More bad devaluation news: effective today, without any notice, Aeroplan is charging fuel surcharges for award flights on Lufthansa. Oh, and if you try to book an award flight today, you may think that Aeroplan is also charging fuel surcharges on other Star Alliance partners, such as Thai, ANA, Asiana, etc., although according to the agent I spoke with, the fuel surcharges on other Star Alliance airlines is an IT glitch that should be fixed later today. If you do book a ticket on one of these other Star Alliance partners, according to the Aeroplan agent I spoke with, it will be priced manually to avoid the erroneous fuel surcharges. So hopefully you can wait to book, so as to avoid the error, but if you do have to book today, you should ask if the phone booking fee can be waived given the IT error.
As an example, per Ben a business class roundtrip New York to Frankfurt award ticket on Lufthansa will now cost you an additional $560 in fuel surcharges. Interestingly, when I called Aeroplan to price the taxes on a business class Lufthansa New York (JFK)-Bangkok (BKK) ticket via Frankfurt (FRA) would cost $364 in taxes, of which $230 are fuel surcharges. So seems that awards to Asia have the potential for small fuel surcharges, although not sure why or if this is part of the rest of the IT glitch.
It used to be that Aeroplan was one of the secret weapons for getting great value first class award tickets, especially to Asia; they used to charge 120,000 miles for a roundtrip first class ticket from North America to Asia. After they devalued their award chart (at least they gave several months' notice) however, the price increased to 175,000 miles for the same award, making a US Airways 120,000 first class award to North Asia a better deal, especially as they don't charge fuel surcharges (although they do tend to block some award space). See The 10 Best Premium Cabin Award Redemption Values.
And more recently, without any notice, Aeroplan started disallowing domestic “first” class on award flights. While fortunately United will ultimately code their domestic first class awards in the “I” bucket, this hasn't happened yet, and of course US Airways domestic “first” class flights will continue to be disallowed if you're booking a domestic leg as part of an international business class award using Aeroplan miles.
So where does that leave us?
- If you are set on flying Lufthansa business or first class, try to book your award using US Airways, which doesn't yet charge fuel surcharges (although does do some annoying award blocking)
- The fuel surcharges make it not worth it to redeem Aeroplan miles for Lufthansa economy. Fly another Star Alliance carrier (after the IT glitch is fixed)
- American Express Membership Rewards are further devalued. Just in this year, Continental has left them as a transfer partner, and Aeroplan has now had 3 devaluations (award chart, domestic first, and now fuel surcharges on Lufthansa).
- Chase Ultimate Rewards Points are worth relatively more, since United/Continental IS a transfer partner
- Top value Oneworld awards are devaluing with British Airways Executive Club Changes, on November 16 (book your Cathay First Class and LAN awards now!)
- Your United/Continental Mileage Plus and miles and US Airways Miles are worth relatively more. See Update: How Much is a Mile Worth?
- Time to pick up some more quick hits for the US Airways Grand Slam!
Finally: while there aren't supposed to be any surcharges currently for Star Alliance partners other than Lufthansa, there are no guarantees that they won't be imposed in the future, and similarly without notice. According to the agent I spoke with, Air Canada only informed the agents about these on Monday, so just 2 days notice for them (and none for flyers). So if you have a ton of Aeroplan miles, consider making your bookings on Thai, Swiss, Asiana, ANA etc. soon (after the IT glitch is fixed)!
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