aeroplan finally put the 30,000 points on my card (woot!) but I wonder if anyone here has used it for flight and if they have any advice about how to make the best of these points. I've never used a point plan before. Thanks in advance!

i used 70,000 to get to bangkok in nov2012 there is value in them. taxes and fees were $99.

Use them wisely and be sure not to use them for short hall flights as 25,000 points can get you anywhere in North America if you book well enough in advance.

I like to use them for business class flights to Europe.

Book in advance (approx 6 months) if you can only travel specific days because they only allot so many seats to aeroplan customers.

One key when booking with aeroplan is avoiding any flights involving air canada and their high taxes & fees. If you can stick to routes that involve only United your points will go a lot further.
Another good use of points are to use them to get to secondary airports within the U.S. that normally *never* go on sale and always stay above the $600 mark. Aspen, Colorado (ASE) for some skiing is one example.

If you fly internationally try to avoid flying on certain airlines as they charge a fuel surcharge. For instance flying from Vancouver to Europe via air canada or lufthansa can cost an exttra $400 or so in fuel surcharges. When you pick your route you could fly united or SAS for instance and avoid the fuel surcharge. You should google which Star Alliance airlines charge fuel surcharges on aeroplan awards. The best use of aeroplan rewards is that they allow a stopover and open jaw on a ticket. So one could potentially book one award of 25000 points for a trip to Toronto, stop over, continue to Montreal, make your own way to New York, and then return to Vancouver for instance.

Thank you all so much for this great advice!

Btw, I plan to use this as my travel card, but just went on aeroplan to see about partners... There really aren't very many. How do you rack up the points on Amex?

Is there a way to not select the flights involving air canada when booking aeroplan awards?

Unfortunately not through Aeroplan.com. One way it can be done is using a third party tool like KVSTool or ExpertFlyer, but neither are free.

It's also good for multicity. Tried it Vancouver to Dubai then Bangkok then back for better points.

When you try to book a reward many options (but I suspect not all options) are given for a specific city pair and the aeroplan website has a preference for air canada flights. You can use a third party tool to build up an itinerary of flights that you know there is award availability and then you have to speak to a aeroplan agent to actually book the fares. Unfortunately that means you will have to pay the phone booking fee but usually the savings are worth it. Also If you do long haul complex routings there are a few hidden rules. There's a maximum flight distance allowed for instance which is why the websites sometimes doesn't show a specific routing.

30k is good for oneway to Europe or a round trip within North America. Try to avoid airlines with high fuel surcharge including air canada itself ,ANA,lufthansa etc. the best way to use it is to rack the points up to 75000 and build a round the world trip, I.e go to Asia with a stopover in Europe.

I have 700,000 avion points, what is the best way to use them?

Any particular destination you prefer Roxy?

The farther you can plan in advance, the better flights you will find!

Longtime aeroplan user here. aeroplan is not a good option for a points card. air canada has less seats available for their own customers than they do even for Air Miles users! A year ahead is the minimum you need if you have a specific time and place in mind. I will try to use up my remaining points then will switch cards for sure. Get a generic card - Avion or Aventura are a couple of examples. There are others.

Travis, my husband and I would love to do England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland the summer of 2016. All those points and don't know how to use them. Can they be used for hotels also?

I recommend paying the ($30 I think?) fee and phone in to book your flights. There are WAY more options than on the website, and you can specify which airlines you want. We just used 50,000pts to fly from YVR to New Orleans and the taxes were less than $200 total for us both.

If you go to rbc rewards and sign in you can see how far they'll take you. I think that Carlson wagonlit travel also accepts them so you might be able to call a travel agent with them

They are a poor value for hotels. Get the Marriott Visa to accumulate points for that purpose. Claire I would disagree that aeroplan is a poor points card but you have to know how to use it and have a specific travel pattern. It isn't that useful for people who want to fly during high seasons to very popular places, ie those with kids. Also trying to get more than 2 tickets on an itinerary may be difficult. I wouldn't waste it for domestic or North American travel from major centre to major centre but it's an incredible value if you lived in Yellowknife and you wanted to fly to St. John's for instance. It's also one way to experience Business or first class international flying without paying through the nose.

Roxy: convert them to BA Avios when there is the +50% bonus, then use them to book first or business class flights to London or wherever else BA or any of their partners flies. When you convert 700000 avion = 1050000 Avios points. I spent 168,000 Avios + $1300 for round trip first class to London and round trip business class to Milan. If you want to goto Japan, it'll be 80,000 Avios + $700 for business class return on JAL. Lots of options if you play around with their system.

Roxy: BA Avios points are great value for doing short hops in Europe or US. Typically the fees in the US on AA or Alaska is about $5 round trip. In Europe I think it's about $5. In Europe you have the option of BA and Air Berlin. Also with so many points, I would fly to the UK in Business or First! If you can avoid it and want to avoid fees, try to avoid flying out of Heathrow long haul, the airport tax is insane! It would necessitate some creative routings via either the US or Spain via Air Berlin, AA or iberia so it may not be worth the effort.

Roxy, with that much avion you can convert to AA and british airways through RBC website. AA is pretty good as the taxes and fees is way lower than british airways if you choose not to fly british airways. There are lots of routing to get you to UK if you don't mind transiting.

Thankyou all for the advise, thinking first class might be a wonderful way to go!

I converted mine to rbc avion points via points.com and esso extra. Way better value. aeroplan sucks.

Can you convert aeroplan points then? I have an avion card and would rather transfer them there?

Yea it's a process though. First convert them to esso extra points at points .com (after you create an account for both). Once you have $250 worth of "eligible esso purchase points" (i.e. spend 250$ on gas if you haven't already) you can convert them on the esso extra website to rbc avion points. It's not 1:1 but in my opinion worth it if you already collect avion points.

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Hmmm! I never heard of avion points. I have lots of aeroplan points. Can they be transferred to Avion since apparently aeroplan sucks! Lol!

I need to get to yvr from bangkok or there abouts. Any ideas on how to get the best value with my aeroplan miles?

^very interested in Marlini's responses! I am in the same boat! Never heard of avionics either!!!

Avion is RBC Visa card

british airways offers RBC Avion members the option to transfer their points to BA points with a 50% bonus each Jan and June for a limited time.
Great way to get additional points for free!

Any idea if RBC Avion ever has any promotions like that for AAdvantage?

The promotion that run does for AA is a 30% bonus every so often. It can be useful especially if you need to keep your AAdvantage account active. Even though BA and AA are both part of Oneworld the usage is different. aa is good for longer flights and if you redeem for business or first class you need less points.

I called RBC Avion hoping that cathay pacific had the same option as british airways to get an additional 50% points for transferring. No luck! You can transfer Avion points to CP but no bonus.

Thanks Simon

I have aeroplane and when I went to boom the agent said I needed to book 362 days in advance. Either I had a bad agent or aeroplan is crap