I have 850,000 Aeroplan (Air Canada/Star Alliance) frequent flier miles and now it looks like they are not worth all that much. Yesterday I decided it was time to start using some of them for two return tickets Panama City – Montreal. Last time I booked Aeroplan tickets was about 5 or 6 years ago and there was one simple cost: a $25 admin fee. So when we went to Thailand on points, it was actually free for all intents and purposes.
This time around, things started pretty good as the lady announced to me that there would be a $30/ticket booking fee. Not bad, $5 more after 5 years, but once we were done with finding and selecting suitable flights she announced that I had to pay airport taxes and security fees in all three involved countries (Panama, USA, Canada) as well as the infamous “fuel surcharge”. Grand total? $800.24 CDN.
So my two “free” tickets obtained through frequent flyer miles ended up costing me only $400 less than if I had purchased them outright from Continental or Mexicana, and then we would have received about 12,000 miles back for this instead of spending 80,000.
I think from now on I will use my miles for car rentals and hotel rooms, which may be what the airlines are hoping for.
