Aeroplan sneakiness

[Think I'm Tink]

I was planning on using Aeroplan to fly my DD and me to WDW this fall. So I went to the website to look for flights... All the site brings up are the stinkiest connections ever. Fly from Winnipeg to Chicago to Dulles in DC to Orlando -- leaving at 6 a.m. and arriving at 5:30 p.m. Or fly from Winnipeg to Calgary to Toronto to Orlando. What the heck is that??? Last time I flew with Aeroplan (in Oct '06) I was able to get Winnipeg to Pearson to Orlando. 45 minutes in Toronto, through Customs, back on plane. Badda-bing, badda-boom, Bob's your uncle, I'm in Disney World. Now I'm befuddled because that option's not there, right? So I look at the Air Canada website, and sure enough, the same flight I took last time is there. So. Is Aeroplan being sneaky and only putting the crappy flights online now? If you call them to book the flight you want, they will charge you $50/ticket because you spoke with a human. I don't think I like that very much.

And this is a 2-parter post: Has anybody ever driven from Winnipeg to Minneapolis and caught a flight from there? Is it worth it - that's 2 days in Florida that I would lose due to driving time to MSP and back. I already had our holiday all planned out and didn't count on that much travel time. Plus I'm not exactly looking forward to the thought of driving through a strange city looking for an airport. I have enough Airmiles miles to book from Minneapolis, but not enough to book from Winnipeg. I'm so confused right now I'm starting to think of paying out of pocket - but that's $1500!

 

[crashbb]

What dates are you trying? I found many YWG-YYZ-MCO options for various September dates. If you limit it to "Classic Flights" you may have more success. You can check the availability calender to see when "Classic Flights" are available.

 

[TimNDansMom]

DH used some of his points to book a flight for our DS to fly return YYZ -YVR last August. In order to get a decent non-stop flight he had to use more of his Aeroplan points. So instead of being able to use 25,000 he had to used 37,500.

 

[dhluvsDisney]

And this is a 2-parter post: Has anybody ever driven from Winnipeg to Minneapolis and caught a flight from there? Is it worth it - that's 2 days in Florida that I would lose due to driving time to MSP and back. I already had our holiday all planned out and didn't count on that much travel time. Plus I'm not exactly looking forward to the thought of driving through a strange city looking for an airport. I have enough Airmiles miles to book from Minneapolis, but not enough to book from Winnipeg. I'm so confused right now I'm starting to think of paying out of pocket - but that's $1500!

Hi! First part - Are they giving you any options to fly out of Denver? It's not usually that bad.

Second part - 9 out of 10 times, we drive to Minneapolis and fly out of there. We love it! It doesn't really take that much more time. We usually (depending on the time of year), take the kids out of school a couple of hours early and leave Winnipeg anywhere from 1 - 3 pm and arrive the latest at MSP hotel around 10-11. We get to our Park'n'Fly hotel, catch an early flight and it's only a 3 hour direct flight with Northwest or Sun Country. Coming home, we catch a 10:30ish flight, stop at the Albertville Factory outlet for about 1-2 hours, and are home late at night. I have found, most flights out of Winnipeg take that much time, if not more to get to Orlando with plane changes and stop overs. It takes our Sienna just over a tank of gas one way, and Park'n'Fly around $100, so it adds a bit to the cost, but plane fares are a LOT lower (around $200 - $250 Cnd each).

Hope this helps!

 

[crashbb]

I forgot to add. You may actually want the connections in Denver rather than Toronto. You generally pay much less in taxes and fees if you use a "Star Alliance" rather than a "Classic" flight. Toronto has very high airport fees.

TimNDansMom - you DH must have booked a "Classic Plus" flight. I find that advertising misleading. Sure they have 'every seat on the plane', but the ads don't mention that you are going to have to pay more points for them. In some cases many, many more points (i.e. into the 100,000s for flights that should be around 30,000). So, if you have tons of points to blow and really need to get somewhere, they are great, but otherwise not so much. In your case, the extra isn't too bad.

 

[mbb]

We always start with pricing one adult YHZ-MCO.
We're 2 adults, and 2 children.

If we find a fare we like, look for it for two of us..

Then, head to Aeroplan..use same method - just one adult, then try one adult, one child..

I highly, highly doubt you'll find more than one seat at the lowest point level, but you just *might* find 2.

Book the one adult, one child onthe aeroplan seats - if there are 2 - and then book your cash flights.

THEN, call AC and have them cross-reference your flights, so if there are any sched changes, you'll all be changed together.

...oh, and one other quick point...you may have to wait 10 minutes or so, after trying flight combinations...just to give their inventory system a chance to reset....one look, the flight is there...you come back to book it 5minutes later..and it's gone...it should come back shortly.

It's a pain in the patootie, but even if you can save some $$ by booking one reward flight, it helps

Let us know!

 

[Think I'm Tink]

What dates are you trying? I found many YWG-YYZ-MCO options for various September dates. If you limit it to "Classic Flights" you may have more success. You can check the availability calender to see when "Classic Flights" are available.

Thanks, I'll have to try again. Who knows, it could just be that the website was 'having a bad night' last night. I'm leaving Sept. 29, returning Oct. 9.

I did look at Denver for an option because I've gone that route before and it wasn't bad. But Aeroplan wasn't showing it. Seriously, all they had were super crappy connections - through a major hub (like TO or Chicago) and then a secondary hub (like Dulles), and then finally MCO. So I checked Air Canada's website and that was $740/ticket for the Denver connection.. ::gulp::

My grasping-at-straws option of driving to Minneapolis definitely is a last-ditch option. I absolutely won't be able to get away from work until 5:00 Friday night at the earliest, and if my paperwork isn't finished, I have to stay until it is done. So if we were driving we can't leave before early Sat. a.m. Isn't it an 8 hour-ish drive to Minneapolis? So I guess we could drive, and would likely catch a flight that would put us in Orlando about 5:30/6:00. But, if that's what's going to happen, I may as well just book the Aeroplan milk-run that lands at 5:30. It would be cheaper than 2 tanks of gas and Park'n'Fly parking.

 

[crashbb]

I did find flight through YYZ on those dates - but I was only looking at 1 ticket. It is possible that, if you are booking many seats, there isn't that many 'classic' seats available.

I've called the call centre before and had them play around to find the best combinations - and then gone on-line and booked them.

 

[calliemom]

We always book 365 days in advance of our flight to Disney that way we get the direct flights using as little points as possible (25,000 pp round trip). It takes a lot of advance planning but its better than those ugly connector flights.

 

[nelljay1973]

I'm going from the perspective of booking from Halifax to Australia using Aeroplan.

My advice is to call Aeroplan because we couldn't find any "Classic" flights online unless you book a very long way out. They always gave the option of "classic plus". So we called Aeroplan and they booked us through Star Alliance which for Australia was 75,000 instead of Aeroplans 110,000. The earlier you book using reward tickets the better...for example we just looked into using our Aeroplan for another trip home to Australia and was able to find four seats...but this was 330 days in advance! Be open to different itineraries to be able to use your reward tickets. We haven't had any trouble using Aeroplan..changed flights a few times.

I would enourage anyone if they want rewards tickets but want to travel on shorter notice to invest in paying for one of the credit cards out there that let you redeem for air travel. We have a RBC Avion card and have used it to travel to Australia and plan on using it when we fly down to Orlando for our trip..bonus because you redeem through RBC and earn Aeroplan points because it isn't classed as a reward ticket because RBC "buys" them for you.

 

[b-1]

I am planning to go Sep 26-Oct 3 and NW has flights from ywg to mco for $447.00 per person. which is a steal of a deal from winnipeg. The next lowest I have paid from here is $485 and then it jumps to $550. I booked on NW for our May trip and it was the same price so I was surprised to see that price all the way through to October ! HTH

 

[bunnyfoo]

When I booked my Aeroplan flight last month, I got a whole bunch of connecting flights as well. After I entered in my initial search and the results came up, there was an option on the results page to select the type of flight you wanted (ie. direct). When I refined my search, I was able to find the exact flight that I wanted

That said... I remember reading that there are only so many Aeroplan seats for each flight. I think on the Toronto to Orlando it was something like 5 or 7? This was before they had the Classic Plus option.

 

[Disney_Bound2007]

We also booked with aeroplan a year in advance and where able to get half decent flights to Orlando, but we did have to drive to Halifax to get 4 seats(we live in moncton) It was 25,000 that far out.

 

[Sillyminny40]

Our Manitoba TA found us Aeromiles seats on flights that Aeroplan said were full. She got us on our flights after I tried online and on the phone relentlessly.
There is a $25 charge per ticket (around that price) when you use a TA.

We also booked our rental car and vacation home through her, not to mention many many holidays. Maybe that is why she overextends herself.

Another thing: Air Cda rebooked us three months later for an earlier flight anyway!

 

[sympatico]

I've just about given up on the Aeroplan miles. We used to use it every time but you have to book too far in advance or use more points. I have a RBC Avion card and can book 2 weeks from the date I want to go and if there's a seat on the plane worth up to $750. then it's mine. Also have a CIBC Aventura card which is about the same as the Avion. Either of those cards are much easier to use than Aeroplan. They have no fees for calling in to book your flight with a person and they use any airline not just star alliance. Booked with Westjet using Aventura points this last time and collected AIRMILES in the process.
I think Aeroplan needs to wake up and provide more seats and less fees.

 

[Momrow]

We've also abandoned booking flights with Aeroplan. We use them now for the hotels, much less of a headache, and try to book our flights during the seat sales.