Aeroplan has been dishing out one surprise after another last year with the addition of partnerships with Etihad, Vistara, Azul etc. and today they introduced yet another with Virgin Australia. This will be available effective January 19, 2021.
This partnership will allow Aeroplan members to earn and redeem on Virgin Australia flights from the above mentioned date onwards. I had a quick look for flights between Sydney to Melbourne and Sydney to Brisbane on Aeroplan randomly in March, April and May and rightly the flights on Virgin Australia do not appear at the moment.
In theory, we should be able to combine flights on Virgin Australia with Air Canada requiring points as per Aeroplans “Flight Reward Chart” under “Partner airlines” with a fixed number of points needed.
This should open up a world of connections, but I am not holding by breath for the immediate future as the new Aeroplan engine is still clunky when pricing out multiple segments both online and through the call centre as per my experience below.
I have done several HUCAs and the agents cannot combine and get the system to generate a fare for even just four segments:
Flight 1: Air Canada – Toronto to Washington in Business
Flight 2: Etihad – Washington to Abu Dhabi in First
Flight 3: Etihad – Abu Dhabi to Mumbai in Business
Flight 4: Air India/Vistara – Mumbai to Goa in Business
For some reason, it flips to business lowest fare and the points required are way more than the award fare chart for partner airlines.
Note that booking on Virgin Australia will attract the partner booking fee of $39, however there are no high surcharges.
And ofcourse, you can also add a stopover for an addition 5000 Aeroplan points.
I must admit that I am pleased with Aeroplan adding more and more partners, but it should also re-focus some resources to fix the booking process as its all fine and dandy on paper but not much use if you cannot book it.
More details to follow once VA flights show up on Aeroplan.
Written by Dominic Fernandes aka CanadaPointsGuy.
Image photo courtesy Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
[…] the Aeroplan call centre are not very clear about this rule and when I called on January 7, 2021 to book a not so complex partner airline itinerary, they were not well versed and thought that the free […]