Aeroplan Mini-RTW Ticket: Best Way to Get Max Value in 2024?

It’s been a couple of years since I have done a true Aeroplan Mini-RTW ticket redemption, and with a recent itch to go somewhere, I thought I would try and book something on short notice.

Of course, much has changed with the Aeroplan program over the past few years, some good and some bad. So, I was curious what it would take to piece together an Aeroplan Mini-RTW trip in 2024 or if it even was still possible. Here’s what I found.

What Is an Aeroplan Mini-RTW Trip?

Since it’s been a while, let’s examine what an Aeroplan Mini-RTW ticket is and what has changed with the rules.

In short, an Aeroplan Mini-RTW trip is the unofficial name for an around-the-world ticket leveraging Aeroplan points. Thanks to Aeroplan’s lax rules on layovers, stopovers, and open jaws, you can piece together a trip with as little as two tickets to take you around the globe and for much less than what it would cost you to purchase a similar ticket through the Star Alliance for example.

For some past examples of Aeroplan Mini-RTW tickets I have booked, check out this post.

Aeroplan Around the World Rules Refresher

Although the rules have tightened over the past few years, Aeroplan still allows one stop-over per ticket; however, it does come at a cost of 5,000 points. As you will see, this is a drop in the bucket, but not as good as it used to be.

Also new to stopovers is the inability to use them within North America. This isn’t much of a concern flying around the world; however, it does limit your options.

Layovers remain the same (24 hours between flights); however, the flight segments are limited to 16 per ticket, 12 if your ticket includes Air Canada flights. I typically only use a couple of lengthy layovers per ticket, as it can be a pretty tiring way to travel.

Point redemption is also a bit trickier since Air Canada is now on a dynamic scale for Aeroplan. This, for the most part, makes Air Canada flights a horrible redemption value. Partner airlines, for the most part, remain on a fixed scale except for Emirates and FlyDubai. Also, a reminder, if you want to earn Aeroplan points fast, check out this guide to the Black Friday Aeroplan eStore.

More Options

Speaking of Emirates, on the positive side, Aeroplan now has partners beyond the Star Alliance. This includes Emirates, Etihad, and Oman Air, to name a few. As such, piecing together an Aeroplan around-the-world ticket is much easier as there are more airline routes to leverage.

My Aeroplan Mini-RTW Search Methodology

With the rules out of the way, let’s look at how I approach booking an Aeroplan around-the-world ticket.

As with any trip, I set out with a goal. In the past, this has been piecing together a year-long trip around the world trip after building on an error fare to Africa, tickets to the Olympics, or seeing a concert in a fun location.

In this case, I had some loose goals in mind. They were:

• Fly in Thai Airways first class
• Check out new (and new to me) airline products and lounges, such as the Thai Airways Royal Orchid First Class Lounge
• Visit 1-2 new countries

Piecing Together This Aeroplan Around The World Ticket

I started thinking about this Aeroplan Mini-RTW trip after I discovered Thai Airways’ first-class availability between Bangkok and Heathrow. At just 100,000 Aeroplan points, it is a great value for traveling between Asia and Europe.

Inbound Ticket

With only a couple of Thai Airways first-class flights a month popping up, options were slim. I favored departing from Bangkok so I could get access to the Thai Airways 1st-class lounge, so once I found a ticket between BKK and LHR that worked with my dates, I began searching for connections to North America.

United was showing several options; however, there was nothing on the West Coast where I could easily add a flight home to Vancouver. I did find a flight to Denver, and, to my pleasant surprise, I booked this combo all the way from Bangkok for just 130,000 points. This was too good to pass up, given how hard it was to get business-class and first-class tickets. The best part, this route was bookable online meaning no lengthy call to Aeroplan and the frustrations that have gone with that in the past.

As for ending my trip in Denver, at the time of booking, my Edmonton Oilers had just made it into the second round of the playoffs, as had the Colorado Avalanche. This meant there was a chance they could meet up in the conference finals around the time of my arrival in Denver. If that doesn’t sound like man math, I don’t know what is.

Outbound Ticket

With my main goal for this Aeroplan Mini-RTW ticket booked, I turned my attention to finding a flight to Asia. This proved to be much more difficult.

There were plenty of options in economy and business class on Air Canada, however, those ranged from 150,000 to 400,000+ points. Although frustrating, it really illustrates how good of a find that inbound ticket is.

I spent hours searching out options to the point where my arm and shoulder hurt from the repetitive clicking. To help with the manual labor, I started using Seats.Aero, a reward availability search tool. It takes a lot of the work out of the search process and allows you to search availability across multiple rewards programs.

Using Seats.Aero, I found a ridiculous route from San Francisco to Singapore through Sydney, Australia, for 115 K points. Although this is a really long way to go, it ticks a lot of boxes for me regarding new airlines and airline products.

On this route, I can check out Air Canada‘s newest lounge in San Francisco as well as United Airlines Polaris 777 product. Last, I have never flown in Singapore Airlines A380 and am most excited about that given my fantastic trip in Emirates A380 business class last year.

Although this route was bookable online, adding a flight to Bangkok was not, so I reluctantly called Aeroplan to piece this route together. I say reluctantly, as in the past, I’ve spent hours on hold and then hours with an agent trying to book complex routings.

To my pleasant surprise, I had no wait time, and within minutes, I had the Singapore to Bangkok segment added to the SFO-SYD-SIN for no additional points. I also added a YVR-SFO flight, and since that is on Air Canada, my total went up to 130,000 points. Still, this was about 10,000 points cheaper than if I had booked that segment separately.

What Did This Aeroplan Mini-RTW Ticket Cost?

So, what did this Aeroplan around the world ticket cost me? Just 234,000 points and $797 in taxes and fees! Also, though I opted to save ~20K points by paying an extra $600, this is pretty incredible value. All flights are in business class or better and would easily be tens of thousands of dollars if booked in cash.

That said, this trip involves a lot of time in airports and on airplanes. Although I don’t necessarily have an issue with that, I will see very little on the trip and no new countries to me, so I will likely cancel one ticket within 24 hours of booking and find a better option.

I will update my plans as they unfold but for now, this was a good exercise to piece together such an incredible trip and show the true value of Aeroplan points once again. 

UPDATED ROUTING

I ended up canceling the return leg, given it gave me very little time in Asia. I was going to give up on the Thai Air 1st class flight to London in favour of a business class route back to North America, however, thanks to an alert I set with Seats.Aero, another seat popped up, so I grabbed it, this time getting me home to Vancouver for 170K points.

This was more than I wanted to spend and required a stopover in London, which also meant more money in taxes and fees. I then found a route through New York and Toronto that worked; however, getting an agent to piece it together was challenging. It took a couple of phone calls to Aeroplan to get it sorted, but happy to report my new routing now comes in at 214,500 points and $497 in taxes and fees!

That all said, I wasn’t done there. I wanted to try to get to Taipai, so I waited for business class seats to open up and then added SIN-TPE and TPE-BKK flights. This was harder than expected.

FINAL ROUTING

Initially, to incur only one change fee, I tried adding TPE as a stopover on my outbound ticket. The agent on the phone was able to add; however, they advised it would be an additional 35,800 points and not the standard 5,000 points as expected for a stopover. She couldn’t explain why there was a cost difference, and after neither of us could find anything in the Aeroplan policy online, she sent me to a manager.

Although helpful, the manager couldn’t explain either, only stating that some routes are not combinable. It was possible I was over the allowable mileage limit, so I then asked her to price out TPE as my destination instead of BKK. This was only 5,000 more points. She then tried adding TPE-BKK as the beginning of my return ticket but couldn’t, again pointing to some routes not being combinable. This was odd as the flight from TPE to BKK then BKK to LHR were all on Thai Airways. Even weirder, I could have added an economy flight on EVA for the expected 5,000 more points.

In the end, I added the stopover to my original ticket. Although I was paying an extra 25,000 points, all flights are in business class, and I only paid one $100 change fee instead of two.

Aeroplan Around the World Ticket Is Still A Great Option

As you can see, an Aeroplan Mini-RTW ticket is still doable in 2024. Thanks to new Aeroplan partner airlines, the ability to book stopovers online, and zero call centre wait times, it’s seemingly easier than ever.

That said, finding reward availability remains challenging and time-consuming, even with new tools. Also, dealing with Aeroplan agents and a policy that is not very clear makes things complicated. If you are interested in booking an epic trip like this, I can help! I have added booking Aeroplan travel as a service and have saved people thousands of dollars over the years.

• READ MORE: Aeroplan Mini-RTW Examples

Aeroplan MINI-RTW FAQs

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