While Aeroplan has solved its hold time issues, it remains uniquely unable to book a handful of Star Alliance partner airlines. Add LOT Polish to that list.
Last December, Dominik from Traveling the World wrote about the issue. Sadly, three months have passed and the problem persists.
Yesterday, an Award Expert client needed a ticket from Warsaw to New York. LOT had award space…plenty of it actually. It showed as available using the ANA, Avianca, and United Airlines award search tools. It even showed up on ordinarily buggy Singapore Airlines’ partner award search tool:
But nothing on Aeroplan.
I gave Aeroplan a call to see if the ticket could be manually booked (I discuss the concept of manual requests or long-selling here). The first agent flatly refused to try (note: don’t argue). The second agent was happy to try, but the space came back unconfirmed.
If you examine the Aeroplan website you’ll see it is not just longhaul business class flights on LOT that are blocked, but every LOT flight. You cannot even find a domestic ticket from Warsaw to Krakow using points.
CONCLUSION
Aeroplan never seems rushed to fix its technical glitches that harm consumers. We still cannot book Avianca award space and now LOT is 100% blocked. With Air China, COPA, and EVA also prone to come and go, it makes you wonder if this is deliberate. All of these carriers have either zero fuel surcharge or a very moderate one.
I have reached out to Aeroplan for comment, but have yet to hear back.
> Read More: The Paradox of Aeroplan’s Survivalist Mentality
Add Avianca and COPA to that list!
BTW… Any update on that SWISS F tix?
It is curious but until ALL of Swiss availability dries up on Aeroplan – another zero fuel surcharge carrier – I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy just yet. I just booked a seat in C a few weeks ago.
EVA used to be reliably available on LifeMiles and Mileage Plus for years but I haven’t been able to find space at all for this year. Hmm…
At least we can book Swiss F. Oh, wait…
Another example of how this program is going to suffer when it comes to being an independent. With a mindset like this, it will not last.