On or about August 25 Aeroplan, the frequent flyer program that was spun off from Air Canada that the airline is buying back, began having issues booking award tickets on several Star Alliance partner airlines.
I reached out to Aeroplan to find out why redemption on carriers such as Thai, SAS, ANA, Swiss, and LOT Polish has become unavailable.
ANA First Class
An Aeroplan spokesperson shares only,
[W]e are aware of this issue, which is technical in nature. We want to apologize for any inconvenience this system issue is causing our members. We are working closely with Air Canada and our partners to resolve as quickly as possible.
They haven’t offered a timeline for a solution. Sometimes the ability to book certain awards is brought back quickly and other times it can take a year. Aeroplan does seem to have more issues, more frequently, booking awards than most programs do.
I believe that the issue is technical and have no reason to believe that Aeroplan itself is using this as an opportunity to throttle bookings and hold down costs. Hopefully Aeroplan points become useful again soon.
A sinking ship – burn when you can.
ANA, Swiss, LOT have no surcharges. And there are always issues with them (along with CA,ET,AV.CM – also no surcharges)
Coincidence?
Please stay on top of this because Aeroplan hasn’t even posted anything on their website.
Coincidence that all these airlines are ones that don’t have ridiculous surcharges? Sick of this crap from Aeroplan. One more redemption and I’m done with this program for good.
I had a Air China booking get cancelled by Air China (no notification or anything). Aeroplan ended up booking me LH F ticket (the fare code was full F class).
There are clearly technical issues going on right now.
Good to know there are “technical” issues. I am trying to book a Swiss Bus class flight that available on United, but not Swiss. I cant wait around forever though.
Are these issues confined to booking awards on the aeroplan website or are the phone people unable to book as well?
I had used Aeroplan to book swiss biz (actually first but got involuntary downgrade) for flight back in June (booked in Dec) and had my repositioning flight unexpectedly “un-ticketed” the day before the flight… rebooked in Lufthansa.
I’ve heard similiar stories on here, trying to decide if its worth booking my transatlantic travel with Aeroplan or using United miles (at premium) to get some more security that I’ll actually get ticketed.