We often talk about the mini-tours of the world that you can do with Aeroplan, but you can also use the advantages of the program for shorter but just as exotic itineraries. Example with my next trip.
Behind the expression “mini-tour du monde” lies in fact an itinerary that maximizes the rules of the Aeroplan program and can be summed up in one sentence: a round trip to one or more continents with 2 stops and one destination.
A stopover lasts more than 24 hours, as opposed to a layover lasting less than 24 hours.
We can think of the open jaw as a route with a gap, for example, an outbound trip from Montreal to Paris and a return trip from Barcelona to Montreal. The Paris-Barcelona trip is not included in the ticket.
In detail, it is an award ticket that includes the following conditions:
Other rules apply on flights within Canada and to the USA (one stop or one open leg) or flights from Canada or the USA to Hawaii, Central America and Puerto Rico: 2 stops/ 1 stop and one stopover if the route contains only Air Canada flights or 1 stop / 1 open leg if one of the flights is operated by a Star Alliance partner).
The cost in miles from Montreal to Beirut (“Middle East and North Africa” region according to theAeroplan price list) is 165,000 miles round trip in Business class.
We stopped over in Istanbul several times but never for more than 24 hours, so we just had a glimpse of this city full of history. We wanted to take the opportunity to visit another city in the region and chose Beirut. The latter being smaller, it allowed us to visit two cities without overloading ourselves.
There’s a direct flight from Montreal but availability wasn’t there. Thanks to FlightConnections, I can see that there are flights to quite a few cities in the USA from Turkey.
And bingo, Boston has two seats in business class with very minimal taxes ($14).
The flight from Montreal to Boston isn’t hard to find, in fact it’s our first stop, so we take the opportunity to catch a Red Sox game at the famous Fenway Stadium. This is an economy flight because the aircraft serving this route does not contain a business cabin.
The trip from Istanbul (the second stop) to Beirut (the destination) is also operated by Turkish Airlines, availability is not a problem and taxes are low here too ($40).
The return journey will be more sporting, as no flights are found by the online site’s search engine. I have to search by segment and most routes go through Germany so with Lufthansa charging big surcharges. If I have to pay taxes, I’d rather go through Paris to see the family on the way. I find this itinerary a breeze:
It can be scary but for an aviation geek like me, I am curious to know two new companies: Aegean Airlines and Croatia Airlines and with a 7 hours connection in Dubrovnik I hope to have a glimpse of this famous city.
The last segment is a flight between Paris and Montreal, respecting the rule of one stop of less than 24 hours (connection instead of a stopover), as I’ve already used up my two stops in addition to my destination (Boston = Stop 1 / Istanbul = Stop 2 / Beirut = Destination).
This flight is done the next day, I will be able to spend the evening at my brother’s in Paris. Taxes are high ($400) but we get a lot of value from our itinerary, so I don’t mind in this case.
Here is the route on gcmap:
Montreal – Boston (first stop) – Istanbul (second stop) – Beirut (destination) – Athens – Dubrovnik – Paris – France. Montreal
Three cards here to highlight:
We often talk in the facebook group “Travel for free (or almost…!) with your points & miles – milesopedia” about the technique to collect many points & miles via American Express cards.
The American Express Platinum Card is the “cornerstone” of this technique, in addition to offering numerous travel benefits (access to airport lounges, hotel status, etc.).
And to keep travel costs to a minimum, there’s the Scotiabank Visa Infinite Passport card, with no foreign exchange conversion fees. We have made a detailed presentation in this article.
Finally, to access cash, there is a free prepaid debit card, the CIBC Air Canada AC Prepaid Visa Conversion Card, which we have detailed in this article. For this trip, it would allow for example to load Turkish Lira (TRY). It is possible to load this card with a credit card… which allows to easily unlock a welcome bonus!
Savings are here (if you don’t see the sign-up form, please click here):
