Just last week I redeemed miles for a trip to Florida on Aeroplan- I thought I was going to use my Delta miles but it took 35,000 Delta miles for the same trip which costs me 25,000 Aeroplan miles. The taxes and fees on the Aeroplan tickets were a little bit more than I would pay on Delta- but reasonable at $75 per ticket.  Looks like there is a reason they call Delta miles Skypesos

This got me starting to look at flights to Europe for me and my family next summer and it does look like it takes twice as many delta miles 130,000 compared to 65,000 on Aeroplan. Now I have a dillema, do I continue to collect Delta miles to see how many I can get by next summer, change back to Aeroplan, or try for AAdvantage?

Coming to the end of the year its time to do a review of the frequent flier programs I am using- for the last ten years or so I have been mostly using Air Canada but over the last few months they are making changes to their program which I really dont like. 

Starting in 2014, unless you are super elite, you will need to pay an extra $500 to upgrade a North America to Europe flight, or $750 for using your eupgrades to upgrade a North America to Asia flight.You can check this link for all the info.

The other thing I have noticed is that the cost of Air Canada flights is getting more expensive. I have to fly to Asia in February and I got an economy ticket under $1,500 with Delta which was over $3,000. This does mean I have to fly through the US which means an extra layer of customs, but the price difference is significant. Most companies that I know are asking their employees to use competitive comparisons which makes it more difficult to justify the Air Canada prices.

Since I got status marched on Delta this year- I am starting 2014 with Air Canada Gold and Delta Gold. For now I will be putting most of my flying with Delta and see how that goes.

Its getting near the end of the year which means once again its time to take a look at the points programs I am using and make sure that they are relevant to next years travel. I also have to choose carefully because I have earned 36 thousand miles on Air Canada and 28 thousand on Delta this year- not enough for gold status on either airline, however, I still have two months and a few trips planned before the end of 2013.

This year I started using Delta primarily because they had great prices to Asia compared with Air Canada. 

This is where Air Canada is better:

• Delta- only serves four cities directly from Montreal, Air Canada has way more
  
• Air Canada- Gold status gives lounge status for trips inside the USA, Delta gold status gets you into lounges if you are travelling internationally (to.fron Canada counts), however, not if you are travelling inside the USA
  

Here is where Delta is better

• More Delta flights have onboard wifi- air canada is catching up but not there yet
  
• Delta staff often thank me for being a Gold member, I never get that from Air Canada being an elite 75K
  
• Changing flights only costs $50 on Delta, I have had some horrible experiences with Air Canada wanting to charge $400 to take a flight just a few hours earlier.
• Flights are typically cheaper in my experience
  
• I always get Economy plus which helps because I am 6' 3"

It is pretty much a tie for - 

• Fees on redeemed tickets- paid $60 on Air Canada for a trip to Philadelphia, and also $60 for a trip on Delta to Miami
  
• Upgrades- I only did 16 segments with Delta this year and got upgraded 3 times as a Gold skymiles member, on Air Canada you can get upgraded more by using the eupgrades, I actually used them for 10 upgrades this year on 28 segments- but now I do not have any more upgrade credits so I can't get another upgrade even if I wanted it, whereas with Delta there is always a chance.

What do you think? I am leaning towards Delta but have not made up my mind yet.

It has been a while since I updated my site and I want to start it fresh so I have migrated to a new platform. 

Big news: Aeroplan has been making some changes and they have removed the seven year expiry on aeroplan miles, though you still need to make a transaction once a year to keep the account active. This is great news for people who cannot collect aeroplan miles very fast and have been saving for years as now they will not lose their miles. 

Aeroplan has also introduced some new tiers called Aeroplan Distinction which is going to start on January of 2014. I will be posting more about this soon.

In my last post I talked about frequent flier miles and some basic rules to consider. Aside from the obvious, which is collecting frequent flier miles directly from the airlines, there are many other ways to collect miles. Here are a couple of ideas:

·         Car rental agencies have their own programs, but they will often also give you frequent flier points as a bonus for renting with them.

·         Credit card companies are probably the best way to collect additional miles; many cards will allow you to collect one mile per dollar spent on the card. If you travel for business this can add up to a lot of miles. I have averaged 50,000 spending per year in the last few years which is enough for 2 short haul flights in North America or one flight to Europe ever year. Even if you do not travel for business if you put most of your expenses on credit cards it will add up to a lot.

·         There is a third category which will also give you miles but in actual fact you are probably better off signing up to their own programs and that is hotels. Hotels usually have points programs of their own which can be very useful. Starwood hotels has a very good program called preferred guest which allows you to collect points to use for hotel rooms, but it has one other special feature- these points can also be converted to points on most major airlines- so if you are missing some points for your next reward ticket you can transfer it from your preferred guest account.

If you get a credit card which is partnered with Starwood preferred guest you have the best of all worlds- you will collect a lot of points for hotels which can be transferred to airlines if needed. In Canada we have the MBNA MasterCard and in the United States there is the American Express for this.

Some people do not bother collecting points or frequent flier miles. I used to be one of those people. However, I had been traveling quite a lot for work and one day my boss asked me how many British Airways points I had (as I was usually flying BA). When I told him that I was not a member of their frequent flier club he told me to join immediately and to log my previous six months of flights. Upon doing so I immediately collected 50,000 BA miles, which is enough for a trip from North America to Europe. Wow. That’s how I became very interested in points and miles.

There are a few basic rules to consider when collecting frequent flier miles- or any kind of points for that matter. These are my top three-

The first rule is to always collect them where you can. They do not cost you anything and they can add up to future flights, hotel stays, or merchandise. My rule is- if you can collect some kind of points you should – and if you are not already a member of their plan- join. It’s free and may add up to something later. The only exception to this is when the item that you are purchasing costs more to collect the points (unusual but it happens).

The second rule is to try and stick to the same points programs, so have primary and secondary programs- it is better to have 60,000 Aeroplan points, for example, then 30,000 Aeroplan and 30,000 BA. The first one can give you a trip to Europe or 2 tickets around North America; the second can’t even get you to Europe. This may seem like it contradicts the first rule, but it does not- try to use your primary program first, then your secondary one, and so on…

The third rule is the importance of understanding expiry, because you do not want your points to go to waste. Either try to use points without expiry, or if your points do expire, know the rules related to this. For example, many people in Canada collect Aeroplan points, but many are not aware that they expire after 3 years of inactivity on the account. Inactivity does not necessarily mean flight inactivity; Esso gives you 1 Aeroplan point for buying $3 of gas; so if you have not collected Aeroplan points in  2 1/2 years you can just buy $3 of gas to collect 1 point and keep the account active. Don’t find out the hard way that you have lost all of your points.

I am going to get into more detail of points programs in future posts. Stay tuned…