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Home  >  aeroplan  >  O (Air) Canada: Problems At Aeroplan
aeroplan

O (Air) Canada: Problems At Aeroplan

Matthew Klint Posted onNovember 27, 2019November 27, 2019 48 Comments

Just a friendly warning: if you are considering an Aeroplan redemption, you may want to wait a few more days.

Last week, Air Canada and Aeroplan transitioned to Amadeus, a back-end reservation system. The change did not go smoothly and for most Aeroplan numbers, it is currently impossible to book awards. Put simply, the link between Aeroplan and Air Canada is broken. Even when a separate company, Aeroplan relied upon Air Canada to ticket its reservations. Yet Aeroplan maintains its own booking system and the two systems are now having trouble communicating.

I’ve been helping friends and clients all week try to book Aeroplan awards…to no avail. We literally have not booked a single reward because every single account is out of sync with the new system. If your account is not linked to the new system, your flight redemption will fail…without fail.

I’ve run into two consistent errors this week. For some account holders, searches fail from the start. You input two city pairs and are met with this message:

For others, everything seems to be working, but when you finally click “purchase” you are met with the following error:

The pernicious thing about this error is that you won’t know it until the final step. You’ll still be able to search for flights, choose them, input passenger information, choose flight insurance, and enter credit card details. Only when you click “purchase” will you encounter the error above.

Others have reported a reference number generating if the partner airline is also on Amadeus, but I have not seen this.

Aeroplan Phone Centers Clogged And No Help Anyway

I have been unable to reach an agent at Aeroplan by phoning the call center this week, despite trying over 100 times. Each time, I am told that the call center is “experiencing unusually high call volume and cannot take your call at this time”. After repeating the message in French, it automatically disconnects.

Even if I was able to reach agents, they too would be constrained by the same limitations as above.

My Aeroplan Advice: Wait

Word to the wise: don’t bother to call Aeroplan until next week. If you have a burning Star Alliance redemption that cannot wait, don’t transfer any points into Aeroplan right now. If you already have points in your account, it obviously doesn’t hurt to try to book. But if not, consider holding off or as a last resort, booking the award via Singapore Airlines or ANA, two other Star Alliance transfer partners from American Express. Note that both ANA and Singapore Airlines add fuel surcharges to partner awards and ANA awards can only be booked on a round-trip basis.

CONCLUSION

This problem was largely avoidable and likely points to cut corners at Air Canada. Nevertheless, here we are and complaining about it won’t fix the problem. Just be patient with Aeroplan bookings this week and try to avoid them. Hopefully everything will be resolved next week.

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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48 Comments

  1. Avery Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 10:13 am

    Did you hear anything from AC PR on this, that is, when AP profiles should be migrated?

    • Matthew Reply
      November 27, 2019 at 1:10 pm

      I’m told by AC PR that the issue should be resolved within 72 hours.

      • Tony Sbrocchi Reply
        November 27, 2019 at 11:09 pm

        After a week of waiting for my profile to be migrated, I received a call this morning advising me that it’s been done. I had a great customer service rep, well done Lisa, she took my file and called me daily with an update. It was frustrating getting thru the first day, but once Lisa took over, it was handled very well.

  2. CSP Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 10:58 am

    You are also unable to feed agents your segment by segment itinerary anymore (such as for an Aeroplan mini-RTW)

    • Matthew Reply
      November 27, 2019 at 1:09 pm

      Seriously? Can anyone else confirm?

      • Vincent Reply
        November 27, 2019 at 1:39 pm

        That seems to be YMMV. I finally made it through to the Aeroplan call center yesterday after a ton of tries (took your advice from an earlier article about calling between 3 pm to 5 pm EST). Aeroplan.com couldn’t find the award I wanted, but when I spoke to the agent and fed her the 2 segments I wanted for a one way award between Europe and the US (each of which had individual availability), the agent returned a confirmed itinerary and was able to generate a record locator. I didn’t end up booking it yet because I needed 2 tickets – my account had been successfully migrated but my friend’s was stuck in limbo like everyone else’s for now. I can confirm that it priced out correctly at 55000 miles though. The agent told me my record locator would be held for 24 hours and would automatically expire after that though.

      • Geoff Reply
        November 27, 2019 at 5:03 pm

        Numerous data points on reddit (including my own) unfortunately confirm this to be the case.

        • Matthew Reply
          November 27, 2019 at 5:08 pm

          Well, I’ll hope for the best.

          Do you have a Reddit link?

          • Derrick
            November 27, 2019 at 6:23 pm

            I booked a mini-RTW with multiple stops 2-days prior to this transition. When i called in after the transition to make changes, the agent said that you can’t feed segment by segment (to construct intentional long layovers) anymore with the new system

          • Matthew
            November 27, 2019 at 6:25 pm

            Well that ruins my day…

            I was about to book LAX-ICN-IST for 57.5K…

          • Matthew
            November 27, 2019 at 6:28 pm

            Link to thread?

          • Carl
            November 27, 2019 at 9:47 pm

            This week I have booked 5 tickets and no issues on any. One was with the call centre changing an existing booking and it took longer for sure but the agent was amazing and got it done. Then tonight I booked a European ticket and 3 transborder all no problem. It must depend on your account. These were done on 3 different Aeroplan accounts.

            With BlackFriday sales there are some great Market fare deals!! If your account is working a great time to buy! (YYZ DUB roundtrip for 26000 points!)

          • bzv
            November 29, 2019 at 12:33 pm

            Been trying for 3 days now To talk to an agent. I was able to book a flight to Hamburg Germany and got a confirmation number, but it still says “unticketed need to call.” Is there hope?

      • Arvindh Viswanathan Reply
        November 28, 2019 at 1:24 am

        Ya.. it cannot be done. A lot of us have tried .. basically segment by segment is dead as of now..

        • Matthew Reply
          November 28, 2019 at 1:31 am

          That is very depressing.

  3. CMF Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 4:51 pm

    I have done 3 round trip redemptions in the past 2 weeks without a single hiccup. Not sure what issue you’re reporting.

    • Shane Reply
      November 27, 2019 at 8:50 pm

      I was speaking with one of my friends, and he ran into the same issue when calling to book a multi-segment international trip. He hung up and called back and received the same answer, but was able to book as a goodwill gesture after requesting to speak with a supervisor.

      How is one now to book an international itinerary with a stop over and destination now? Kind of makes the change they made in September, removing one stop over, pointless.

  4. Alex Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 5:27 pm

    When I checked in for a flight at YVR back in October, the agent asked if I knew about the transition to the new reservation system happening in November. I didn’t and his words of advice were “buy you tickets now and not in the middle of November, and don’t travel the week they transitikn, it will be a nightmare”. I guess he had the inside scoop!

  5. Hejdjkd Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 5:29 pm

    I was told a week ago that this isue will be resolve in 72hour max, and here we are a week later.

  6. Luke Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 8:04 pm

    I transferred a ton of Amex points to Aeroplan over a week ago and I’ve tried to book a simple one-way award flight on United about 100 times. I call every hour of every day and I don’t get through. When will this be resolved? I wish I had transferred my points to LifeMiles or something else. This is horrible customer service.

    • Lucascmiller@icloud.com Reply
      December 1, 2019 at 11:37 am

      I’ve been calling constantly and am still unable to book online. It’s been over two weeks of this. So much for 72 hours.

  7. Flyer Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 8:12 pm

    I was able to book an aeroplan flight reward two days ago and modified it yesterday with no problems and am now checked in for the flight. Maybe you experienced an intermittent outage? OR maybe it’s just luck on my part haha

  8. Stannis Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 9:28 pm

    ANA doesn’t charge YQ on AC metal.

  9. Dave Reply
    November 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm

    I have made and flown 2 AE redemptions on AC metal since the migration. No issues for me.

  10. Stuart Reply
    November 28, 2019 at 9:18 am

    I booked a LH flight in F on Aeroplan two days ago for this weekend. All worked smoothly. Must be fixed.

  11. B H Reply
    November 28, 2019 at 7:15 pm

    Just booked flight on rewards with Aeroplan and had no issues. I received a confirmation and record locator. So far so good.

  12. Stuart Reply
    November 28, 2019 at 7:47 pm

    And of course, a better F opened up from IAD which I want for Saturday and now the site is wonky again and getting the call center cut off. Frustrating.

  13. Shari Reply
    November 28, 2019 at 8:47 pm

    I have spent six days trying to get business class to Europe. Spent hours completing everything about 20 times only to have it not work not to mention phone calls. Will be cancelling my card once we have used our points . Totally fed up.

  14. Stuart Reply
    November 28, 2019 at 10:22 pm

    So a bit of a hack. I guess? I booked to Germany on LH F a few days ago for this Saturday. The only flight I could find was from ORD to MUC. I snagged that with the need to position. But then….

    A flight opened up this evening from IAD (Where I live part of the year) to FRA in F for Saturday.

    I called for hours the Aeroplan number to no avail. I tried French and English options (French did get me on hold but after an hour I gave up). I called the UK number, the same.

    With that I actually read on the website. Go figure. A few days ago they sent a notice out that they are waiving half the online redeposit fees – making it $75 and, more importantly, that all cancellations will result in an immediate refund of miles. They were clear that this was the workaround for changing a flight and assuring that miles would be redeposited right away.

    I was wary…god help me if I canceled two days out and lost the Chicago flight and the miles did not get redeposited right away OR the booking engine was being glitchy again and not going through. But I took the bait and, go figure, it worked.

    Canceled ORD-MUC. Fee was $75.00 (half the usual). Miles were put right back in. Booked the IAD-FRA. All in under 4 minutes. Done.

    • Matthew Reply
      November 29, 2019 at 10:42 am

      Glad that worked out for you!

  15. Melissa Reply
    November 29, 2019 at 3:09 am

    I called Aeroplan to change a reward reservation today with no issues whatsoever. My hold time was maybe 2 minutes. Judging from the comments this supposed issue must be very hit-and-miss and must only impact some Aeroplan customers (not “most”).

    • Stuart Reply
      November 29, 2019 at 10:15 pm

      Hit and miss? Which is why it’s been written about in virtually every blog for a few years and is constantly a subject of ire in Flyer Talk? I think not. You got lucky.

  16. Vincent Reply
    November 30, 2019 at 5:46 pm

    Data point update – Tried to help a friend whose account hasn’t been migrated yet book an award. The agent I spoke with said there’s a workaround in place for members whose accounts are still stuck in the migration process (as my friend’s had been for 5 days since I first asked Aeroplan to manually migrate it). They will take down the segments you want, check the availability per segment, set up the itinerary and then they need to transfer you to a “ticketing department” in Montreal, possibly on the Air Canada side? The ticketing agent will collect your credit card info and issue the ticket once the payment goes through. Took about 2 hours last night to get it done, but successfully got CDG-IST-SFO-LAX ticketed flying Turkish business and United domestic first for 55k miles. The Montreal ticketing department has the same hours as the Aeroplan call center – closes at midnight EST – agent said they were about to close just as my friend’s ticket was issued.

    One other new thing I learned today when trying to change my own itinerary to match my friend’s, apparently on the new system Aeroplan agents cannot change just one segment of the award and preserve the others. I tried to change CDG-IST to match my friend’s departure but IST-SFO was no longer available; agent told me they essentially cancel the whole ticket and rebuild it but since IST-SFO was gone, they left my original flights alone. Definitely a negative change if more data points confirm. Good luck to those trying to get through!

  17. Andy Reply
    December 4, 2019 at 2:35 pm

    This has been such a frustrating experience. I created a new Aeroplan account and transferred more than 200k AMEX points for an award booking. Just not able to complete the transaction. Get Flight Redemption failure each time. Must have tried more than 100 times through different browsers and machines over the last few days. No Luck. Calling the contact center as well has also been of no help as never get connected to an agent. Calling each hour and always get the same message that agents are busy and cannot hold and that I need to call back. Regretting not reading these articles before I made the transfer. 🙁

  18. E Reply
    December 5, 2019 at 1:07 pm

    Booked a flight. Aeroplan redeemed the points but I still don’t have a ticket. Nothing is appearing flight rewards. Both Aircanada and Aeroplan aren’t taking calls. Issue since Nov 30 =\

  19. Nik Reply
    December 5, 2019 at 9:04 pm

    Is there any way to know if your account has been migrated or not?

    • Matthew Reply
      December 5, 2019 at 11:53 pm

      Sadly, no.

  20. Owen Pollock Reply
    December 5, 2019 at 10:10 pm

    Just wanted to share my own data point: segment by segment booking over the phone is alive and well! Or at least that I was able to get it done today. The two capable reps, one in Montreal and one in Vancouver, (calling right at 7am EST helped) were able to search segment by segment but still needed the help of the floor walker to book me in Swiss biz class CDG-ZRH-BOS (The Aeroplan website would only bring up less direct Lufthansa options with high surcharges). I spent 2 and 3 hours on different calls getting it locked down but again the reps were very patient. So good news to report: Aeroplan reps seem to be able to search segment by segment if fed the specific flights! Also I recommend just calling multiple times in row to get on hold. If you hear the french guy at Aeroplan apologizing, you will not be put in the hold queue, HUACA!

  21. Jennifer Delay Reply
    December 7, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    Still can’t get through..it’s Dec 7 th. Can’t log on because of the kind of ticket and can’t email them. And no one is answering the Aeroplan call center. Does anyone know if they will ever respond to customers? I’m totally disgusted with them at this point. My booked flights are a mess.

  22. michelle Reply
    December 11, 2019 at 10:01 am

    has anybody had any luck working around this issue? I can’t get through to aeroplan over the phone and looking to book a ticket asap.

  23. Bradley Reply
    December 27, 2019 at 1:46 pm

    I’m in the same boat. Just transfer MR points to Areoplan and not can’t book anything and haven’t been able to speak to a rep. This is crazy!

    Would AMEX consider pulling back MR points so I could transfer them elsewhere given this situation?

    • Matthew Reply
      December 27, 2019 at 8:17 pm

      They would. But this is actually best accomplished with Aeroplan versus AMEX.

  24. etraveler Reply
    January 5, 2020 at 6:55 pm

    Still experiencing the same issues.

    • JJ Reply
      January 8, 2020 at 5:04 pm

      Same.. I’m on a chat with AMEX trying to get my points back. Wish me luck.

  25. Susan Sakamoto Reply
    January 9, 2020 at 10:25 am

    We booked a flight for our daughter and had error messages. We could not get through to Aeroplan after many tries and many hours on hold. The miles were taken from our account, and she was finally able to print a boarding pass. At the airport this morning, Air Canada had no record of her reservation even though it appeared in her app and she had a boarding pass. The AC agent couldn’t get through to Aeroplan and she had to purchase a flight on a different airline.

  26. Aarif Reply
    January 17, 2020 at 7:56 pm

    It’s mid January 2020 and I’m still having trouble booking anything with Aeroplan. The app let you go through as far as picking your flights and then tells you there’s an error and that the seats are no longer available and if you upsell to more miles it tells you that the price changed. Has Air Canada in Aeroplan spoken up as to what they’re going to do to fix this as I have a ton of miles and At this point no way to use them because I can’t even get through to an agent.

  27. Jason Reply
    February 1, 2020 at 7:10 pm

    I was plagued by this issue and randomly tried making the payment at the last step with a business card and it worked. Could be a one-off but worth a try.

  28. Vinstravel Reply
    February 29, 2020 at 4:34 pm

    I still am not able to. Find availability in united site for Turkish. when I try in aeroplan
    get “Required itinerary cannot be Booked” error!

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