Air Canada Aeroplan is probably my single favorite frequent flyer program. Not only does Aeroplan have more airline partners than any other airline loyalty program, but Aeroplan also allows stopovers on awards for just 5,000 points, which is an exceptional deal (given how few loyalty programs allow stopovers nowadays).
Well, there’s a very exciting development when it comes to Aeroplan’s stopover feature.
You can now book Aeroplan stopovers online
Up until now it has been necessary to call Aeroplan’s contact center in order to plan an itinerary with a stopover. We’ve known that Aeroplan has been working on bringing this technology to aircanada.com, so that customers can book stopovers without having to pick up the phone.
This feature is finally available — you can now book Aeroplan stopovers directly on aircanada.com. This is such a fantastic development in terms of being able to book all your Aeroplan awards online. Not only does Aeroplan’s call center often have long hold times, but it’s not open 24/7, so this makes booking awards so much easier.
As a reminder, Aeroplan stopovers are stops that are a minimum of 24 hours, and a maximum of 45 days. Furthermore, stopovers aren’t allowed in the United States or Canada, regardless of the destination.
Keep in mind that even if you’re not loyal to Air Canada, Aeroplan points are easy to come by. Aeroplan is transfer partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One, and Chase Ultimate Rewards. On top of that, in the United States there’s the Chase Air Canada Aeroplan® Credit Card (review), which is pretty lucrative.
Not only is Aeroplan in the Star Alliance, but the airline has all kinds of other valuable redemption partnerships, as you can use Aeroplan points for travel on Etihad, Azul, Vistara, Air Serbia, Virgin Australia, Air Dolomiti, Eurowings Discover, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Air Mauritius, etc.
How to book Aeroplan stopovers on aircanada.com
The process of booking an award stopover on aircanada.com is super easy. Just go to the aircanada.com homepage, and when you search a flight, click the “Multi-city/Stopover” button, and also check the “Book with points” box.
You’ll then see a box that populates, allowing you to enter your origin and destination, as well as your stopover city and how long you’d like to stay there for. For example, I looked at an award on Oman Air from Frankfurt to Zanzibar with a stopover in Muscat.
When you search for award availability, you’ll then be presented with an overall itinerary, as you can see below. This particular itinerary costs 65,000 Aeroplan points in business class with the stopover (you’d ordinarily pay 60,000 Aeroplan points for an award of this distance, plus the 5,000 points).
Generally speaking you’re still going to want to search each component of the award individually, and only use the stopover tool once you’re ready to book. That way you can first get a sense of availability on the individual segments of the ticket.
Bottom line
Air Canada’s Aeroplan program has rolled out its much anticipated online stopover feature, so it’s now possible to add stopovers on award tickets directly on aircanada.com. It’s not only great that Aeroplan allows stopovers for just 5,000 points, but it’s awesome that these stopovers are now so easy to book. Well done, Aeroplan!
What do you make of Aeroplan’s stopover functionality coming online?
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