With another year, another frequent flier point de-valuation came and went. Thankfully, Aeroplan had the courtesy to announce the changes with several months in advance, unlike some other recent frequent flier program devaluations. It seemed like the logical time to burn more miles. I’ve pretty much given up on maintaining status after 8 years, since the miles are easier to obtain through other forms of accumulation.

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Trip Introduction: Vietnam, Maldives and India. Round the World #3 in Star Alliance Business Class via Air Canada, Asiana, Singapore, Air India, andTurkish Airlines Business Class.

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Trip Background and Planning:

All these stories seem to start the same for us. With another year of Aeroplan devaluations, it came time to burn more miles. Thanks to the One Mile at a Time blog, I learned in October that Aeroplan was switching to an automated Maximum Permitted Mileage routing calculation versus their old manual calculation within the week. It was cited as an improvement, but I was highly skeptical as most frequent flier changes. I was worried about the mini-RTW disappearing forever since Aeroplan had been pretty relaxed with its routing rules. 

I’ve always wanted to see the Taj Mahal in India. MrsWT73 wasn’t easily convinced. When I suggested that we could return to our honeymoon spot at the Park Hyatt Maldives for a 5 day beach holiday, coupled with first class hotels within India, private hotel car tours, a handler, and airport transfers, and after probably too many vodka tonics after a gourmet dinner, she agreed. With that endorsement, I set off to plan a trip that fit this criteria.

With forty eight hours notice from the Aeroplan program rule change, we quickly put together a routing, called in and had our flights and ticketing within the hour. This was a wise move on our part as forum reports after the automated MPM calculation appeared to have been much more restrictive and limiting on reward routings.

In terms of booking hotels, the approach was a combination of paid and reward stays. For the Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam hotels, we were a little short on Starwood Preferred Guest / Marriott Bonvoy Points. As a result, we ended up paying cash for our four night stay at the Sheraton Saigon. In the Maldives, we returned to the wonderful Park Hyatt Maldives. We had some left over Hyatt Gold Passport Points, so we took advantage of a 40% points promotion and purchased points to redeem against the stay. I found that this was cheaper method that paying cash outright. For our India hotels, we were mostly concerned with staying in hotels that offered tour availability right form the hotel with a solid concierge network. As a result, we paid cash and stayed outside of our usual loyalty rewards networks at the Leela Palace in New Delhi, and the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur.

YVR-ICN-SGN (Air Canada Aeroplan Award)

SGN-SIN-MLE (Air Canada Aeroplan Award)

MLE-GKK-MLE (Maldivian Air Transfer – arranged by hotel)

MLE -TRV-MAA-DEL (Air Canada Aeroplan Award)

DEL-JAI-DEL (paid Air India Ticket)

DEL-IST-YUL-YVR (Air Canada Aeroplan Award)

I hope you enjoy our most recent adventure and third trip around the world.

If you’ve put together and organized a trip to India, how did you go about doing it?

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