (hello 100% bonus sales) and is now inevitably dealing with having to adjust things.
@ Ann -- Sorry, I'm confused by some of those. Could you give some examples, if you don't mind, because I'd love to learn more here, as I did some random searches and am not seeing the same thing?
For LH being blocked out of Canada, the first itinerary I pulled up is YUL-MUC on July 29, and that shows same through UA and AC.
For CM being blocked, the first itinerary I pulled up...
@ Ann -- Sorry, I'm confused by some of those. Could you give some examples, if you don't mind, because I'd love to learn more here, as I did some random searches and am not seeing the same thing?
For LH being blocked out of Canada, the first itinerary I pulled up is YUL-MUC on July 29, and that shows same through UA and AC.
For CM being blocked, the first itinerary I pulled up is MIA-PTY on November 14, and that shows same through UA and AC.
For AV being blocked, the first itinerary I pulled up is MIA-BOG on November 14, and that shows same through UA and AC.
Aeroplan is aware of the TG issue and is trying to fix that ASAP. As far as GF goes, it's definitely not gone, as I see plenty of dates where it is available.
True! Fraud has zeroed out inventory online to/from India.
"You also cannot to make India bookings online due to fraud."
Hi Ann, What was the context of the above.
I was able to reserve an etihad award for next March DOH-AUH-IAD in business. Granted, I booked this a few months ago, but definitely did it.
I'm considering changing dates and see availability on etihad, but in coach, not business.
So, for at least that far out, there is availability in coach, just not the business I want yet. So it's there?
Aeroplan has become a big disappointment as a program. They have promised so much, and after a promising relaunch they have let things slide significantly from the lofty initial standards they set themselves.
Their Waterloo seems to have been signing up with transferable points partners from less mature markets. That flooded their points earnings, but brought inventory pressure and fraud issues at an unprecedented scale. Classic example of biting off more than you can chew.
...Aeroplan has become a big disappointment as a program. They have promised so much, and after a promising relaunch they have let things slide significantly from the lofty initial standards they set themselves.
Their Waterloo seems to have been signing up with transferable points partners from less mature markets. That flooded their points earnings, but brought inventory pressure and fraud issues at an unprecedented scale. Classic example of biting off more than you can chew.
I'm sure Mark or someone from his team is reading this, so please take it to heart. I'm a huge fan, but as a consumer (and former AC*SE from 20+ years ago) you guys are disappointing me too often right now.
Just wondering what are the other markets that they signed with? I'm only aware of US and Canada.
India specifically. That's why all Aeroplan partner redemptions to/from/within India have been "indefinitely discontinued" via the website for months now.
Maybe they want their own special premium award chart like EK
EY Y is still available...implies its not technical issues between EY and AC
GF is so broken it may as well be removed
SQ not combinable with other carriers
TG blocked
Phantom space on ET
The list goes on...
@ Sam -- I'm curious about the Gulf Air issue you're seeing, because I see availability just fine? I see business space from Bahrain to London, Bangkok, etc. And I also see the ability to combine Singapore Airlines with other partners.
Ethiopian has been an issue for many Star Alliance partners in terms of itineraries confirming, so I don't think there's anything Aeroplan is doing wrong there. And yes, Aeroplan is aware of the technical...
@ Sam -- I'm curious about the Gulf Air issue you're seeing, because I see availability just fine? I see business space from Bahrain to London, Bangkok, etc. And I also see the ability to combine Singapore Airlines with other partners.
Ethiopian has been an issue for many Star Alliance partners in terms of itineraries confirming, so I don't think there's anything Aeroplan is doing wrong there. And yes, Aeroplan is aware of the technical issues with Thai, and those should be fixed ASAP.
I normally assume GF is phantom when I see it because I've not been able to ticket it more times than I can count but I think I read something about the need to book one seat at a time. It doesn't like multiple seats being on the same PNR it would seem.
SQ does sometimes show combinations with other airlines online but if you ask the contact centre to combine SQ segments or SQ + other carriers that should be valid...I've never been successful.
@ Sam -- Hadn't heard that before, thanks. What reason do they give for not being able to combine it, because that doesn't make much sense to me? Is it a situation with married segments, or...?
They will simply something like 'the airlines won't sell these segments together' nonsense and there's seemingly no workaround. Even when no AC segments on the PNR it will not price. I don't think its married/unmarried segments because its so widespread.
I had this happen to me last week but with UA.
Adding UA3483 (IND-ORD) to NH11 was not allowed. Whenever the agents tried to add it to the existing PNR, they said that the UA flight would show full/waitlist-only. Ticketing couldn't help either. The segment could be ticketed individually. However adding UA3562 (same flight, 2 hours later) worked fine.
So some kind of inventory control has been added or is being more widely used than...
I had this happen to me last week but with UA.
Adding UA3483 (IND-ORD) to NH11 was not allowed. Whenever the agents tried to add it to the existing PNR, they said that the UA flight would show full/waitlist-only. Ticketing couldn't help either. The segment could be ticketed individually. However adding UA3562 (same flight, 2 hours later) worked fine.
So some kind of inventory control has been added or is being more widely used than suggested in Aeroplan routing rules posts
@Pal Its a very complicated picture and its become quite hard to predict what will price. Generally I observe:
- SQ doesnt play well with itself or other carriers
- Having AC segments on the PNR tends to apply other, more restrictive rules to the routing
- Sometimes classes don't play together well. F + Y it seems not to like.
- In the case of United, its always been a...
@Pal Its a very complicated picture and its become quite hard to predict what will price. Generally I observe:
- SQ doesnt play well with itself or other carriers
- Having AC segments on the PNR tends to apply other, more restrictive rules to the routing
- Sometimes classes don't play together well. F + Y it seems not to like.
- In the case of United, its always been a bit dodgy. You have to be persistent and watch your PNR so they are coming back Confirmed as sometimes the agents won't spot the issue.
- This alongside the general married/unmarried segment stuff that goes on with LH, ET, EY, AV and im sure others...
Finally someone raised this up. Find it weird too since prior the announcement of Etihad A380, there are bunch of FC redemption to fro AUH & LHR. Though now, nothing. Only economy all around, not even a single business class.
Too much mileage brokering And Also EK joins the AP game...