My wife Julie has enough Aeroplan points to fly free, round trip, to Europe. I don’t have quite enough. We booked some of our flights this morning, and there was a ridiculous rigmarole to ensure that our seats were next to each other.
She booked on Aeroplan, I simultaneously booked on Air Canada, and then we immediately called Aeroplan to get her seat moved next to mine. That’s the prescribed strategy, and it’s absurd.
But that’s not really the subject of this post. My flight on Air Canada was about CAN $750. That’s quite a good price, in my experience. Julie’s ‘free’ flight, turned out to be a little over CAN $300. That’s three hundred bucks worth of fees and, I don’t know, ‘plane oxygen usage’ surcharges. $300 is, as you know, a lot more than free. I felt more than a little screwed.
I think we can all agree. Unless you can afford the glorious first class, air travel blows.
Comments
The whole ridiculous rigamarole thing is not confined to Air Canada and Aeroplan. These reward miles systems are pretty flawed in general. They're like weird form of pseudo-currency with arcane rules about how you're allowed to spend it . And of course the the value of the currency is determined entirely by the issueing party who don't have to answer to anyone.
Free flights are indeed a myth.
Yup, the old "get this free gift when you buy loyally from us" really hasn't changed after all this time. Still gotta get your magnifying glass out to read the fine print and that just ain't right.
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