This guide will show you how to find the best Aeroplan prices for a flight with points, and how to get around all the program’s obstacles: scarcity of flights or astronomical prices.
First, it is important to understand the basic principle of the Aeroplan program where the price of a ticket on an Air Canada flight is dynamic and remains available until the flight is full. On the other hand, on partner carriers, the costs are fixed, but there are not always seats that can be reserved.
Air Canada
Partners
For example, to get to Tokyo from Montreal, the most obvious option is the direct route, but it is not always affordable in points. A one-way business class ticket with a partner costs 75,000 points, but can go up to 175,000 points with Air Canada depending on dynamic pricing!
Without further ado, here’s how to get to those partner search results and get the best Aeroplan prices for a flight in points!
First, to find the best Aeroplan fares, you need to determine if it is possible to fly to your destination with a partner. To do this, you can use Flight Connections or Google Flights.
Personally, I prefer Flight Connections in order to better visualize the connections.
However, Google Flights is still very simple and easy to use.
For example, if you want to go to Japan from Montreal, you can see on the two previous screenshots that there is a flight between Chicago and Tokyo with All Nippon Airlines.
The Wikipedia site is not always updated, but when you search for an airport page, all the routes and airlines are listed. You can then quickly go and find the Aeroplan partner routes that go to this airport.
Without a doubt, before you think about getting the best Aeroplan prices for a flight… it has to be available! ExpertFlyer is your best bet for this; you’ll search for space on the partner flight by entering your dates. To find premium availability, it’s best to remain flexible.
Then you can see in the following screenshot that there is room in economy class, business class, and first class on the All Nippon Airlines flight from Chicago to Tokyo on July 2, 2023. If you wish to leave on July 1st, you will be able to do so, but only in economy class.
Let’s repeat the procedure to find availability for the return trip. It is imperative to find space, otherwise only Air Canada dynamic flights will be displayed.
ExpertFlyer can send you automatic alerts when a seat becomes available!
The number of seats you can book with points is very limited, and you need to book well in advance to get the best Aeroplan prices. It should also be noted that not all airlines are listed on ExpertFlyer.
Finally, you must search for this flight on the Air Canada platform to recreate the desired itinerary from your preferred airport. In fact, you can simply enter Montreal as the departure city and Tokyo as the arrival city even if the partner flight is from another city.
The system will show you the possible routes and rates and bingo! We can see here that the best Aeroplan prices for a flight to Tokyo are with All Nippon Airways while the pricing with Air Canada is – as expected – dynamic!
The first segment between Montreal and Chicago is with Air Canada. Therefore, the cost is partially dynamic. However, since this is a smaller proportion of the trip, it doesn’t affect the final price too much.
This one-way flight in business class costs approximately 75,000 points, which is consistent with the fare structure between North America and the Pacific. So, this is in the best Aeroplan prices you can find. On the other hand, the economy class flight is less than 45,000 points when it is 50,000 points on the price chart! The combination of the fixed partner flight between ORD-NRT and the dynamic Air Canada flight between YUL-ORD generated this award.
It’s a really good strategy to target partner flights, as planning for point accumulation can be done more easily. For example, knowing that the price of the flight we want is 50,000 points or 75,000 points, we could take a single card like the Platinum CardMD from American Express and go collect all the points we need to make the flight! Membership Rewards points from this card are easily transferred to the Aeroplan program.
Putting things in perspective, the American Express Platinum Card® covers the cost of a round trip in economy class, or a one-way ticket in business or first class; so it more than makes up for the annual fee of $599 ($799 minus the American Express Annual Travel Credit) of the first year!
Instead of fretting about paying a $599 annual fee for a credit card, why not look forward to a ticket to Japan for $800 ($599 + $198 tax); the annual fee is the very low cost of earning these points. We can see from the Google Flights screenshot that the same flight sells for $2,689; that’s very expensive indeed, but $800 will still be hard to beat even with other cheaper flights!
This is just one example; American Express has some great offers this summer that could go a long way toward helping you reach your travel goals!
Once you have mastered the process of finding better prices with partner flights, you can tackle more complex routes.
Maximizing your valuable points starts with finding the best Aeroplan fares on airlines other than Air Canada, but we usually want to push as hard as we can to get the most value for our points.
For example, if someone is planning to visit Turkey, the Maldives, and Southeast Asia; how do you go about getting the best Aeroplan prices for that itinerary?
We must go with the idea of flying only with partners and using Aeroplan stops, but we must start by establishing the routes and the sequence of our itinerary.
In our example, there are three destinations in total so we need to find a flight:
In fact, no! I know that these destinations are the goal, but we don’t have to go in the order we think is “logical” or “linear”. To get the best Aeroplan prices, the trip should be seen as:
So, we need to think about how to fit our goals into this framework:
Additionally, you must book two one-way tickets to take advantage of two Aeroplan stops at 5,000 points each; the advantage is that you can depart from an airport other than Singapore!
In this situation, you have no time limit in Southeast Asia. You can travel the entire continent and return from any other city like Bali to enjoy many free nights earned with the Marriott Bonvoy® American Express®* Card, for example.
And since September 1, 2022, it has been possible to book an Aeroplan itinerary with a stopover online (previously, you had to do it by phone).
We then repeat the same steps as in the previous section with the Flight Connections tool to target all the possible routes, but we do it differently since we dissect the flight segments.
You will have to find all the possible partner connections between Montreal-Istanbul and so on.
Now that you understand the need to set up routes and their sequences, there is an advanced technique you should know about: arbitration against Aeroplan’s fare structure.
Aeroplan has divided the world into several geographical areas (North America, Atlantic, Pacific, etc.).
And as you can see in the fare schedule for travel between North America and the Atlantic/Pacific zones, the cost in points will differ depending on the distance traveled.
For example, it could be cheaper to add a destination in the Pacific zone to make your trip to the Atlantic zone less expensive!
The best-known example is the Maldives, which we started to explain above.
By making the Montreal-Istanbul-Male trip, the cost would be:
By adding a destination in the Pacific zone to the trip, you can reduce this cost. For a Montreal-Istanbul-Male-Singapore trip (including a stop in Male for a cost of 5,000 points), the cost would be:
This could save you between 5,000 and 17,500 Aeroplan points, while adding a destination to your itinerary!
This type of arbitration is an Aeroplan sweet spot that you can find for destinations on the border of different geographical areas.
Still keeping our example in mind, you have now determined that Montreal-Istanbul can be done at the partner rate on the wings of:
Although it is more convenient to fly direct from Montreal to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, this does not mean that there will be award availability.
On the other hand, you have several other choices, but that implies additional stopovers. But let’s look on the bright side: Aeroplan allows you to add stopovers (up to 24 hours) for free!
So you can even visit a few bonus cities on your mini-tour of the world and get the best Aeroplan prices for the trip!
You must repeat this with all segments to determine each of the airports in your path and all the flights available for your project.
Once you have found all your flights and are sure they are all available, you must call Aeroplan to proceed with the booking; fees are waived for this type of itinerary with Aeroplan stopThis feature is not yet available online (it should be available in the fall).
A tip would be to determine the exact price of your itinerary with Great Circle Map and Aeroplan fare charts before calling to book. This way you will know if the person on the phone is giving you the best Aeroplan prices or not. Unfortunately, not all agents are accustomed to making this type of reservation.
When you only have partner flights, the final cost is easy to target with distance traveled, zones crossed, and the Aeroplan 5,000 point stop. When you have a segment with Air Canada, the fare will vary according to the weight of their flights in your itinerary.
Some routes are only served by Air Canada. So you have no choice but to navigate with dynamic pricing.
In these cases, you’ll get the best Aeroplan prices with luck or advance notice, especially if you’re coveting a busy time of year like the holidays or spring break.
Each class of service has several fares, so when all the tickets in one price band are sold, you move on to the next more expensive band, and so on.
In fact, the “Flex” or “Latitude” Economy fare can be 4 times the price of the “Basic” Economy fare when you are sitting in similar seats side by side on the plane. That’s why prices vary so much.
Since points pricing is, to a large extent, correlated to cash cost, you can use Google Flights to get an idea of which days are cheaper to travel on. Don’t forget to apply your filters so that they are reflected in the calendar.
You can see here that there are several pairs of dates that show a price of $485 between Montreal and Orlando.
The best Aeroplan prices don’t always follow the cash price, but it can give you an idea even if this comparison doesn’t work every time. On the other hand, sometimes it does. If I take the dates of March 13 to 17, which is spring break in 2023 (depending on the region), we end up with a rate of 15,700 points per person to go to Disney World.
Then, it’s a good idea to be a program credit card holder to get the best Aeroplan prices. In fact, holders of a card like the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card have access to a preferred rate; if you pair that with Aeroplan Elite status, you’ll get even more of a discount!
Finally, considering the current welcome bonus on this card, you will receive all the points you need for a couple’s trip and a mini at Disney World!
What’s more, TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Cardholders can check in one free bag on all flights with Air Canada!
Finally, if you just want to see the best Aeroplan prices for all destinations, Air Canada has an interactive search map!
To use this tool to find flights, you just have to enter your departure city without specifying a date and the map will generate the best Aeroplan prices it can find at short notice.
If you are not flexible on the dates, you can always enter them and you will see the best Aeroplan prices for your dates.
Once you have decided on a destination, a date, and a price, you can simply click on “book now”.
One of the undeniable advantages of owning a Visa or American Express Aeroplan credit card is the travel privileges it offers. In fact, these cards give cardholders the opportunity to benefit from preferential fares and better prices when booking flights with Aeroplan. What’s more, these co-branded credit cards are often on promotion with generous bonuses.
This collaboration between major credit card companies and Aeroplan’s loyalty program enables travellers to maximize their savings while enjoying quality services.
So when you choose a Visa or American Express Aeroplan credit card, not only do you enjoy all the classic benefits of a credit card, but you also gain access to a world of exclusive travel privileges.
It’s a sure thing that after all the effort we put into the strategies to accumulate so many points, we hope to find the best Aeroplan prices for our trip.
It’s not impossible to find partner flights, but it’s definitely easier to collect points when you have a fixed cost in mind for use.
Then, when we fly with Air Canada, we at least try to have an Aeroplan credit card in our wallet in order to have the best Aeroplan prices!
The value of an Aeroplan Point may vary depending on several factors, including destination, class of travel and flight availability. As a general rule, an Aeroplan point is generally valued at about 2 cents per point. However, this value may fluctuate depending on your use.
To make the most of your Aeroplan points, advance planning is essential to access the best options available. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your points: be flexible with your travel dates to take advantage of the most advantageous fares in terms of points, and use the flexible flight search tools to find the best options in terms of the number of points required, and explore airline partners to broaden your travel possibilities and find more advantageous itineraries in terms of points.
Aeroplan points can be used to travel to many destinations around the world, thanks to airline partnerships and alliances. You can fly to domestic destinations in Canada and the USA, or even internationally to destinations in Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere. The possibilities are vast and depend on the availability of flights with Aeroplan’s airline partners. We recommend that you consult the Aeroplan website or contact customer service for specific information on destinations accessible with your points.
The number of Aeroplan points required for a flight depends on several factors, including destination, class of travel, seasonality and flight availability. Short-haul flights may require as few as a few thousand points, while long-haul or business-class flights may require tens of thousands of points. We recommend that you consult the Aeroplan reward chart or use the online booking tool to obtain an accurate estimate of the number of points required for your specific flight.
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