WestJet adds Orange County flights from Calgary & Vancouver

WestJet announced today that they will offer direct non-stop flights from Calgary and Vancouver to Orange County, California. The summer seasonal service will be daily and is slated to start on May 2 from Vancouver and on June 13 from Calgary.  For those who are not aware, Orange County's John Wayne Airport is close to Anaheim (Disneyland), Knots Berry Farm and the beach cities of Southern California.

Flight timings
Calgary-Orange County Dep 930 Arr 1149
Orange County-Calgary Dep 1230 Arr 1635

Vancouver-Orange County Dep 1030 Arr 1323
Orange County-Vancouver Dep 1415 Arr 1705

Source: WestJet

Virgin America cuts Toronto service

Less then a year after it started Virgin America will cut its service between Toronto and Los Angeles and San Francisco. Citing a lack of available planes and YYZ being the least profitable route, Virgin America will move the planes from these routes to more profitable ones. The Toronto flights will operate until  April 5, 2011.

Further update to Air Canada Top Tier Program

Air Canada's FlyerTalk Ambassador, Andrew Yiu posted last week that there are still some delays in getting the new top tier benefit packages out to all of the airlines elite members. The packages were to include some additional paper upgrade certificates to cover the time period before the electronic upgrade system went live. However, due to the delay in sending out the packages, the paper certs would have very short life spans, and therefore Air Canada will not be including them. Instead Air Canada will be providing members with additional upgrade credits to make up for the inconvenience. They will offer all 2011 Super Elite and Elite members 10 complimentary eUpgrade Credits, and all 2011 Prestige members 5 complimentary eUpgrade Credits. These credits will be valid through February 29, 2012.

For members who reached threshold bonus levels in December, they will also receive complimentary eUpgrade certs instead of the initially planned paper certs. In this case Super Elites will receive 15 credits and Elite/Prestige will receive 10 credits.

For complete details see Andrews post on FlyerTalk

Coast Hotels now an Aeroplan Partner

Western Canada based Coast Hotels has joined ranks with Aeroplan to become the latest hotel partner of Canada's largest frequent flyer program. The hotel chain boasts over 40 hotels in Alberta, B.C., NWT, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. Aeroplan members will earn anywhere from 250 to 500 Aeroplan miles per qualifying stay and if you are a member of Coast Hotel's Coast Rewards you can set your earning preference to Aeroplan miles. Aeroplan is Coast's second Frequent Flyer partner with the first being Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. The partnership starts on February 1st and will be celebrated with double Aeroplan miles for all stays Feb 1- Apr 8 and a chance to win 1 of 10 - 100,000 Aeroplan Miles prizes for staying during that same period.

Full details on the partnership and the contest can be found here.

Choice Privileges modifies Elite Program

Choice Privileges, the FGP of Choice Hotels has made some minor modifcations to their elite status program and all the changes are actually for the better.

The first change is the number of nights required to reach Platinum Status. Previously it used to 25 nights but that has been dropped down to 20 nights. Gold and Diamond remain the same at 10 and 40 nights respectively.

The second change was adding more days to the Extended Booking Window for award stays. Gold members now have 50 days, Platinum 75 days and Diamond get 100 days. This compares to 30 days for non elite members.

The third change is for Diamond members only with the bonus points on all stays increasing to 50% from 40%.

For more information on the Choice Privileges Elite Program click here.

China Southern to launch Vancouver to Gaungzhou service

According to Airline Route Updates, China Southern Airlines will start 3x weekly service between Vancouver and Guangzhou on June 15, 2011. The flights will be operated with a Boeing 777-200ER. A member of the SkyTeam alliance, China Southern's frequent flyer program is called the Sky Pearl club and with the launch of these flights we welcome the program to Rewads Canada's Bonus Offer listings.

Flight timings:
Vancouver - Guangzhou Dep 1100 Arr 1450+1
Guangzhou - Vancouver Dep 1300 Arr 0920

Air Canada to stop awarding Aeroplan Miles for online bookings

The bonus Aeroplan miles that members have earned for booking flights online at AirCanada.com over the past few years will come to an end on February 15, 2011. While the bonus was not huge for many of the fares unless you bought really expensive business class flights (1 Bonus Aeroplan Mile for every $3 spent on Tango fares, for every $2 spent on Tango Plus fares, for every $1 spent on Latitude, and Executive Class fares) it does take away the nice triple dip feature that members could take advantage of to earn some extra miles. Now, when you fly Air Canada with tickets booked after February 15th you will only be able to double dip, that is, you will earn the actual flight miles and the miles/points on your credit card if you use a rewards credit card for the purchase.

Source: Air Canada

LAN Airlines to cancel Tororto service

Chile's LAN Airlines will stop serving Toronto as of April 2, 2011. The airline has served the city for the past couple of years with a 5x weekly service from Santiago that went via New York.

Source: Airline Route Updates

COPA Airlines to launch Toronto - Panama City service

According to Airline Route Updates, Latin American carrier COPA Airlines will launch a 4X weekly service between Toronto and Panama City on Jun 16, 11. COPA has ties with Continental Airlines (you can earn/burn OnePass miles on COPA) and is set to join the Star Alliance sometime in 2012.