I owe Aeroplan an apology.
Over the past six years we’ve seen death by a thousand cuts from the program: multiple rounds of award chart inflation, the introduction of fuel surcharges on partner awards, and blocking of multiple Star Alliance airlines. In 2020 they’ll even be ” target=_blank>losing their affiliation with Air Canada.
Copyright: ronniechua / 123RF Stock Photo
So when the Aeroplan website stopped allowing customers to book awards that do not either start or end in the U.S. and Canada online, I concluded that “Aeroplan hates their customers.” That wasn’t fair.
The issue was frustrating because when making a booking the best way to search space is segment-by-segment even if you have to call to book, because calling to book incurs a fee (and hold times are interminably long), and because the situation arose without either notice or communication.
However booking awards online that do not either originate or terminate in the U.S. and Canada has been restored. Aeroplan reached out to me,
[J]ust wanted to let you know that it’s been restored. Thanks for your patience!
Members can book international to international flights on aeroplan.com.
And indeed functionality has returned:
While I don’t feel great about my half million Aeroplan miles these days, this temporary issue is certainly not proof that ‘Aeroplan hates its customers’ as I had suggested. I’m glad to see things working again.
Now if only they would restore access to tickets from Avianca and I’d be happy again….
As to your half million Aeroplan miles, it could be worse: they could be Skymiles instead.
Gary, you don’t need to appologize because Aeroplan DID NOT communicate ANYTHING to their members on their website. Any reputable company would clearly communicate any IT issues but Aeroplan did NOTHING. So everyone is left guessing what the hell is going on!
That to me justifies Aeroplan has no regard for their customers!
Thank you for staying on top of this… because Aeroplan needs to be held accountable for continuing to block Air China, Copa, Avianca and now SWISS with no ETA on a fix.
Writing an article with the headline that “Aeroplan hates their customers”, without having all the facts was over the line. Seriously look at the way Lucky covered it and that is the way it should have been handled until you had official confirmation. No doubt your own investment in the program made the topic a bit more emotional for you which is understandable, but still attacks like that on a company are not cool if you don’t have all the facts.
The history of the past 6 years likely supports the headline of course even if the award booking issue does not (or may not, it’s still an odd ‘glitch’ of course). Still, it’s good to know functionality has been restored and in exchange for that I am happy to apologize!
What about blocking Swiss Air (and all other Star Alliance partners with no fuel surcharges)? Seems much worse .
Bill works for aeroplan.
It kind of shows how stupid it is to earn miles. 500,000 miles are worth $10k from a 2% cash back, and not only you are not going to lose them, but you will invest them.
Your comments were reasonable when one takes into consideration Aeroplan’s past behavior. Call me a cynic, but I feel they were trying this out and only backed down once people complained. It’s not as if Aeroplan acted in good faith and put an advisory on its website is it? I am cynical because this is the program that has some of the highest if not highest redemption fees and that charges a business class redemption on long hauls when only one small segment is in business class while the other 75%+ is in economy.