Aeroplan booking woes - Hotels

[Ausbt]

I made a recent points booking for a hotel as my 50K points were about to expire under the HSBC deal. The next day I received a message that the booking had been cancelled. Had to call CA to sort it out, who told me "we just thought someone spending 50K points was suspicious so we blocked it". Ok then. They reactivated my account so I then attempted to rebook the same hotel. When entering guest details into the booking, it simply won't accept a telephone number longer than 5 digits after the prefix field '+61'. I tried experimenting with other country prefixes and can see that other fields have different lengths. I also tried on multiple browsers on two different devices. Anyone ever have a similar problem? I plan to cancel my HSBC card in December so this is really last chance to use.

 

[Phoenix-1]

Can you just transfer some Star Alliance miles to Aeroplan to keep your points active? Unless you don't plan on ever redeeming them for flights.

 

[Ausbt]

Thanks for the suggestion. Actually I'm unsure - I had formed the view that cancellation of the HSBC card would see the Aeroplan points disappear immediately, have I got that wrong? I plan to cancel the card in Dec. I did dribble a few new points into it from VA in March this year (and quickly found the earn rates were abysmal, BTW). But look if it is the case those points won't expire for a few years well I could put them to far better use on a flight redemption. Anyone know?

 

[Phoenix-1]

If they are in your Aeroplan account then they will not disappear. I cancelled my HSBC card shortly after obtaining the 50,000 points and didn't lose them.