Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
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Starting today (or yesterday Aussie time), fully vaccinated travelers are able to enter Australia without having to quarantine. We recently wrote about excellent availability to Australia in economy across multiple airlines as well as premium economy on Qantas. But, let’s be honest, 15 hours in economy makes even the most hardened Ozzophile justifiably squeamish. Thankfully, our neighbours to North have a better idea.
Air Canada has wide-open saver award availability in business class between North America and Sydney from June through October. I was primarily looking at Vancouver and was able to find multiple dates with four seats (and sometimes more) available. There is also availability on the connecting flight from Toronto to Sydney as well as from Yancouver to Brisbane for a couple of weeks around the first of November.
The Deal
- Availability for 4+ in Air Canada Business Class nonstop between North America June-October 2022 from YVR-SYD and connecting flights from YYZ, YUL and more.
- VERY spotty availability for the non-stop YVR – BNE route in late October and early November.
How to book
These fares are available using miles in any Star Alliance program. The easiest way to find available dates is by using United’s calendar search, which will show fairly accurate saver availability over a 30-day period.
But, unless you’re flush with UA miles, those 99,000 mile fares are not the best way to book. Air Canada Aeroplan has the same flights available from between 79,000-81,000 miles AND is a transfer partner with Chase, Citi and American Express, making the miles fairly easy to come by.
You can also use Air Canada to connect to YVR through Star Alliance partners (and beyond Sydney to other parts of Australia using Virgin Australia). That said, most flights from the US seemed to add quite a bit to the cost (ie, 40-60,000 miles more) so it was actually cheaper to book the connecting flight separately…YMMV.
Last but not least (or maybe it is least, come to think of it), for all of us sitting there contemplating orphaned stacks of Avianca LifeMiles, most of these tickets are showing up there as well, and are bookable for 80k with just $50 in fees:
LifeMiles also partners with Citi and Amex, making them fairly easy to generate.
Quick Thoughts
It’s fairly uncommon to find business saver availability non-stop from North America to Australia and even more difficult to find availability with multiple seats. Since Australia is reopening, and with an unusual amount of wide-open space both ways, now might be the perfect time to think about spending some time Down Under. Jump on it quickly though, as availability was already changing while I was writing this!
(h/t: Straight to the Points)
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First what I see now are High Fees (Over $1800 CAD) in Economy and high point requirements in business class so these cheap points rates must be gone looking in Oct/Nov from Vancouver. Add that to getting to Vancouver from the south and it is not worth it.
Thanks for the heads up. Don’t recall LifeMiles as a transfer option from Chase.
Would ANA miles (RT) be viable for AC metal or maybe crazy surcharges?
Absolutely, If you can find RT availability (it’s pretty picked over now) it should price out at 120,000 RT from the West Coast…but not sure what the surcharges will be offhand.
Thanks Tim. Just saw a FM article from April 2021 that states no ANA surcharges on Air Canada (North America to Oceania).
Saw a more recent article on ANA increasing its surcharges but on its own flights, not Air Canada. So 120k RT + taxes sounds solid if can find.
There are plenty of UA Saver days on J for just 80k-88k. It beats having to deal with Lifemiles or Air Canada
I don’t understand. I searched on United about an hour after the email went out, and I could not find a single date in the 3-day calendars showing anything less than 200,000 miles required for the Vancouver-Sydney business class awards. Did it all go so quickly, or am I looking incorrectly?
Wow, as far as I can see, it’s all gone June-October. There are a smattering of dates leaving the second half of May, and a few more dates with ANA connecting through Tokyo, but the rest seems to be gone. That was quick…almost makes me wonder if Air Canada actually pulled some availability.
There is also still some availability to BNE in early November.
The extra $30 or so bucks in fees through aeroplan is worth not having to deal with lifemiles support.
@Tim, I don’t think there is a YYZ-SYD nonstop flight. Good article though!
Oops, should say connecting. Fixed!