I usually write concerning the positives of the Air Canada Aeroplan program, just like the beneficiant routing guidelines, stopovers for five,000 factors, and enormous array of airline companions. On this publish I needed to handle a query that I get every day about Aeroplan — what occurred to Etihad Airways and Oman Air awards, as they haven’t been obtainable for fairly a while?
Aeroplan’s lack of Etihad & Oman Air awards
Air Canada Aeroplan has roughly 45 airline companions. Whereas Air Canada belongs to the Star Alliance, the airline additionally has all types of impartial airline companions, which is likely one of the issues that makes this system so nice. I imply, you would ebook a single award that features journey on Air Mauritius, Gulf Air, and Bamboo Airways — how enjoyable is that?! Okay, I’m going to have to determine what routing that may entail, however I digress…
For some members, two of Aeroplan’s most precious airline companions are Etihad Airways and Oman Air:
But for no matter cause, awards on each airways haven’t been bookable by way of Aeroplan for fairly a while. For Oman Air, awards haven’t been bookable for a number of months, whereas for Etihad, awards haven’t been bookable for a few months.
What occurred to those award seats?
Suffice it to say that one thing is occurring with Aeroplan awards on Etihad and Oman Air, or else we wouldn’t see availability pulled for thus lengthy. Formally, Aeroplan representatives inform me that the partnerships with Etihad and Oman Air haven’t ended, and that’s confirmed on Air Canada’s web site, which nonetheless lists each of those as airline companions. Nonetheless, there’s not a precise timeline for when awards on these airways might be restored.
With that in thoughts, all I can do is speculate, and share my tackle what may be happening. I’ve written earlier than about award availability discrepancies between airways, and what could cause that. Admittedly on this case it’s not a discrepancy, however somewhat availability simply isn’t there in any respect on some companions.
Typically, there are three most typical causes that an airline could not have entry to accomplice award availability for an prolonged time period, with out ending a partnership:
- A program is deliberately throttling the award availability it exhibits its members with the intention to restrict bills related to award redemptions
- There’s a technical glitch that’s stopping award availability from displaying accurately; you’d be shocked by how lengthy it will possibly take for some tech points to be mounted
- There’s a dispute between airways and/or loyalty packages, usually in conditions the place one aspect feels prefer it’s drawing the quick finish of the stick
Particular to this Aeroplan state of affairs, right here’s my assumption:
- If there’s one factor I do know for certain, it’s that Aeroplan could be very targeted on providing as many redemption alternatives to members as doable (this has been an enormous focus of this system, because it was relaunched), and I’m assured it’s not Aeroplan deliberately blocking accomplice award area
- I wouldn’t essentially assume that the Etihad and Oman Air issues (no matter they could be) are the identical, since availability was taken offline at totally different instances; when you could have dozens of companions (with many utilizing totally different programs), it takes a number of effort to simply preserve the whole lot displaying accurately
- I imagine that if Aeroplan really knew these redemption alternatives wouldn’t come again on-line, then this system would simply formally take away these as companions
So, what’s my hypothesis? With Etihad I truthfully don’t have any clue what to suppose. The airline is used to having a excessive variety of accomplice redemptions, given that you would be able to additionally redeem American AAdvantage miles on Etihad. So it’s not just like the airline is frightened about folks reserving their awards with accomplice miles. For what it’s value, American appears to have technical points with Etihad awards sometimes as properly, so I hope that’s additionally what’s happening right here.
In the meantime within the case of Oman Air, I can’t assist however surprise if it may be a bit extra sophisticated. The parents at Aeroplan are superb at including companions, and when the partnership first began, I questioned if Oman Air was prepared for the quantity of inbound award bookings it could get.
In any case, Oman Air lacked “mainstream” airline companions with environment friendly redemption alternatives. Moreover, I think about there’s some imbalance in redemptions right here, with much more Air Canada Aeroplan members redeeming on Oman Air than Oman Air Sindbad members redeeming on Air Canada.
Everytime you add a small provider with restricted companions to your redemption roster, I feel they’re not fairly prepared for the inflow of award bookings that are available in (I’ve to think about Starlux Airways would possibly really feel the identical after yesterday). 😉
One other fascinating factor to bear in mind is that Oman Air is becoming a member of the oneworld alliance in 2024, which is tremendous thrilling. Now, the airline can completely have partnerships with non-oneworld airways, so it shouldn’t have to at least one or the opposite. Nonetheless, maybe Oman Air is immediately extra targeted on that going ahead. In any case, the Aeroplan partnership launched earlier than Oman Air revealed its intentions to affix oneworld.
Anyway, we’ll must mark this all as growing, and hopefully we get an replace a method or one other fairly quickly.
Backside line
For fairly a while, Air Canada’s Aeroplan program hasn’t had entry to awards on Etihad Airways and Oman Air. I do know these had been among the many favourite Aeroplan companions of OMAAT readers, and I’m additionally unhappy to see the dearth of availability.
The excellent news is that these partnerships aren’t over, at the very least formally. The unhealthy information is that there’s no actual timeline for them coming again. If and after we be taught extra, I’ll you’ll want to report again…
What’s your tackle this award availability state of affairs?