Air Canada’s VERY Interesting Promo!

by Canadian Kilometers 13 Comments

Like their FF program’s Star Challenge this year, AC has come up with a pretty clever promotion, called Earn Your Wings, with a pretty generous prize: 10,000,000 (that’s right, 10 million!) miles to be shared between the top 25 flyers with the most “wings.”

a black sign with white text

What’s really interesting is that it’s not a pure racking up the most BIS miles, but rather a system based on earning badges from certain flights. In this case, the chart seems to favour short-haul flights.

Here are the fairly important terms and conditions:

  • Aeroplan members must register for this promotion, book their flights and fly between April 11 and June 16, 2013 inclusively in order to be eligible to participate in this promotion and earn wings and badges.
  • The objective of the promotion is to earn and collect wings and badges. Wings and badges can be earned in several different ways. Participants will earn wings for each flight segment of their journey. For example, participants who fly roundtrip from Calgary to Toronto will earn 400 wings. That’s 100 wings for each take off and landing. Select airports have been assigned a higher value of wings. For a list of those select airports and the value of wings assigned, please visit the Badge Legend.

So each segments will net at least “200 wings.” The badge legend is really complex, with destination badges which require flyers to either take off or land in airports:

a red hexagon with white text and blue and white hexagons

Furthermore, there are also very cute premium badges that are for certain achievements, such as hanging out in three or more foodie towns:

a screenshot of a cellphone

What’s really interesting is the rewards for earning the badges.

Participants must earn wings and/or badges in order to earn Bonus Aeroplan Miles. Any combination of wings and badges that total 2,000 wings will receive 1,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles. Any combination of wings and badges for a total of 10,000 wings will receive an additional 5,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles, for a combined total of 10,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles.

That essentially means 10,000 wings = 10,000 miles, in 10k increments of course. But given that some of the premium badges earn 5,000 wings, so that means a single flight can earn 5000+ miles! Unfortunately they are are not AQM (Altitude Qualifying Miles/EQM) but as RDM they should be worth at least 1 cent each. So that means effectively a decent rebate on some flights.

For some people in the west coast that have time to mileage run, this actually also might be a decent time to rack up redeemable miles for a cheap rate. Strangely enough this is giving me an itch to mileage run with Aeroplan.

a close-up of a ticket

A one-way ticket from Seattle to Victoria is pricing out at around $163 CAD. But that racks up the following wings:

400 wings: 4x take off and landing

SEA-YVR:

a red and blue hexagon with white text

1000 wings: SEA Badge

 

a red and blue logo

500 Wings: YVR Badge

 

a white background with black text

5000 Wings: TCA Badge

a white background with black text

5000 Wings: Canadian Olympic Badge

That’s a potential 11,500 wings for that single flight! With the YVR-YYJ segment, there’s also potentially another 11,000-16,000 wings to be collected as well! So that one-way trip will net you at least 20,000 miles, excluding any AQM/EQM you might get assuming the terms and conditions stay constant. The terms and conditions say that it is possible to earn badges multiple times which makes it possible for adventurous people to try and win the competition. If you have a time, it might be a good way to get redeemable miles at less than 1cpm. And if you really had lots of time, you could win ~400,000 miles. 🙂

In any case, kudos to Air Canada to making this promotion fairly interesting. At the minimum people will book and fly Air Canada metal within the time period will at least get 2,000 bonus miles, so that’s a nice bonus for travel that will be booked (note that only flights booked within the qualifying window counts).

For a closer look at the badges, you can check out the link here. Registration for this promotion is here.

Here are some further terms and conditions:

ADDITIONAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS RELATING TO ELIGIBLE PARTICIPATION

  • Must be an Aeroplan Member. If you are not an Aeroplan Member, you can visit the Aeroplan web site and enrol today.
  • New bookings made as of April 11, 2013, for travel between April 11, 2013 and June 16, 2013, will be eligible. Any booking made prior to April 11, regardless of travel date, will not be eligible.
  • Valid on eligible scheduled non-stop flights operated by Air Canada and under the Air Canada Express banner for travel between April 11, 2013, and June 16, 2013.
  • To qualify, the flight segments must be travelled in the following eligible fare options (booking classes) : To/From Canada and Canada/USA/Caribbean (incl. Central America) & Mexico: Tango (N,G,P,E,A); Flex (M,U,H,Q,V,W,S,K,L,T) ; Latitude (Y,B) ; Executive Class Lowest (D,Z); Executive Class Flexible (J,C); To/From Canada and South America/Atlantic /Asia/South Pacific: Tango (N,G,P,T,E,L,A,K); Flex (M,U,H,Q,V,W,S); Latitude (Y,B); Executive First Lowest (C,D,Z); Executive First Flexible (J)
  • Valid on published fares in above booking classes eligible for Aeroplan Mile accumulation. Offer is not applicable when travelling on an Air Canada Unlimited Flight Pass or any other promotional flight pass which does not allow mileage accumulation per flight segment flown
  • Bonus Aeroplan Miles are not Air Canada Altitude Qualifying Miles and do not count towards Air Canada Altitude Status.
  • Bonus Aeroplan Miles will be credited up to three weeks after the required number of Wings have been collected; every 2,000 Wings will earn 1,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles; every 10,000 Wings will earn an additional 5,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles
  • Aeroplan Flight Rewards are not eligible for mileage accumulation
  • Aeroplan Miles are subject to the Aeroplan Program Terms & Conditions.
  • Offer is subject to change at Air Canada’s sole discretion without notice; other conditions and restrictions may apply.
  • Participants acknowledge the non-responsibility of Facebook©, its officers, directors, employees and agents with regards to any injury, accident, loss or misfortune relating to all aspects of the Contest. This Contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook©. Participants understand that all information is provided to the Contest Sponsor and not to Facebook©.

WINGS & BADGES:

  • Wings and Badges are neither Aeroplan Miles nor a form of loyalty currency. They cannot be sold and are non-transferable. They have no cash value and cannot be converted to cash or refunded if unused.
  • Wings are being used solely in the context of this promotion for scoring purposes and only to determine each participant’s rank, whether a participant places in the Top 25 and the number of Bonus Aeroplan Miles earned, if applicable.
  • Badges are being used to accelerate the collection of wings by offering more wings to select destinations or having been to a multiple number of airports, as per the Badge Legend.
  • Social Media Badge is worth 200 wings. Destination Badges are worth 500 to 2,000 wings. Premium Badges are worth 5,000 wings.
  • Social Media Badge can only be earned once. Destination Badges and Premium Badges can be earned more than one time. In order to receive a Premium Badge more than once, you must meet the minimum airport criteria as outlined in the Badge Legend each time.
  • Please allow for up to 3 days after your flight has been completed to have your Air Canada flight credited to your Aeroplan account and Wings to be added to the leaderboard.

LEADERBOARD:

    • The Leaderboard will remain active until September 16, 2013, to allow for missing flight credits to be requested and be included to determine final rank. Any retro credits must be submitted and processed before September 16, 2013, in order to be eligible to earn wings and, in consequence, any Bonus Aeroplan Miles
    • The Leaderboard will be refreshed daily between June 17 and September 16, 2013

The last refresh date of the leaderboard will be on Monday, September 16, 2013. As of September 17, 2013, the participants who finish in the Top 25 will be eligible to each have an equal share of the 10,000,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles.

  • The Leaderboard Bonus Aeroplan Miles will be credited up to three weeks after the final refresh on September 16, 2013
  • To be eligible to receive the bonus miles, your real name linked to your chosen user name for this promotion must match the name on the Aeroplan account entered in the Earn Your Wings profile

 HT: Flyertalk

Comments

  1. Hi could you please specify where is the potential 16000 wings for that one-way trip From SEA to Vic.
    Thx in advance from a newbie.

    Reply

    • The Olympic one: 5000 takeoff in YVR, 5000 takeoff in YYJ, and the west coast badge for “hanging” out in three west coast cities: YVR, YYJ, SEA (5000). Also, wings for the city badges (1000) and take off and landing (200).

      Reply

      • Thx but I think from YVR to YYJ you only get one Olympic badge but not 2? cuz the premium badges are for multi-city travels.

        Reply

        • AFAIK the rules and regulations have been very vague so there’s nothing explicitly that disallows it and I’m likely doing YVR-YYJ-SEA, rinse and repeat, so it should be possible. Also I premium badges should work for one-ways and round-trips? It just says “Badges are being used to accelerate the collection of wings by offering more wings to select destinations or having been to a multiple number of airports, as per the Badge Legend.”

          Reply

          • Thx！

            So Jeff where do you usually find low prices for certain multi-city routes like YYJ-YVR-SEA-YVR cuz it seems that kayak only support the flex function for round trip.

          • No tango for YYJ-SEA RT. Also you shouldn’t ticket yet as they’ve changed the T&C. Will tell you how it goes once I get details.

  2. Very good post! So many promotions I wasn’t going to bother with this one but you presented it in a different perspective.

    “That’s a potential 11,500 wings for that single flight!”
    I think it is 11,900 and I did the math a few times 400+500+1000+5000+5000.

    Also, is there a reason you gave the example of a one-way ticket?
    Wouldn’t one buy a return ticket and in this case collect double the wings or are there some limitations like for example the return ticket cannot be the same day as the take offs and landings for the same airport can not be collected twice during the same day?

    “With the YVR-YYJ segment, there’s also potentially another 11,000-16,000 wings to be collected as well!”

    How would one collect this additional wings?

    Reply

    • The Olympic one: 5000 takeoff in YVR, 5000 takeoff in YYJ, and the west coast badge for “hanging” out in three west coast cities: YVR, YYJ, SEA (5000). Also, wings for the city badges (1000) and take off and landing (200). The problem is I’m not sure if they’re stackable so I’m still waiting from a response from Air Canada, but potentially up to 16,000 wings.

      Reply

  3. Thank you for the quick response; sorry things are not too clear.

    “That’s a potential 11,500 wings for that single flight!”
    I got this, even if it is 11,900 not 11,500.

    “With the YVR-YYJ segment, there’s also potentially another 11,000-16,000 wings to be collected as well!”
    I asked where these wings come from and your response: “The Olympic one: 5000 takeoff in YVR, 5000 takeoff in YYJ, and the west coast badge for “hanging” out in three west coast cities: YVR, YYJ, SEA (5000). Also, wings for the city badges (1000) and take off and landing (200).”

    But the Olympic wings were already counted in the “That’s a potential 11,500 wings for that single flight!”

    Reply

    • You can get badges multiple times. So for a one-way SEA-YYJ you can get the following:
      SEA-YVR
      TCA Badge (SEA-YVR)
      Canadian Olympic x1 (touchdown YVR)
      YVR-YYJ
      Canadian Olympic x2 (takeoff YVR, touchdown YYJ)
      Also you could also get potentially the west coast badge.
      So that’s 20,000 – 25,000 wings in premium badges.

      Reply

  4. Any good routes from the east (YOW YYZ YUL)to maximize this promotion? Even though Aeropesos have been severely devalued due to imposition of fuel surcharges on partner redemptions.

    Reply

    • I plan to transfer Aeroplan to US (if that transfer holds) so that’s a non-issue. And obviously you can still fly TK, UA, US, SN, LX, NZ, CA (I think) without YQ and OZ (ex-USA) and LO for reasonable scamcharges. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like short hauls are going to be that effective on the east coast, but some TATL’s can rack up the miles quite quickly. You could try flying YTZ-YUL-LGA together with a TATL like LGA-YUL-CDG thrown in somewhere but obviously it’s not going to be RDM MR territory. That would get you at least 5-6 badges (30,000 miles) for the cost of the ticket and definitely a good booster if you have travel planned though.

      Reply

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