Aeroplan is changing the earnings on tickets on United Airlines. The new chart looks like this:
Earning Chart
The changes are as follows:
Mileage Accumulation Changes
1 Effective for travel April 1, 2014, earn 150% in booking classes J, C, D, Z or P. For travel until March 31, 2014, earn 125%.
2 Effective for travel April 1, 2014, earn 125% in booking classes Y or B. For travel until March 31, 2014, earn 100%.
3 Effective for travel April 1, 2014, earn 50% in booking classes S, T, L, K, G or N. For travel until March 31, 2014, earn 100%.
The worst cuts are to the lowest economy fare buckets, which go from earning 100% to 50%. This is awful for the people that do have to buy lowest fare class for work travel and the (few) mileage runners in Canada.
The lowest fare classes on Air Canada haven’t been earning 100% with Aeroplan, mostly I think Aeroplan is realigning the partner airline earnings.
The next question is if United will devalue earnings on paid fares on Air Canada, which for all flights except the lowest fare buckets on transborder, Carribean, and domestic flights earn 100% across the board:
United MileagePlus Earnings
Unfortunately the usefulness of mileage runs for elite status and redeemable miles just continues to decrease.
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Right now a Tango fare on AC flight between Canada and the USA earns me 50% aeroplane miles. If I book that same flight on united.com, do I earn 100% or 50%? United doesn’t appear to have different fare classes like AC does with Tango and Flex. Any help is appreciated. Flight will be end of February.
It depends on what fare bucket your ticket is in and which airline your flight is operated on. If you book on United before April, you earn 100% with MileagePlus AND Aeroplan.
It’s economy S. Operated by air canada but I can purchase the ticket through united. Is this a loophole to get full miles on ac?
No, then you earn 50% crediting to Aeroplan and 25% to United. So actually better to credit to Aeroplan.
Which date counts? The booking date or that of the travel? For example, if I book a flight on March 29 to depart on April 9, do I still get 100% Aeroplan miles?
It’s the date of travel.
That’s really awful, but aligns with current Tango fare policies of Aeroplan. Basically you have to buy a W fare and spend hundreds more for the same flight to get full miles. And if you’re Altitude Alite, does this mean you don’t get a 500 mile minimum?
If you book into the lowest fare buckets you get 50% and 250 miles as Altitude Elite.
Not surprise by another aeroplan devaluation. At least points.com transfer to USDM make things a little bit better for now.
Lurker who’s going to start traveling more soon across the border and pacific from YVR in economy. Can you comment whether Alaskan is better than Aeroplan for someone like me?
The draw with AC/AP used to be (and still is to an extent) the TATl/TPAC e-upgrades (before Air Canada devalued it multiple times). So it’s really depends on what fares you book, whether you’re going to be able to go all the way to SE100k, how you value your miles, and how much you value Air Canada’s benefits vs. Alaska’s benefits, so I need more details.
It’s mostly leisure and family visitation flying and as I mentioned all of it is TPAC/crossborder in economy. At my level does the program choice not matter or would the benefits of either make a difference? I’m mainly just interested in stockpiling miles for redemption and still deciding on which credit card to go for as well. Thanks for the response!
I’d say given that you do leisure travel I’m assuming you purchase the lowest fares. With Air Canada, these often don’t earn 100% elite qualifying miles towards elite status, so unless you buy fares in a higher fare bucket which earns miles, go with Alaska.
For the most part getting credit cards and elite status in my opinion in Canada are mostly separate.
The best credit card in my opinion to signup for is the 30k Amex Aeroplan Gold, as that has an increased signup bonus at the moment: http://canadiankilometers.com/go/amexapgold/