Air Canada’s New Aeroplan Is Here! (Sweet Spots, Dynamic Pricing, and More)

Good article, I’ve now read it twice without even realizing it cuz there’s so much content in this 1 giant post broken up multiple times.

One thing I’m noticing doing some dummy searches is unfortunately the user is punished for their connections, even if they are involuntary.

I’ll combine the old and new with the following example. Under the new rules Canada-South America is cutoff at < 4,500 miles or 4,501 and up. YVR-MDE is 4,059 so it's pushing that cutoff and of course there's no direct flights. Under the OLD program, you could connect in any number of cities for the same price (other than added taxes/airport fees), so some people like me took advantage of that of course. But even the system would offer something like YVR-YYZ-BOG-MDE. That's a VERY reasonable routing so the system would often spit that one out. But under the new setup that's 4,922 so it adds (in theory) minimum 10,000 AP more to the cost. My problem is the user is punished even if they aren't TRYING to choose this routing. If it's the only one available, then you get punished. There's going to be plenty of times where there's no AV/CM/UA space and the only option is Air Canada. In the new program, they've made it palatable to fly AC which is nice, but let's assume also that it's…spring break or whatever, well now that AC dynamic pricing will also kick in. So not only are you being beaten up by the dynamic price (but to be fair at least the seats are open) but you're ALSO getting hit with extra points to pay because you've exceeded the mileage threshold.

YVR-SFO-PTY-MDE or YVR-LAX-PTY-MDE are likely the most direct routes but connecting in IAH/DEN/BOG also works. But then a pretty direct route like YVR-MEX-BOG-MDE doesn't work because it's 4,545.

So again, depending on where you live and what hubs offer connections to where you're going, there's gonna be instances where you're totally incapable of actually achieving the lowest price point even though in theory it's available and in practice the flights are available, but the routing doesn't allow for it.

I guess we had this issue previously with MPM, but MPM was really only affecting people like me who were trying to connect in every city in Asia before getting to BKK to try flying every airline I could. Now, everyone is gonna get hit with this depending on the situation.

We've mentioned the sweet spot of western canada to Tokyo, for Vancouverites it works but only on direct flights or connecting via Seattle. If you live in Calgary you're screwed. It works if AC has seats open on the direct flight, but with no competition by ANA, they're automatically forced into the 5,001-7,500 price category, which just kinda isn't fair IF you're not actually trying to game the system.

I'm rambling a bit trying to get the point across, but it would've been nice to see them build in the ability for the system to offer routings where the CITY PAIR fits in the zone band regardless of what cities are offered as connections. If a person in Calgary isn't trying to have a stopover in a reasonable city like SFO, they should still be able to connect there imo.

I mean, no surprise that some of these are well priced partly because of lowered demand, but also because the chart is all from YYZ. From YVR where I’m located Europe is always gonna be a bit tougher. That said, being able to use LH now is a huge plus, it was totally infeasible before but there were always seats. I’m sure seat competition now will be a bit harder and I don’t really wanna fly their J product, but I love LH Y and will be happy to fly YVR-FRA if the mood strikes.

I think an underrated positive is the quality of the Air Canada product these days. Now that we’re all not trying to avoid AC, it’s nice to know that the product is also good. Had this been done like 6-8 years ago, you still wouldn’t have wanted to fly AC in many cases. Now of course, product life cycles are finite, so in 2-3 more years of heavy usage, this current AC J product might be terrible, but right now, I personally think it’s one of the best products in north america, and at least competitive worldwide. The soft product might need a little work, but no one is ever going to treat you as well as the asian and ME3 carriers do. I would rate UA Polaris on par/ahead of the AC product, but the UA 2-2-2 product on the 787s is kinda trash imo, paying all that money or miles and not having direct aisle access is kind of a deal breaker for me.

I still find the website a bit frustrating, I expect search improvements, but also the site is just too busy to be searching on that homepage IMO and the app to this point can’t do multi city that I’m aware of.

Thanks for the comprehensive breakdown of the new Aeroplan benefits. Has there been any talk around rolling over 2020 Altitude statuses considering air travel has all been shut down in 2020?

So far I have been impressed with some of the price points (granted demand is as low as it will ever be currently). I cross referenced everything I have pre-booked before Nov 6 5pmEST and in most cases for myself there is a marginal increase (5k-10k pts), thus if things continue to remain bleak throughout 2021, it won’t be as devastating as I feared to rebook into 2022.

Overall disappointed in the pricing at the moment, and this is WITH the demand super low on the whole. Some sweet spots sure, but the 20% dip- if you’re lucky – on some prices for example, compared to the horrific escalation of prices on other flights is severely lopsided. I mean, holy cow, flights to Australia/New Zealand are almost comedically PAINFUL…in some cases 620,000 ONE WAY?

The site is just horrifically buggy. I can select flights no problem, but actual confirmation page never works – throws an error message or says insufficient points. Worst so far though is it just increases the number of points required.

The points for redemption look good right now because so many flights are empty… Wait till its summertime or its safe to travel again/vaccine roll out and points to redeem will be skyrocketing.

Hi Ricky, will the cancellation fee waiver for Aeroplan bookings until Dec 31 still be in place for new bookings? Couldn’t find the details on the website…

First class bookings don’t seem to work either. It shows 60% in first class mixed cabin but when you click through its economy and business.