A quick pivot to save miles (and money)

“Sometimes you’re the windshield; sometimes you’re the bug”.

That line showed up as a senior quote in one of my high school yearbooks, and I’ve always loved it. I think it’s the perfect metaphor for our hobby. In the miles and points game, it is easy to feel like you are the windshield, with the lie-flat seats, upgrades to suites, and all the extreme stacking to save big that is oftentimes made possible by a mastery of grown-up monopoly money. But then, every once in a while, a simple mistake reminds you that you’re inches away from being the bug, sometimes, too.

I made a change of plans yesterday that initially felt like a bit of a windshield moment, but I very nearly became the bug. (By the way, that line apparently comes from a Mary Chapin Carpenter song, but I did not know that until I went to write this post.)

SAS forces a change to upcoming plans

I have upcoming plans to go to Europe to visit some Christmas markets. We booked the flights for this trip almost 9 months in advance. Until yesterday, the plan had been to fly United from Newark to London, followed by Eurowings to Germany. I had booked that itinerary via Air Canada Aeroplan for 60,000 miles per passenger in business class, plus about $150 CAD per passenger. There are 5 of us on this trip, so the total was 300,000 miles plus $600 CAD in taxes and fees.

A few days ago, I realized that there had long ago been schedule changes to both legs that weren’t by a large enough margin to qualify for free cancellation, but the changes were enough to make us love the itinerary less than we had originally. Still, the price was hard to beat.

Nonetheless, I began searching for a better option.

On Monday night, something very attractive materialized: SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) Eurobonus released a bunch of award seats for close-in travel. There were 5 seats in business class on the day we wanted to travel for 50,000 miles and about $25 per passenger. Amazingly, SAS offers a 50% discount on award ticket mileage for children ages 2-11. Since my two kids are in that window, their tickets were just 25,000 miles each in business class. The total for all five of us on the itinerary would be 200,000 SAS miles and $123.50 USD.

That was a hard deal to pass up. Thanks to last year’s Million Mile Madness, I have had a million SAS miles sitting around for most of this year waiting to be used (and while they don’t expire until 2029, I’d rather not wait until crunch time to use them).

After hesitating for about an hour, we decided to book the SAS itinerary…but we were too late. The seats were gone — SAS was back to charging 1,441,000 miles per passenger for business class. Ouch. I set an alert for availability with Award Tool, hoping that perhaps seats would come back into inventory.

Yesterday morning, the seats came back. However, as I fumbled through the booking process (I learned that SAS charges $110 per person for seat assignments in business class, which slowed me down in going back to remove our selected seats), the awards once again dropped out of inventory, and the price was back up to 1,441,000 miles per passenger. Ouch!

However, just a little while later, they came back again at 50,000 miles per adult and 25,000 miles per kid. This time, I was prepared to blast my way through the booking process in full “windshield” mode (I had saved passenger information during earlier attempts so I could select passengers with names and birthdates automatically populated, saving time in the booking flow). Success! Five passengers in business class to Europe for just 20% of the haul from Million Mile Madness seemed like an amazing deal. And five passengers in business class (on an itinerary they had listed for more than $8,000 per passenger) for an average of 40,000 miles per passenger certainly felt like a full “windshield” moment.

However, with this new plan locked up, I had to cancel our Air Canada Aeroplan-booked United/Eurowings award, and I knew that wouldn’t be free.

Air Canada Aeroplan has both “lowest” (inflexible) and Flexible awards

Before getting into the nuts and bolts of the story, it is essential to understand that Air Canada Aeroplan offers several different types of awards, whether for travel on their own metal or on partners.

In all cabin classes, there is a “Lowest” award that costs fewer miles, but has change and cancellation fees.

Then there are also “Flexible” awards that cost more miles, but include free changes (and free cancellations in most cases).

Aerolpan also has “Latitude” awards in economy class on Air Canada-operated flights that are fully flexible, but cost far more miles.

The change and cancellation fee schedule can be found here. More on this later.

Running the numbers on the choice to cancel my “Lowest” Air Canada Aeroplan award

Unfortunately, I had booked Air Canada’s “lowest” business class fare for 60,000 points per passenger rather than a “Flexible” fare (which would have cost 84,000 miles per passenger, but would have been cancellable for free). That “lowest” fare meant that I would be subject to Air Canada’s change and cancellation fees.

I immediately recalled that the cancellation fee was $150 per passenger, which, at a total of $750 for five passengers on this trip, initially made the thought of cancellation unattractive.

However, a number of factors made me reconsider my stance:

1. Air Canada’s change and cancellation fees are in Canadian dollars, so the $150 per passenger that I had in mind was really $106.59 in USD. Still painful, but less so.
2. I would save a net 100,000 miles, getting my 300,000 Aeroplan points back and using up 200,000 SAS miles (the total costs for 5 passengers)
3. I would save ~$62 USD per passenger in taxes & fees with the new itinerary ($310 USD total) since the SAS itinerary only costs about $24.60 USD per passenger in taxes & fees, whereas the original Aeroplan itinerary included more than $86 USD in taxes and fees per passenger.

In short, after accounting for the tax savings of the new itinerary, it would cost me a net $222 in order to use 200,000 SAS miles instead of 300,000 Aeroplan points. If we valued SAS and Aeroplan miles both at our Reasonable Redemption Value for Aeroplan points of 1.4c per point, that’s a savings of about $1,400 worth of miles. That seemed like an easy trade.

In reality, I was even happier with the result than those numbers initially suggest. Obviously, 200,000 miles for 5 passengers in business class to Europe is a slamming deal, but beyond that, I was happy to use SAS miles. Air Canada Aeroplan points are far more broadly useful (Air Canada literally has about 3 times as many partner airlines as SAS, their partners release far more award availability overall than SkyTeam airlines do for SAS, and Aeroplan features flexible routing rules and allows for a stopover). By contrast, SAS has a narrower range of great uses. Business class awards to Europe on SAS for 50,000 miles per passenger (or 25K for the kids!) is generally the best use of SAS miles, so I was happy to hold Aeroplan points for another day and use my SAS miles for a best-use-case scenario.

I therefore decided that cancellation made sense, but then I had an idea for saving a few bucks on the cancellation.

Why you might change an Aeroplan award instead of cancelling it

While publishing a post on Monday related to Aeroplan, I updated our resources with what appear to be new / slightly updated change and cancellation policies for Air Canada Aeroplan award tickets.

One thing I noticed was that the fee to change a “lowest” award is typically $75 CAD (if changed via aircanada.com) / $100 CAD (if changed via call centre), but the fee to cancel an award is $150 CAD / $175 CAD.

It dawned on me that rather than pay $150 CAD per passenger to cancel and redeposit the points, there might be a better way….

The reason I was on the hook for fees is that I was on a “lowest” award. Most “Flexible” awards feature no change or cancellation fees. The solution became obvious: I should pay $75 CAD per passenger to change to a Flexible award. Then, I should be able to cancel that Flexible award for free. The net result would be paying $75 CAD per passenger (a total of $375 CAD, which is about $266.50) and eventually ending up with my 300,000 points back.

If that’s not clear, review my options:

1. Pay $150 CAD per passenger (times 5 passengers for a total of $750 CAD / $533 USD) to cancel and redeposit our awards and get back 300,000 points (plus the original taxes and fees)
2. Pay $75 CAD per passenger (times 5 passengers for a total of $375 CAD / $266.50 USD) to change to some other “Flexible” award first. Then, cancel the “Flexible” award for free (since most Flex awards offer free cancellation) to get back 300,000 points (plus the original taxes and fees)

Option #2 would save me 50% over paying the cancellation penalty.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as straightforward as that, and I almost made a mistake along the way.

My experience changing, then cancelling

Sadly, I couldn’t change my ticket online. I don’t know why I couldn’t, but AirCanada.com gave me an error message after clicking “change”, selecting airports, and hitting “search”:

Sadly, my itinerary could not be changed online. For what it’s worth, it could be cancelled online for a fee of $150 CAD per passenger, but that’s not what I wanted to do.

Instead, I knew I wanted to change to a “Flexible” award. However, a “Flexible” business class award to Europe would cost 84,000 points per passenger (a total of 420,000 points). Booking a Flexible business class award would require transferring another 120,000 points to Air Canada Aeroplan. I thought about that, but Greg set me straight and reminded me that I could change to a lower cabin / cheaper Flexible award instead.

I pulled up a random Flexible economy class itinerary for some other date and called Air Canada to change. This isn’t the exact itinerary to which I changed (my Flexible Economy fare was actually 56,700 points per passenger), but it’s the same idea.

Unfortunately, I had to pay $100 CAD per passenger to change to the new itinerary rather than $75 CAD. The lesser fee is for changes made on AirCanada.com (you pay more to cancel through a call centre). I explained that the only reason I was calling was that I couldn’t change on the website and that I shouldn’t be charged more just because Air Canada hasn’t “ironed out the kinks” (in their own words!). However, the agent had clearly had this conversation many times before and she explained that this is just the way it is via the call center and that she had no ability to waive anything or change the fee as it is all computer-programmed (not so customer-friendly how the Aeroplan programmers have programmed the call center to charge $100 CAD per passenger but haven’t programmed the website to handle the $75 CAD changes it advertises). I went ahead and paid $100 CAD per passenger (a total of $500 CAD / about $355 USD) to change to the new itinerary (plus some small additional taxes). Since this new itinerary was only 56,700 points per passenger, I got a free refund of 3,300 points per passenger (in other words, I got 16,500 of my original 300K back when making this change). Now I was only in for 283,500 points for 5 passengers.

Then, I went online to cancel my Flexible Economy award, expecting the cancellation to be free. Sadly, it wasn’t: I was faced with a $75 CAD fee per passenger to cancel that Flexible Economy award for a total of $375 CAD. I assumed they had figured out my ruse, and I was now going to end up paying a combined total of $175 CAD per passenger ($100 for the initial change over the phone and now $75 online to cancel my Flexible Economy award), which was more than I’d have paid if I simply cancelled from the get-go.

This is where I very nearly became the bug. I almost paid the fee to cancel, thinking that the system was accounting for the fee to cancel my original “Lowest” booking.

Stupidly, I just didn’t read the rules of the Flexible Economy fare as well as you may have. Neither did I remember the blurb I had updated just one day prior, explaining the new change and cancellation fees:

• “Lowest” fare awards cost $75-$100 CAD to change or $150-$175 CAD to cancel
• “Flex” fares are free to change in all cabins
• “Flex” economy fares cost $75-$125 to cancel
• “Flex” fares are free to cancel in Premium Economy or above
• “Latitude” economy fares have no change or cancellation fees

What you’ll notice there is that, as this post has noted several times, most Flexible fares can be cancelled for free. However, Flexible Economy fares have a cancellation fee. I had paid to change to a Flexible Economy fare that didn’t include free cancellation. That was a facepalm moment! And I almost paid the cancellation fee! Double facepalm.

Thankfully, I came to my senses and realized that I should simply change my Flex Economy award (changes are free on all Flex awards) to a Flexible Premium Economy award. Then, I could cancel it for free.

I also remembered from a past experience changing an Aeroplan booking that you can change the origin or destination to a different region when making a change. I didn’t need to change to another award to/from Europe.

Now that I was on a Flexible fare, I was able to make changes on AirCanada.com, without the need to call. I changed my Flexible Economy award (which was booked for travel from Newark to Cologne) to a Flexible Premium Economy award from Vancouver to Calgary.

Since that flight was only 21,400 points per passenger and far less in taxes and fees, I got back a sizable points and cash refund when making this free change.

The numbers in the screen shot are a little hard to follow. The short story is that the new flight from Vancouver to Calgary cost 107,000 total points for 5 passengers, so I got a refund of 176,500 points on this change. I also got back most of the taxes & fees, but for some odd reason, they kept some of what I’d already paid and then made me enter a credit card to cover some of the taxes & fees on the new flight. Trust me that the numbers work out in the end and that it’s not worth trying too hard to wrap your mind around the cash figures, as I’ll simplify below.

Once I made that change to a Flexible Premium Economy booking from Vancouver to Calgary, I went back into the booking to request a cancellation. Since Flexible Premium Economy offers free cancellation, I got back the 107,000 points for that flight, plus all the taxes and fees.

In the end, here was the semi-simplified breakdown:

1. I paid $100 CAD per passenger for the call centre fee to change my “Lowest” business class booking to a cheaper “Flexible” economy class booking, getting back 3,300 points per passenger
2. I realized that my Flexible Economy booking couldn’t be cancelled for free, but it could be changed for free, so I changed my Flexible Economy booking to an even cheaper Flexible Premium Economy booking, getting back 35,300 points per passenger because I changed to a route where Flexible Premium Economy was far cheaper
3. I cancelled my Flexible Premium Economy award for free, getting back 21,400 points per passenger
4. Net result: I paid $100 CAD per passenger (the call center change fee) and got back 60,000 points per passenger
5. All taxes & fees paid were refunded

That was more steps than necessary. I should have skipped changing to a Flex Economy booking and just changed my “Lowest” Business award to Europe to the Flex Premium Economy ticket from Vancouver to Calgary for the $100 CAD change fee via the call centre. The change to a Flex Economy booking was a dumb mistake that added a step, but I thought it was an important part of the story to share because that dumb mistake very nearly cost me an extra $75 CAD per passenger. I almost became the bug in that moment!

Instead, I ended up with my 300,000 total Aeroplan points back.

In the end, we paid ~$355 USD in fees to Air Canada to get back 300,000 miles. Our new awards booked via SAS saved us about $300 in taxes and only cost us 200,000 SAS miles, so this all feels like a great trade.

Bottom line

We made a close-in change of plans, opting to hop on SAS award availability for an upcoming trip to Europe, paying 50,000 miles per adult passenger and 25,000 miles per child passenger for business class awards to Europe. That meant having to pay a fee to cancel our Aeroplan-booked awards, but in the process, I learned that it doesn’t make much sense to pay the full Aeroplan cancellation penalty when you can alternatively pay less to change to a Flexible award and then cancel for free.

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