If you’ve been searching for award flights with Aeroplan recently, you may have noticed that there are fewer available options with some partner airlines these days.
While it’s still possible to find plenty of flights with Air Canada, as well as flights with some partner airlines, there’s been a rather significant change in partner award availability in the last while, especially when compared to previous years.
We’d like to take stock of the situation at hand, as it’s something that now materially impacts many Aeroplan users’ experience.
What’s Happening with Aeroplan Partner Award Availability?
One of Aeroplan‘s strengths as a loyalty program is the number of partner airlines with which you can redeem points.
At the moment, that number stands at 47 airlines, which includes both Star Alliance carriers and airlines that aren’t aligned with any particular alliance.
For Star Alliance airlines, award availability tends to be relatively consistent between loyalty programs. If you’re able to book two business class seats with Swiss on Aeroplan, you can probably find those same two seats with United MileagePlus or Avianca LifeMiles, with some exceptions.
However, lately, we’ve noticed that some Star Alliance airlines haven’t been showing up in search results on the Aeroplan website, despite award availability showing up with other Star Alliance loyalty programs, and with ExpertFlyer.
For example, in January 2024, the calendar feature on the United MileagePlus website shows ample award availability for Swiss business class from Montreal to Zurich.
Indeed, these same seats show as available on Avianca LifeMiles…
As well as on ExpertFlyer…
However, when we search for the same flights on the Aeroplan website, Swiss isn’t an option on any of these dates.
However, if you call the Aeroplan Contact Centre, the agents can see the Swiss award availability, and can then complete the booking over the phone.
It’s worth noting that the pattern of some long-haul business class partner award flights only being available over the phone with Aeroplan has been noted with Lufthansa-group airlines, as well as other airlines (including EVA Air and ANA). In some cases, this applies only when flying to specific countries.
For example, flights to India and China on partner airlines appear to be heavily restricted for online bookings. Again, some flights that show up on other Star Alliance loyalty websites may be bookable over the phone with the Aeroplan Contact Centre, but not all can.
In the past, flying with Etihad Airways to the Middle East, Asia, and Australia was an excellent single-stop option from North America available through Aeroplan.
Unfortunately, long-haul business class and First Class flights with Etihad Airways have all but disappeared for quite some time.
Similarly, Oman Air’s introduction as an Aeroplan partner offered members an excellent option for unorthodox business class and First Class redemptions. However, it’s been a long time since Oman Air award availability has shown up on the website in any class of service.
It’s clear that something is going on here, and the issues have progressed to the point that members need to resort to other websites to find flights that can be booked over the phone with Aeroplan.
What’s Causing This to Happen?
It’s worth noting that there are multiple factors at play here, and we can’t be 100% sure about all of the root causes unless confirmed by Aeroplan. These issues also affect other loyalty programs, and aren’t specific to Aeroplan.
The vast majority of Aeroplan members participate with the program without any issues; however, there are some parties who engage in clandestine activities with loyalty programs.
Our understanding of the situation is that one of the main contributing factors here has to do with the activity of mileage brokers.
While mileage brokers make money in a variety of ways (with some much more nefarious than others), one approach they use is to book up business class and First Class award seats on a refundable fare as soon as they become available.
Then, the broker will either hold on to the seats until more become available at the last-minute (and then cancel the original flight and rebook it under a buyer’s name), or once a buyer is located, they cancel the flight and rebook under a different name if the seat goes back into award inventory.
By doing so, mileage brokers can sell seats in premium cabins for a fraction of the price, thus netting themselves a tidy chunk of cash. Of course, airlines lose out on a lot of potential revenue this way, which is exactly why this type of behaviour goes against the terms and conditions of loyalty programs.
Anyone caught engaging in such a practice will have their account(s) shut down; however, it’s much more widespread that you might think, and since it can be incredibly lucrative, many people accept the risk and find ways to work around it.
The practice is more common in some parts of the world than it is in others. As you may imagine, since geographical restrictions were imposed on Aeroplan bookings involving China and India, it’s likely that the concerns are widespread enough in these areas that restrictions had to be imposed.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Two weeks ago, Aeroplan temporarily suspended the ability to create new Family Sharing accounts, due to widespread misuse. This change doesn’t affect any existing Family Sharing pools — rather, it’s just a temporary measure as it works to address the issue.
It’s very likely that the Family Sharing misuse is related to some of the award availability irregularities discussed above, and it’s good to know that Aeroplan is actively working to address the issue.
It’s also worth pointing out that this is an immense issue to address, and one that likely won’t be completely resolved in the short-term future.
On the other hand, it’s also clear that security efforts to detect and combat bad-faith actors who are engaged in activities that essentially gobble up award availability from everyone else need to be improved.
If restricting the ability to book some partner awards online is an intentional measure to dissuade any sort of automatic award booking process, then that’s a step in the right direction.
However, it’s very likely that the vast majority of Aeroplan members aren’t familiar with other tools available to search for award availability, which they could use to locate award seats and then book with Aeroplan over the phone.
In this sense, it’s not fair to anyone who just accepts what’s available on the Aeroplan website, as they’d be losing out on making a booking and having a positive engagement with the program.
Furthermore, measures to identify and swiftly ban any accounts that snap up award space as soon as it becomes available, only to cancel it and rebook within a short period of time under someone else’s name, should be enhanced.
If Aeroplan is able to step up its corporate security efforts in a manner that addresses concerns over fraud, partner airlines should be more open to coming back to the table and releasing award seats to the program.
After all, having 47 partner airlines is only worthwhile if members can book all 47 consistently.
In the mean time, if you don’t find what you’re looking for on the Aeroplan website, look for partner award availability on the United MileagePlus website, the Avianca LifeMiles website, or ExpertFlyer, and then call Aeroplan to inquire about availability.
Sure, it’s a bit of a longer process than it should be, but at least you might get what you want this way.
Conclusion
In the last while, award availability for some Aeroplan partner airlines has been inconsistent with what’s available through other loyalty programs. In some cases, Aeroplan agents can book the flights over the phone, while in others, there are geographical restrictions in place to combat fraudulent bookings.
It appears that Aeroplan is taking steps to address some of these issues, which have come to negatively affect the user experience. Not all awards are bookable online, and not all partner airlines release award availability to the program at the moment.
What remains to be done is better detection and prohibition of bad-faith actors, who are simply ruining the fun for everyone.
