Using Aeroplan Points for Multi-City Flights from Vancouver to Europe

Using Aeroplan Points for multi-city flights

Our flights are booked! We are excited to visit Scandinavia for the first time. It’s been on our travel wish list for a very long time. I love that freshly-booked-flight-feeling when you receive the confirmation email.

This is a big trip for us, given that we live on the other side of the world. It’s the same distance to travel from Vancouver to Tokyo as it to travel from Vancouver to Stockholm (approx. 7,500 km each way, according to Google).

Our goal for this 3 week adventure is to travel around Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

We are flexible with dates and times, so we played around with arrival and departure airports in search of the best price and itinerary. We searched Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Bergen, Amsterdam, Berlin, London and even Reykjavik.

Typically, we book round trip flights with the same arrival/departure city. However, because we plan to travel around Scandinavia, we didn’t like the idea of having to backtrack to the original arrival city.

So we did something different. We used the multi-city feature for Aeroplan.

What is a multi-city flight?

Multi-city flights are typically the same price as round-trip tickets, but with added flexibility. Basically, it’s like purchasing two one-way flights but both flights are a part of the same ticket. With this option, you avoid backtracking to the original airport, with limited impact on price.

We like to fly with Air Canada. We’re long time members of the Aeroplan program and we’ve racked up a lot of points over the years. After the past two years we’ve all been though, we decided it was time to make a big splash and redeem our Aeroplan points for this trip to Europe.

Air Canada has a multi-city search option, so we tried a few scenarios using Copenhagen and Stockholm as the arrival and departure cities.

We found the perfect itinerary for our needs. We arrive in Stockholm and depart from Copenhagen 3 weeks later. This gives us plenty of time to explore with no backtracking.

Air Canada offers three fare levels of tickets.

They are Standard fare, Flex fare and Latitude fare. Each level has different benefits, like seat selection, checked bags, refundable, change fees, loyalty and rewards points.

We want flexibility, so we booked the fully refundable ticket with the Latitude fare. We used Aeroplan points for the entire journey. However, you can also book flights using a combination of Aeroplan points and cash. See options above.

The Latitude fare comes with preferred seating, which is an attractive feature for these long haul flights. Preferred seating is exit rows and bulkhead seats with more leg room.

An unexpected benefit and bonus

Given the uncertainty of travel these past two years, we selected the Latitude fare because it offers fully refundable tickets. This meant that we can cancel the flights for whatever reason without penalty.

A few weeks after booking our flights using Aeroplan points, I noticed that Air Canada was offering a flight sale on select European destinations. My research showed that the original price of our tickets had dropped. Given that we have fully refundable tickets, I called Air Canada to enquire about the price drop.

Rather then cancel and rebook the flights, Air Canada credited us the difference in Aeroplan points. This was a significant savings. We each received 15,000 Aeroplan points, for a total of 60,000 points. We had no issues because of the flexibility with the Latitude fare.

I did not expect ticket prices to drop. If anything, I would have thought prices would increase. I’m glad that I was keeping an eye on flight prices and that we had the flexible fare. It’s a nice benefit that was unexpected.