How much is the penalty to add a sector onto an existing Aeroplan Award booking?

[DirectConnect]

Hey all,

Looking at securing a flight home from the US to Australia in July next year when they release seats on SQ in J. Due to the high demand, I am looking at securing a one way flight from JFK to SIN in J and then add the sector to Melbourne 48 hours after when they become available for redemption. Aeroplan is currently releasing 2 J awards on flights from SIN to Australia and 1-2 J awards from JFK/EWR to SIN.

Looking at the fare rules and consulting other forums, albeit its not clear on adding sectors but given the two categories of J awards;
1 - Business Lowest | $100 CAD change fee
2 - Business Flexible | $0 CAD change fee

I am assuming that in addition to the taxes and the increase in points charged due to the addition of the sector. The penalty for the addition from SIN-MEL on a Business Lowest fare will be $100 CAD + 30k Aeroplan Points + Taxes, and on a Business Flexible fare will be $0 CAD + 30k Aeroplan Points.

 

[Mattg]

I assume you've had a look at the Aeroplan T&Cs (see section 27):

Aeroplan Flight Reward Policy

www.aircanada.com

I've never tried it myself but I believe this would be considered a change - you'd need to pay the change fee (CAD100 or CAD0 depending on booking type) and any additional points/taxes.

That said, I probably wouldn't recommend doing this myself. Once you've booked the EWR-SIN sector, that availability will be removed from inventory and therefore probably won't be available as an option when you try to rebook onto EWR-SIN-Australia 2 days later. I would just hope that the flights are all still available once the full itinerary is released. Hopefully every single SQ J flight isn't being booked up in the first 2 days by Aeroplan members.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I've encountered the same issue a year ago booking a round the world ticket using the stopover feature. I found availability for SYD to ZRH and from LAX to ICN but no availability for ZRH to YYZ and ICN to SYD. I booked those sectors. Then, when ExpertFlyer alerted me that availability opened up for the missing sectors, I called up Aeroplan and got them to add it on. This did result in them having to recalculate the price since my itinerary went from an Atlantic to Pacific zone on the outbound to a Pacific to North America itinerary (with a stopover in Europe). Since this trip was booked as two one-ways (rather than a multi-city or return ticket) I had to pay the fee twice (i.e. $200 CAD total). It stung, but I was able to get those sectors added on for very minimal points. So to your point yes it absolutely can be done. One other point (although I doubt it'll impact your itinerary), if you add an flight operated by Air Canada to your award, it will change from being a fixed price award to a dynamic award, and the price fluctuation (in the upward direction) can be severe. This is why it is generally recommended not to fly Air Canada when booking an Aeroplan award (and instead a part like Singapore or United).

To your next point, which is whether you should book what you can find now versus wait for everything to open up, I would personally book what I can find. There is no guarantee that such coveted seats will be around for long, and so you may end up finding that seat pop up in a couple of weeks but now the Singapore long haul segment is gone. So then the question is, would you accept having to pay a change fee in exchange for the certainty that you've secured a long haul business class seat? For me this is a no-brainer, but for others maybe not so much. The other thing to consider is how much that Business Flexible ticket costs. If you're looking at 10,000 points more, it may make sense to spend the extra points for the flexible ticket since you'll save that money later on change fees, plus you can cash out the ticket should you find a different (i.e. better itinerary) or can't travel anymore.

Those are my two cents (well I guess nickel since I'm Canadian).

-RooFlyer88

 

[DirectConnect]

I've encountered the same issue a year ago booking a round the world ticket using the stopover feature. I found availability for SYD to ZRH and from LAX to ICN but no availability for ZRH to YYZ and ICN to SYD. I booked those sectors. Then, when ExpertFlyer alerted me that availability opened up for the missing sectors, I called up Aeroplan and got them to add it on. This did result in them having to recalculate the price since my itinerary went from an Atlantic to Pacific zone on the outbound to a Pacific to North America itinerary (with a stopover in Europe). Since this trip was booked as two one-ways (rather than a multi-city or return ticket) I had to pay the fee twice (i.e. $200 CAD total). It stung, but I was able to get those sectors added on for very minimal points. So to your point yes it absolutely can be done. One other point (although I doubt it'll impact your itinerary), if you add an flight operated by Air Canada to your award, it will change from being a fixed price award to a dynamic award, and the price fluctuation (in the upward direction) can be severe. This is why it is generally recommended not to fly Air Canada when booking an Aeroplan award (and instead a part like Singapore or United).

To your next point, which is whether you should book what you can find now versus wait for everything to open up, I would personally book what I can find. There is no guarantee that such coveted seats will be around for long, and so you may end up finding that seat pop up in a couple of weeks but now the Singapore long haul segment is gone. So then the question is, would you accept having to pay a change fee in exchange for the certainty that you've secured a long haul business class seat? For me this is a no-brainer, but for others maybe not so much. The other thing to consider is how much that Business Flexible ticket costs. If you're looking at 10,000 points more, it may make sense to spend the extra points for the flexible ticket since you'll save that money later on change fees, plus you can cash out the ticket should you find a different (i.e. better itinerary) or can't travel anymore.

Those are my two cents (well I guess nickel since I'm Canadian).

-RooFlyer88

I assume you've had a look at the Aeroplan T&Cs (see section 27):

Aeroplan Flight Reward Policy

www.aircanada.com

I've never tried it myself but I believe this would be considered a change - you'd need to pay the change fee (CAD100 or CAD0 depending on booking type) and any additional points/taxes.

That said, I probably wouldn't recommend doing this myself. Once you've booked the EWR-SIN sector, that availability will be removed from inventory and therefore probably won't be available as an option when you try to rebook onto EWR-SIN-Australia 2 days later. I would just hope that the flights are all still available once the full itinerary is released. Hopefully every single SQ J flight isn't being booked up in the first 2 days by Aeroplan members.

Hey there, turns out it was really simple. At the time of the change there was 0J redemptions available from JFK-SIN (booked the sector when the calendar was released) and was able to use within the manage by booking function on AC -> tick the "Change Departing Airports" box and then change the destination to Melbourne.

Whilst there was no availability, the original JFK-SIN sector was able to be used and finally was able to add the sector from SIN-MEL for 27.5k Aeroplan Miles, $78 CAD in taxes and the $100 CAD change fee for "Business Lowest" redemptions. All done within minutes, kept my original seat 10A from JFK-SIN even after the change.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Hey there, turns out it was really simple. At the time of the change there was 0J redemptions available from JFK-SIN (booked the sector when the calendar was released) and was able to use within the manage by booking function on AC -> tick the "Change Departing Airports" box and then change the destination to Melbourne.

Whilst there was no availability, the original JFK-SIN sector was able to be used and finally was able to add the sector from SIN-MEL for 27.5k Aeroplan Miles, $78 CAD in taxes and the $100 CAD change fee for "Business Lowest" redemptions. All done within minutes, kept my original seat 10A from JFK-SIN even after the change.

Great to hear this can all be done online (perhaps a learning lesson for QF). I wonder if it would be possible to add stopovers using this trick or if it only allows simple changes like these. In my case, I wanted to make use of the 5,000 point stopover feature so that I could spend 2 weeks in Europe before heading on to Canada.

-RooFlyer88

 

[DirectConnect]

Great to hear this can all be done online (perhaps a learning lesson for QF). I wonder if it would be possible to add stopovers using this trick or if it only allows simple changes like these. In my case, I wanted to make use of the 5,000 point stopover feature so that I could spend 2 weeks in Europe before heading on to Canada.

-RooFlyer88

From the looks of it, it only looks like you can do simple changes (ie. Limited to changing an existing sector) you'll have to call in order to make use of the 5k stopover features. Even then, you will most likely be routed to a domestic Canadian call center (QF take notes) and they are very good and on the ball.

 

[zsw]

To add a data point to the above, I wanted to add on a flight to an existing booking and make use of a stopover (originally SIN - BNE in Singapore J, wanted to make it SGN - SIN (+5 days) - BNE).

Wasn't possible to do it online. Had to call up and the agent was very good at adding on the flight for 5,000 points + $100 CAD (pp) + taxes (in this case only $35).