As an Air Canada Aeroplan Elite, the biggest fear I have is the flight that takes me from Scandinavia to Asia on my Star Alliance Round The World ticket in economy class. It's not just because I'm flying where I don't want to be. It's that as the final leg of my journey - it's never comfortable.

In many ways, this flight is akin to flying YYZ-MCO or one of the other popular North American vacation destinations. Innumerable Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and expat Thais fly to ...

As Nick blogged about earlier today, Air Canada and Aeroplan have modified their elite qualification requirements. Starting next year, travelers crediting to Aeroplan need to fly at least 10,000 miles or five segments on Air Canada metal in order to qualify for elite status--of any level.

AC hasn't addressed why it made these changes, but I think Nick's got the right idea when he suggests that it just didn't pay off under the old policy. In addition to the Canadian taxes issue, which ...

Aeroplan (the company that provides the frequent flyer program for Air Canada) announced yesterday that in order to earn status with them, you must fly a minimum of 10,000 Status flight miles or 5 status flight segments.  Some bloggers are questioning why Air Canada would institute such a requirement on their generous program, but I can see two reasons for this.  

First, there are many people who use Air Canada status to gain lounge access, since it only requires 35,000 ...

I assisted a client in procuring two award tickets from Sydney to New York earlier this week and thought I'd give you a run-down of how booking though Aeroplan (Air Canada's frequent flyer program) compared to my numerous telephone calls to book award travel on United.

Aeroplan has two call centers, one in Montreal and one in Vancouver. Offices are only open from 6am to midnight.

After spending a great deal of time using ExpertFlyer and the ANA tool to find award space ...

For those who have racked up at least 1,000,000 elite miles on Air Canada or Jazz flights, new benefits are coming your way:

1 million status miles = lifetime Elite status (mid-tier, Star Gold) 2 million status miles = lifetime Elite status for member + lifetime Elite status for a nominated partner 3 million status miles = lifetime Super Elite (top-tier) status for member + lifetime Elite status for a nominated partner

This is a great way for AC to ...

I am starting to plan a trip to Thailand/China/North Korea/Japan for August and my goal was to snag a First Class seat on LH's new A380.

Looks like I'll have to look into other options.

"The [FRA-NRT] flight is almost fully booked through September with very strong bookings in first class," LH Chief Pilot and COO Juergen Raps told ATW Daily News onboard the flight from Berlin Schoenefeld to BRU.

I'm not going to give up yet, but it appears my ...