Spencer at Straight to the Points sent out another alert about business class tickets for up to 4 people being available on Austrian 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 November 2022 through to March 2023 for flights to Vienna and beyond. Perfect timing to visit all the Christmas markets! Aeroplan charges 70,000 points each way for partner award flights in business class plus the $39 partner award booking fee.
We did a quick check of availability for 4 adults between Montreal and Vienna on November 16:
And then returning on November 23:
Grand total is 280,000 points + taxes/fees each way (70,000 point per person). More often than not it is a rarity having this many open business class seats per flight (we even tried for 6 people on the same outbound flight and it worked) so if you are looking to get your family or a group of friends to Europe in Winter this could be an excellent option. Austrian's flights out of Montreal are operated with their Boeing 767-300 aircraft which feature 26 lie flat business class seats.
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| Business Class Seat map preview of the November 16 flight |
The cash price for the same flights (the price was the same on Air Canada and Austrian's websites):
For the round trip flight for four you would need to redeem 560,000 Aeroplan Points to cover $15,523.93 of the ticket price. This provides a 2.78 cents per points value. Definitely higher than our 1.5 cents minimum valuation but a bit lower than we have seen with some of our other examples we provided over the past few months that were in the 4 to 6 cents range. That being said, if I was to redeem for these flights I'd be happy with it more so for the fact that we are a family of four and we'd be able to get us all business class seats on the same flight with ease!
Good news for those in Halifax (and thus St. John's and most of Atlantic Canada) since you are closer to Vienna than Montreal (as the crow flies that is) you only have to redeem 60,000 points for a one way business class ticket:
Halifax to Vienna for four in business class one way, 240,000 points in total, flying Air Canada Business Class to Montreal and then onto the Austrian Airlines flight from Montreal to Vienna.
And Charlottetown:
I also checked for flights out of Calgary and those were also available at 70,000 points connecting in Montreal however they were showing mixed cabin only issue was finding business class between YYC and YUL. Even though the business class cabins were showing wide open during a couple of my searches the Air Canada site kept that first domestic leg in Economy. The reason why I suspect is that Air Canada wants 65,000 points alone for YYC-YUL in business class.
If you don't have enough Aeroplan points to redeem for a flight like those above there are a lot of credit card options to consider but the ideal one to obtain a lot of Aeroplan points quickly and more than enough to cover at least a one way business class flight to Vienna is to get The Platinum Card® from American Express. Right now if you apply for it by May 11 you can get 90,000 Membership Rewards Points (which equals 90,000 Aeroplan Points) by spending $6,000 on the card in the first three months. If you can spend $6,000 faster than that the points will post sooner than that - Amex is usually quite good at posting the welcome bonus within a couple of days of hitting the spend requirement. Overall this is the largest amount of Aeroplan points you can get in the shortest possible time span possible. On top of those 90,000 points you can earn 10x points on travel purchases in the first 6 months up to 20,000 points in total for grand total of 110,000 points from the welcome bonus.
➤ Click here to check out the Platinum Card from American Express
Images via Austrian Airlines & Air Canada
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