My Summer Travel Plans

Although I lost a great SPG transfer partner in Air Canada today, this predicament allows me to place my focus on AA award redemptions. American is also a transfer partner of SPG and recently I just booked my summer trip to Shanghai using 135k AA miles transfered in from SPG. I will be flying Cathay and Dragon Air in First Class, experiencing the award winning service of Cathay Pacific. After a quick and painless call to AAdvantage Mileage Redemption, my itinerary was confirmed as follows.

LAX-HKG-PVG-HKG-SFO-LAX

I will be sampling Cathay's F product on both the 773 and the 744. I am super excited!

Another option I am considering in the future is to use ANA as a transfer partner for SPG Points. ANA miles can be used for flights on Malaysia Airlines, Etihad and Virgin Atlantic

So, although I am devastated by the changes made at Aeroplan, this gives me an opportunity to explore other programs using SPG points.

Sad day for award redemption

Sad to say, the days of awesome mileage redemptions on Aeroplan are over. Today, they just raised most redemptions by at least 25%, my favorite redemption 120k in First to as far as Singapore went from 120k to 175k, almost a 46% hike. This was the redemption I used for my mini Round The World trip to Seoul and Singapore I took back in January. Sadly no more.

There is however still some decent value to be had with the 90k redemption to most of Europe in business. Such awards also allow 2 stopovers along the way. I guess I will burn the rest of my Aeroplan miles on a mini vacation to Europe this winter.