Spencer at Straight to the Points sent out an alert about business class tickets for up to 4 people being available on Turkish Airlines and since the airline is a Star Alliance member you can use your Aeroplan points to redeem for these flights. Availability is showing from September 2021 through to February 2022 for flights to Istanbul and beyond. Aeroplan charges 70,000 points each way for partner award flights in business class plus the $39 partner award booking fee.
Editors Note: Rewards Canada does not encourage non-essential travel at this time but as part of our mission of delivering a wide breadth of loyalty program news, bonuses and tips on earning and redeeming we do want to present options for our readers who may be interested is such news as this and for planning for future travel!
Here are some examples of the current availability:
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| Toronto - Istanbul for 2 - round trip in business class |
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| Toronto - Istanbul for 4 - one way in business class |
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| Toronto - Bodrum for 2 - one way in business class |
One can hope that by late fall and/or winter travel will have opened
more, that is more so on the Canadian side when you return from
somewhere outside of the country so that you can utilize a redemption
like this. On the arrival side into Turkey, they do require all non-residents to complete a form for entry and present a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of departure. If you are simply transiting Turkey you do not have to have the test. This may change for travel down the line in fall or winter so if you do book such flights as provided in the examples here be sure to check frequently as to what the requirements will be when you travel.
The good news with being an Aeroplan reward ticket is that the cancellation policy is quite consumer friendly so you could book this and cancel should things not open up or work out for you. Bookings made up to April 30, 2021 can be changed or canceled free of charge and hopefully that date will be extended further as we have seen them do over the past year. If for some reason they do not extend it, Aeroplan still allows you to cancel up to 2 hours prior to departure time but you will be subject to fees of up to $175 per ticket.
One of the easiest ways to earn enough
Aeroplan Miles for redemptions like those listed above is to grab co-branded Aeroplan credit cards or cards that let you convert to Aeroplan. In fact you could grab several cards and have enough points for a one way business class flights as mentioned above. I would recommend reading our post How to earn over 118,000 Aeroplan points for free* so that you can see how you can earn enough points for such amazing redemption options as shown above. Ideally you'd start out with
TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card which is offering a 20,000 Aeroplan point welcome bonus with no annual fee in the
first year and bonus buddy pass if you apply for the card by May 30. Then you'd want to get it's counterpart from CIBC, the CIBC Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card and the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card. Between these three cards and their spend requirements you would have over 73,000 Aeroplan points - more than enough for that one way business class ticket!
Images via Turkish Airlines & Air Canada
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