Aeroplan has been a frequent flyer program on the upswing over the last couple of years. It has an incredibly diverse group of partners (with good availability), excellent stopover rules and it’s taken great effort to make its credit card more appealing to the US market.
However, when the time comes to make changes, it’s been a bit of a laggard when compared to the major US programs. First, it actually charges a change fee for its cheapest awards, although Greg showed us how this can be avoided by booking more expensive flexible awards and then changing to the least expensive saver version later when plans firm. Second, in order to make changes to awards, it’s been necessary to call and speak with an actual agent. This may not seem like a huge deal, but hold times that can easily exceed 20-30 minutes mean that even simple changes aren’t anyone’s idea of a good time.
Hopefully that’s a thing of the past as, this week, Aeroplan finally rolled out online changes for award tickets.
Quick Thoughts
Historically, the only alteration that you could make to an Aeroplan award online was to cancel an it and redeposit the points (for a fee). Now, if you log into your account and look at an Aeroplan award reservation, you’ll see a new “change flight” button at the top of the itinerary. Using this, it’s possible to choose new origins and destinations, changes dates, or even award type (economy to first, flexible to saver, etc.). You’ll just pay the difference in Aeroplan points. So, most types of Aeroplan awards should now be changeable online.
Again, although this is a fairly minor change, in my opinion it makes Aeroplan a much easier program to interact with and use. Hopefully, a knock-on effect will be shorter hold times on the phone lines since most simple changes can be done online by the passenger.
Now, how about we ditch those change fees?
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I’d agree completely if the online change actually worked. But in multiple instances when you press the final “Pay” button it simply spins forever and eventually after like 5 minutes, goes back to the home page with no changes. Sometimes it leaves the change partially done, meaning your points are committed and the partial will have to be undone when you call, sometimes it simply fails to do anything. I’ve tried numerous times. Once it underestimated the number of miles I actually needed in the account, so waiting X hours for the partials to cancel then rebooking via phone worked. Other times it simply fails despite having extra miles in the account. And yes, hold times are generally 30-45 minutes IF you can get them to put you on hold at all. Earlier in the day multiple calls resulted in a sorry, can’t put you on hold now/hangup after making you go through multiple steps–aeroplan number, etc etc before dumping you out.
I booked my first Aeroplan award flight a few months ago while on my trip abroad after I realized Virgin changed my flight to a terrible time and needed a better alternative. Booked online but left off a lap infant thinking I could call and add. Waited on hold for 3 hours and 2 hours and gave up. Canceled and rebooked correctly but what a miserable experience. Hopefully this helps.
Nice improvement. You mentioned “You’ll just pay the difference in Aeroplan points”, but the change fee will still apply for the cheaper booking type right?
Thanks!
Yes, it should…although when I was playing around with it it wasn’t. My assumption is that’s an IT issue. But read Greg’s article about converting flexible awards to saver as well.
Why is it a big deal when someone could have just canceled online then book a new flight with the redeposited points.
It costs more to cancel and redeposit vs changing. Also, if you’re using the flexible awards trick that Greg wrote about it doesn’t cost anything now to change…and you don’t have to wait on hold forever to do it.
Right, but for the folks that paid for the flexible option they could of just cancel till now online and rebook… the main part is that changing is less expensive then canceling which i didnt know.
Ah, I see what you’re saying. You’re right for a one-way award (in terms of cancelling and rebooking, not counting the cost difference between the two options). But, on a round trip or multi-segment, it can be advantageous to be able to change. Let’s say you’re flying Emirates to Dubai and then onto Istanbul. You got a business seat from the US to Dubai, but booked a placeholder economy leg from Dubai to Istanbul, hoping business opens up. It does, but now there’s no business availability left from the US to Dubai. If you cancel, there’s no guarantee that the US-Dubai business goes back into award inventory…and you won’t know until you actually cancel. If you change, you can just keep that leg and then change the leg you want from economy to business.
Does this apply to partner awards too?
Yes, it does.