Airmiles

General Forums Prince Rupert Forum
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I wasn’t able to book an Airmiles flight out of Prince Rupert recently because there were “no seats” available. I ended up using Aeroplan points for the same flight. I know that Airmiles has a limited amount of seats available and you need to book early but I’ve had a few different friends also have trouble booking flights months in advance. In the past I’ve not had problems booking Airmiles flights out of Rupert as long as it wasn’t peak travel days and well in advance. Has something changed recently? Anybody else had good or bad Airmiles experiences out of Rupert lately?

I might have to quit shopping at Safeway if I can’t use the Airmiles for flights out of here. Airmiles now expire after 5 years so I’m starting to get a bit disgruntled.

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[quote=“Kispiox”]I wasn’t able to book an Airmiles flight out of Prince Rupert recently because there were “no seats” available. I ended up using Aeroplan points for the same flight. I know that Airmiles has a limited amount of seats available and you need to book early but I’ve had a few different friends also have trouble booking flights months in advance. In the past I’ve not had problems booking Airmiles flights out of Rupert as long as it wasn’t peak travel days and well in advance. Has something changed recently? Anybody else had good or bad Airmiles experiences out of Rupert lately?

I might have to quit shopping at Safeway if I can’t use the Airmiles for flights out of here. Airmiles now expire after 5 years so I’m starting to get a bit disgruntled.[/quote]

Thank you for bringing up this subject kispiox… I have a few days off and tried to book to go to Vancouver this month and even though I could change my time off anytime in November I could not make it work… Actually I could only find one day in an entire three week period where a flight north was possible one way. Like you I have never had any problem finding flights as long as one is not tied to needing an exact flight it was not a problem in the past. I know that Air Canada put on a smaller Dash Plane 100 series not 300, in the morning some days now during the winter, however this is a slow travel period. I have tried dates out of Terrace and never had much luck from there either. In the past i often found flights even with just a few days notice. A few people I know have been complaining.

I likely won’t stop shopping at safeway as we only have limited choice here, but I quit waiting for the spend 100 get 100 airmiles offers etc. I am going to lean towards flying hawk air more often when having to pay for seats,

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I haven’t had any trouble booking, tho I did plan it so I was able to use them. My husband and I used them last month and have another trip planned at the end of the month, even leaving on a Friday. I booked them in September. Our October trip were mid week flights.

4

My wife and I use More rewards points from Overwaitea, Chevron, and MasterCard to fly Hawkair. We find that using the points is so simple. We have made several trips to Vancouver and have never had a problem getting on the exact flights that we wanted.
I have heard numerous complaints recently about booking, or should I say trying to book, flights using air miles. Not sure what’s up but am glad that we are able to fly for free on Hawkair using More rewards points. Always get great service from Hawkair.

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[quote=“deepspring”]My wife and I use More rewards points from Overwaitea, Chevron, and MasterCard to fly Hawkair. We find that using the points is so simple. We have made several trips to Vancouver and have never had a problem getting on the exact flights that we wanted.
I have heard numerous complaints recently about booking, or should I say trying to book, flights using air miles. Not sure what’s up but am glad that we are able to fly for free on Hawkair using More rewards points. Always get great service from Hawkair.[/quote]

Couldn’t agree more. More reward points used to Vancouver is well worth it over Air Miles. Also, you do not have to pay the tax like Airmiles forces you to.

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The thing with More Points is that you have to spend far more to acquire enough points to travel, but glad to hear it’s working for you…

AirMiles used to be a good thing even with paying the taxes but it seems all good things end, booking for the holidays and paying for it on hawk…

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I heard from someone else that we can now only use Airmiles to fly out of Rupert on Wednesdays because they were being used so much here.

8

I have been using airmiles for years. Not sure when the last time I paid for a flight to Vancouver and we go out a couple of times a year.

In the early days, I recall having to book quite a bit ahead to get the flight I wanted. A few years ago, when we could start booking online, it seemed to be quite easy to get the flights we wanted even those just a month or so away. In fact, we had a family emergency a couple of years back and we were able to book a flight for the weekend on the Thursday. Saved us almost $2000.

So yeh, I am a fan.

However, in late July, we tried booking for this past Thanksgiving. We had to book from Wednesday to Wednesday which wasn’t quite what we wanted but being retired and with family to stay with, wasn’t a big deal. I was somewhat surprised at not getting the dates I wanted, but I imagine lots of kids come home from school and families make trips etc. on Thanksgiving weekend.

Still I was curious about the comment about having to fly out on Wednesday and the difficulty some of you are having. So for the hell of it, I picked three random dates in December and tried booking a flight. Nothing. But that’s not surprising given the time of year. I didn’t bother with early January, so my next choice was Tuesday Jan 15 to Tuesday Jan. 22. Bingo. And if you just want a long weekend, you can fly on the evening of Thursday 17th and return on Monday 20. (Friday to Sunday was unavailable.)

A couple of months ahead isn’t too big a deal.

9

I always used Air Miles as the backup to Aeroplan. Aeroplan used to be the one you’d have to book way in advance, as there are only a couple of seats per flight available for the ‘classic’ rewards level. Air Miles has always been way more flexible. So Aeroplan would require months in advance booking, while Air Miles you could do with little notice.

This seems to have changed recently, though. I booked 4 tickets to New York via Aeroplan, 2 of them with a complicated itinerary, coming from different airports. No problem, 2 weeks in advance. Also booked two tickets to and from Newfoundland at Christmas time on Aeroplan, and even made some routing changes later on. No problems.

I wonder if the Air Miles availability has anything to do with the addition of Air Miles cash (or whatever it’s called?)

10

I had the same experience. I tried to book a Thursday-to-Sunday trip for December back in October, and there were no seats available. I thought it was because it was December, so I let it be. Then I tried to book a weekend trip for NEXT JUNE, and there were no seats available, either from Rupert or Terrace. I phoned Airmiles and they dismissed it, saying that it is because people are booking a full year in advance.

So I tried to book a trip for any weekend, and it kept coming back as unavailable. So basically they have blacked-out the weekends; now one can only use Airmiles to fly in the middle of the week…which means taking time off from work, instead of just going down to Vancouver for a weekend and back on Sunday.

For all intent and purposes, Airmiles are next to useless, unless you can take time off in the middle of the week or you want to trade them for an over-priced coffeemaker.

What do we do?

First, we whine and rant and post here about how unfair life is, and how we feel like hostages in this town.

Second, we get loud and we hit people where it hurts. No, not there! Their wallets, I mean.

We phone the nice manager at Safeway and let him know that since there isn’t much point in buying $ 100 for 100 airmiles, we are now shopping somewhere else.

We phone Bank of Montreal MasterCard customer service and say that since Airmiles are next to useless, we will be switching to the CIBC card that gives you aeroplan miles.

I phoned Rogers and declined to renew my magazine subscription, which gives you airmiles, and I explained why.

You say, it is only me. You say, they don’t care. You say, it won’t make a difference.

I beg to differ. I have worked in customer service for years, and believe me, it does not take more than a few complains to make people sit up and take notice. If their big partners start reporting that they are losing customers because of the new travel policy, they will rethink it.

“If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room”