Thank you for the information brother! As a new traveler, your channel has really helped me understand the possibilities, and maximize trips with more experiences with the least amount of cost! Keep up the great work my friend!!
Ricky, this is the first comment I've ever added to a youtube video - ever. I think what you are doing is amazing. It is truly wonderful that you willingly share your knowledge. Keep up the good work and welcome to the West Coast.
Thanks for the great explanation of the program in your video. What will be interesting to see is how Air Canada will degrade the program over time as all reward programs do. Come out with a good rewards program, get people into it, and then over time making it more complicated and less rewarding like the old Aeroplan.
I'm here learning about this for the first time. I feel like I've missed out the last year or so. I'm from Novs Scotia and flew to Paris then home. I flew from Halifax to Toronto and back 5 times in one year. I feel like I missed out on lots of points. I'm flying to Italy in October
Thank you for all this great information! Just a couple questions: - How long can I book/be in a stopover city for? - How long can I book/be in a layover city for? Does this answer change for oneway ticket vs. Round trip tickets?
A ticket is valid for up to one year from issuance, and airlines release their flights 11-12 months in advance, so the stopover duration is roughly one year. For layovers, it's 24 hours. No difference between one-ways and round-trips.
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Booked 2 people in Etihad first from IAD to AUH with a few day stop over and then onto Seoul in business class for 145k points per person. Not the craziest sweet spot, but not bad for international first class and a stop over with award availability for 2 people.
sorry to be offtopic but does anybody know of a trick to log back into an Instagram account?? I somehow forgot my login password. I would love any help you can offer me
@Ronnie Atticus Thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site thru google and I'm waiting for the hacking stuff atm. I see it takes quite some time so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
I have 830K AMEX points from my platinum business card and it seem like the best value is to transfer it to Aeroplan. Too bad Canada AMEX can not transfer to Emirates point. I love flying their first class produce. I been watching all your videos. Thank you so much. I got all the information I needed. I may reach out to you for help when it's time for booking.
Web site needs improvement. Hard to find where to go to redeem points for merchandise. Also when looking at a merchandise item details, when you try to return to the list of items, it always goes back to the start of the item list instead of the item you were just checking the details on.
I finally understand Aeroplan now. Thanks man! Hey Prince, do you have any tips on withdrawing money from ATMs overseas? Scotiabank is a member of the ABM Alliance, which is nice for Euro travel and withdrawing local cash there, but in Asia, not many countries have ABM Alliance terminals. If you’re an American, you can just get a Schwab bank account and withdraw at foreign ATMs for totally free, like even in The Philippines for instance, but is there something like that for Canadians that you know of? Does any Canadian bank have free foreign ATM withdrawals, or is there any credit card that allows you to withdraw for only the conversion rate without any other fees? Thanks man.
I like to use the Stack Prepaid Mastercard for foreign cash withdrawals: princeoftravel.com/blog/stack-prepaid-mastercard-the-new-best-prepaid-card-in-canada/
Thank you for the great information! I'm new to the program and have some questions about earning status. We are a family of 4, 2 adults and a 9 and 5 year old. When I book travel for the family, am I awarded SQM/SQS for all the passenger fares I purchased or just on my portion? Should each family member have an aeroplan number? Thank you!
Hey Ricky, great video as usual! Liked it #66! :) A few questions if you can clarify, maybe it will help others as well: 1. Can you refer a link on AC site where it says if we redeem the business class 'flexible', we can go inside the Signature lounge? While, the 'lowest' business can't...? Or, if not, how did you get this information? Talking with a few agents a few days ago, some of them said - neither flexible nor lowest can go in, only for those who paid which is the same as the old rule; no change on this as per their knowledge. I don't think anyone experience yet since the signature itself is still currently closed due to covid. But, we'll find out. 2. Would you pay 'flexible' business to get into the signature lounge? Would you say it's worth it? 3. I'm an SE 100k, for change or cancellation, if I book economy standard, would I still get the benefit of $0 change and cancellation fee due to my SE status, including free seat selection, etc., and # of baggage allowance? 4. Currently, I book a reservation under 'lowest' business, but I have many E-upgrades to burn, if I don't cancel my existing reservation, do you think AC will allow me create a dummy reservation to book economy "latitude" wthen find out if I can get into the business right away using my e-upgrades without cancelling the existing reservation (same dates, same flight)? If not, then i will cancel the dummy one and stick with the existing. If yes, then i will cancel my existing booking under lowest 'business', and just go with the dummy 'latitude' one. Thoughts? 5. Last, I think it would be great if you do a deep-dive details on family sharing, what i mean is, give an example, let's say, you are to bring 3 family members in, how many points are they bringing into the pool at start VS how many they contribute periodically VS one of the family member that contribute lowest points in the pool is given the 'redeem access', but does it mean that this person would be able to 'eat' up all the pool points? Because i heard it's based on the portion of their points, but not too sure what it means... Cheers. Adrian - 'flyingbunny88'
The information came from Aeroplan directly. It isn't being advertised as a perk right now because the Signature Suites are closed. I'd personally pay the extra ~10k just to try it for the first time in both Toronto and Vancouver, and after that I'll be able to decide whether it's worth it on future trips. Yes, as an SE you'd get free changes and cancellations on Economy Standard from your status anyway. Not entirely sure what you mean with #4 but yes it should be no problem to hold both reservations at the same time to experiment with as long as you cancel one of them soon after. And great idea! Basically whenever a redemption happens, all family members' accounts are deducted proportionally based on their current balances. This even applies to family members who do not have the ability to redeem; that just means they can't proactively redeem awards themselves, but if another family redeems, then their accounts do get debited.
Don't know if this would work, but I have thought of a potential way to book YYZ-IST-AUH (with IST being the stopover) using the current online booking engine (especially if you are up late at night while the Aeroplan call center is closed and want to snatch the seats before they are gone). Book the award online and have it priced as YYZ-IST + IST-AUH which is more expensive. Wait until the Aeroplan call center opens early in the morning and give them a call to ask to have the ticket voided or refunded (if it is within 24 hours of original issuance) and points refunded [without cancelling the flight segments in the PNR]. They can then use the same PNR and issue a new reward ticket with the correct number of miles (YYZ-AUH award + 5,000 for IST stopover).
Sounds like a simpler way to do it would be to use the unpublished one free change rule to get them to price it properly (without having to cancel and rebook)
I guess one of the reasons Aeroplan is taking forever to release a proper multi-city booking engine is probably they don't want people abusing it like what happened to Alaska Mileage Plan when they first introduced SQ awards....(eg. stuffing it with illogical routings).
Hey Ricky, great video as always! A question I always had about the new program is that are there any new clarifications regarding MPM allowance on complex routings? The search engine clearly shows routings that greatly exceed the 100% rule so I was wondering if any "insane" routings have been accepted by Aeroplan on the chart's maximum distances.
The 100% rule seems to be very tenuous over the search engine, although I've found that it is decently well-respected over the call centre. You might get away with 120% ish but likely not more than that. You can read this article for some initial experiments: princeoftravel.com/blog/new-aeroplan-an-early-look-at-complex-routings/ Although more work is needed to understand the rules for sure. It'll be much easier once the online multi-city tool is rolled out.
I have a question. I recently booked a flight and i have a free checked baggage. I have aeroplan credit card so does that mean my second bag is free now ? Bcz its one of the benefits of the card to have free checked baggage. Thank you.
@princeoftravel at 18:00, why are the points for the third and fourth options converted backwards? Isnt the redemption value from the 60% > 80% options of 1.8 CPP a good thing? Why does the calculations for the third and fourth option get converted backwards from the standard rate?
Superb presentation of helpful information. Maybe it’s time to confer upon you a new moniker: King Richard, king of travel or Ricky PhD. (principally home - destination). Now we will have travel far and wide to find someone qualified to appoint/anoint you. Cheers
Does partner airline points fluctuate? [23:28] For example the YVR-Tokyo flight on ANA would always be 55,000 points or would that fluctuate dynamically? I noticed that partner flights pop up in Air Canadas search results but at much higher prices.
Hello Ricky, Thank you for this great info. Can I use partially aeroplan points and pay rest?. I have 10,000 points and if I would like to use that to my international flight which is worth of 70K points.
I'm so confused; how to calculate how much each point is worth?? Cuz from my calculation, the fewest point option, it's 0.013 cents per point. Please help me out here
I think I got his math... $334.72 on 33,472pts is $0.01/pts. Now the percent difference from 80,272pts to 28,200 pts is 185%. Take $0.01/pts and multiply by the 185% difference = $0.018/pts (almost 2 cents). I can't think to explain if that's correct or not, but I'm guessing that's his math.
what would you reccomend for students that are 18 like cheaper flights on air canada with aeroplan I seen a student cibc aeroplan platnium with a 10k bonus
Which card would you recommend. TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite or Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite. I'm trying to decide between the two for a travel credit card but not sure which one to go with. Any feedback would be appreciated.
The general rule of thumb is that you can only fly up to 100% over the direct distance between two points on a single one-way bound, so that would probably price as two separate awards CDG-SIN and SIN-YYZ.
No, you can’t pool them for free until Aeroplan resumes family sharing. Even then, the points remain in your separate accounts. When you make a redemption from either account, the points are taken proportionately based on points balance.
Hey Ricky, hope you're enjoying your vacation and looking forward to your next video. I wanted to ask if it was possible to get the 2 referral bonuses in this configuration in 1 player mode. CAD Platinum Business - referral > US Gold Business - referral > US Gold personal? Could you please do an updated video on Churning for your Canadian subscribers? I've read that amex no longer offers the sign up bonus the second time round. Thanks
Hi there, I'm currently with United MileagePlus program. I'm based in YVR and flying more united flights previously for work. Now I'm flying within Canada and I'm wondering if it's worth switching to the new AC Aeroplan. I'm 1K with United and please let me know your thoughts! Thanks.
Hello, thanks for your detailed guide about Aeroplan. Does Aeroplan require a round trip for a free stopover? I tried to search 1-way biz award ticket from Rome to San Francisco and stopover Paris for a week: the cost between Rome-Paris is 25K points, Paris-SFO is 85K points. I hope that the 25K points are free but it is not, did I do something wrong here? do I have to call for stopover free? Thanks
Hey Ricky - I've been trying to book YYZ-BKK with a stopover in Europe (France, Italy or Greece) and per my understanding as well as your video it should be 90,000 points (85,000 + 5,000). However, when I call Aeroplan, it always ends up being 120K+, i.e. the 5,000 stopover points never applies. I've tried it with 4-5 agents with no luck, always the same issue. Any advice?
@@PrinceofTravel it was about two weeks, so the 30 days wasn't the issue. However, I think I might've just figured out the problem - I think the entire bound has to be under the same airline, i.e. the airline you came into the stopover with has to be the same one you're leaving with. Does that sound about right?
Aeroplan does allow family sharing among up to 8 people, however they have temporarily suspended the creation of new family sharing groups. Hopefully they bring back this feature soon!
Hi Ricky, can you access the Air Canada Signature Suite if you book a Latitude economy fair and eupgrade to Business Class? Would that upgrade be considered a “Business Class Flexible Reward”?
If you mean a cash ticket, you would need to have attached your frequent flyer number to the booking. If you credited the flight to Aeroplan, you would have earned Aeroplan points, and you could use those points towards a future booking with Etihad through Aeroplan.
Hi Ricky, I have a question, please. YVR-BKK distance 7,344 mi according to GCM, and it should cost 75k points on business with partner airlines as it is between North America and Pacific zones. However, when I search on Aeroplan, it shows 85k instead, do you have any idea why?
Yes they are. However, it’s a 1:1 ratio from both the US and Canada, so the savvy way to transfer points if you have both is to convert to Canadian MR at the exchange rate first, and then convert to Aeroplan, which gives you an eventual transfer rate of 1:1.3
I'm not sure if those will be distributed proactively, or if there will even be an emphasis on physical membership card anymore. I'll let you know if I hear more.
Hello, Prince I would like to ask you a question. How to recover the spare Aeroplan points from my death partners account. any way you can prive massage me.
