Star Alliance Upgrade Awards now available on Air Canada

Air Canada is now officially participating in the Star Alliance Upgrade Awards program which allows members from Aeroplan and other Star Alliance programs to use their miles to upgrade on eligible Air Canada and Jazz Flights. The upgrades only work on Latitude fares (Economy Y or B booking class) and can be requested right as soon as your booking is confirmed. See Aeroplan's Star Alliance Upgrade Page for more details.

For Aeroplan members, you can now use your miles to also upgrade on participating Star Alliance partner flights starting from as little as 7,500 Aeroplan miles. See the Star Alliance Upgrade Award Chart for more details

For a complete roundup of all the details and pages related to this latest feature with Aeroplan and to process upgrade requests online see this summary page on Aeroplan.

Saturday Dec 4: Big Day for earning Aeroplan Miles at Rexall

On Saturday December 4, Rexall Stores will be offering Aeroplan Members 15,000 Bonus Aeroplan miles for simplying transferring a prescription from a non-Rexall/Pharma-Plus drug store and filling the prescription right away. The offer is valid at participating Rexall/Rexall Pharma Plus locations only in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, North West Territories and Manitoba. Depending on the cost of your prescription you can get a pretty cheap short haul flight out of this deal (15,000 Aeroplan Miles = 1 Short Haul flight). You can expect many Rexalls particularily in the bigger metropolitan centers to be quite busy so get there earliy to take advantage of the offer.

For more details and compete terms and conditions please see this page on Aeroplan

WestJet announces more non-stop service to Orlando

More seasonal  routes were announced from WestJet last week:

- Hamilton to Orlando which will run once per week from Feb 15 to  Apr 26
- Moncton to Orlando will also run once per week from Feb 17 to May 5

Source: WestJet Press Release (Hamilton)
Source: WestJet Press Release (Moncton)

WestJet adds new sun routes from Halifax and expands others

WestJet announced last week that they will be adding direct non-stop flights from Halifax to Montego Bay, Punta Cana, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa and expanding service to Cancun and Orlando. All the new and expanded routes will be flown once per week and are seasonal for Winter 2011. They are all starting mid-February and running until early May.

For full details and flight timings please see the WestJet Press Release

Egyptair to launch Toronto-Cairo service in 2011

Egyptair annouced last week at the African Airlines Association general assembly that they will be launching a new service between Toronto and Cairo, Egypt. The new service has now been loaded into the GDS systems (per Airline Route Updates) and will commence on Jun 1, 2011. The flight will be operated with a Boeing 777-300ER on a 3x weekly basis.

Flight timings:
Toronto-Cairo Dep 1130 Arr 0600+1
Cairo-Toronto Dep 2355 Arr 0540+1

Richest Credit Card sign up bonus ever to be offered in Canada?

I just received an email from Aeroplan for the American Express AeroplanPlus Platinum Card. Normally I just quickly look it over if anything has changed on the card since it was introduced 4 or so years agoand then delete it. But this time, the email really caught my eye. Why? They are offering 50,000 Bonus Aeroplan miles to new applicants for the card. You get 25,000 upon the first use of your card and 25,000 when you spend $1,000 within the first three months. In my history of tracking reward programs I have never seen a credit card bonus offer this high in Canada. In the U.S., sure you had the British Airways 100,000 BA Miles credit card offer and the American Airlines 75,000 AAdvantage mile offer but here in Canada, the highest sign up bonus in recent history came from the Capital One Aspire World MasterCard with 35,000 bonus miles!

The AeroplanPlus platinum card is not for everyone as it comes with a hefty annual fee of $499 but for the frequent traveller (or even relatively frequent) the annual fee can pay for itself with free access to business class lounges, priority check in, a yearly short haul companion ticket, increased earning of 1.25 to 1.5 Aeroplan miles on all spending and other typical features seen on premium cards. This offer of 50,000 miles is valid for new applications made up to December 28, 2010.

Now, the question to ask is whether other card issuers in Canada will follow. We have seen the trend in the U.S. with increased card offerings as most credit cards there are now offering a minimum of 30,000 miles or points with quite a few in the 50,000 mile/point range. I know many frequent travellers here in Canada who have complained about the paltry sign up bonuses along with annual fees more then double that of our counterparts to the South. So lets keep our fingers crossed that this is the start of hefty....I mean healthy trend of increased sign up bonuses in Canada.

American Express® AeroplanPlus®* Platinum Card / American Express® AeroplanPlus®*Gold Card is no longer available as of August 26th, 2020. For more information, please visithttps://www.americanexpress.com/ca/en/credit-cards/aeroplan-cards/

$100 Off Air France flights in Premium Voyageur Class

Lately most voucher codes from Air France have been $50 or $60 but here is one a bit higher but it is only for premium economy bookings:

Receive $100 off of Premium Voyageur (premium economy) flight reservations over $1000 departing from Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa to any Air France destination that offers a Premium Voyageur fare. Use promo code AFFPV891. Travel must be between December 1st 2010 and April 30th, 2011 with the latest return being August 31st, 2011.

Book online at Air France

Planning a stay in Vancouver? Check out these hotel bonus point offers

There are lots of hotels to choose from in Vancouver where you could stay but a few have recently released some really good bonus point/mile offers for staying with them. These offers are over and above any system-wide offers that may be going on right now (like Marriott's Mega Bonus and Starwood's Rewarding Returns) and are only available for a short period:

Marriott Hotels:
Earn 3,000 Bonus Rewards Points when you stay any night Thursday-Sunday at the
Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside
Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown
Vancouver Airport Marriott.
Book online at Marriott.com
Book by Nov 28 for stays until Jan 23, 11

Starwood Hotels:

Earn up to 1,000 Bonus Starpoints and 1,000 Bonus Aeroplan Miles for stays at:
The Westin Bayshore, Vancouver.
- 500 Aeroplan® Miles plus 500 bonus Starpoints per stay when you book a Standard room
- 1000 Aeroplan® Miles plus 1000 bonus Starpoints per stay when you book a Harbour View room
Full Details & Online Booking
Valid for stays until Dec 30, 10

Aeroplan improves flight reward options for online bookings

Most Aeroplan members probably received this email last week, but in case you deleted it without reading it or did not get it, I am posting it for you here. I have not personally tried the online booking process since the email came out so if you have please feel free to comment below and tell our readers whether or not you are finding better availability of rewards and routings on Aeroplan.com. Members who redeem online by Dec 15 will also have a chance to win one of  42 prizes of 25,000 Aeroplan Miles

The email reads as follows:

Great news! We've improved the search engine of our online booking tool to show you better-quality Star Alliance flight reward options to transborder USA and international destinations. In other words, greater access to the 27 Star Alliance member airlines.
Enjoy all the benefits of our online booking improvements:

• Increased Star Alliance round-trip flight options
• Greater variety of flight connection points
• More airports now available online

The bottom line: Getting to your destination is now easier.

Use our new and improved online booking for a chance to win 25,000 miles. Only until December 15!

Redeem online right now for any flight reward in any cabin—and you'll automatically get a chance to win one of 45 prizes of 25,000 Aeroplan Miles

Hainan Airlines to offer bonus miles on new Toronto-Beijing route

To celebrate the launch of their upcoming new route between Toronto and Beijing, China's Hainan Airlines is offering members of its Fortune Wings program up to 24,000 Bonus Fortune Wings miles for flying the route.

The promotion runs from November 27 (the launch date) to January 15 and awards a varying amount of bonus miles depending on the fare class flown:
Earn 12,000 miles for each one way flight in F Class
Earn 10,000 miles for each one way flight in C,D,I Class
Earn 6,000 miles for each one way flight in Y Class
Earn 4,888 miles for each one way flight in B,H,K,L,M Class
Earn 3,888 miles for each one way flight in X,V,N,W,U Class (Toronto-Beijing)
Earn 3,888 miles for each one way flight in X,V Class (Beijing-Toronto)

For more details please visit Hainan Airlines