I'm looking to do a visit to LIM with mrs tomh009 in May for some vacation time, and I really like the idea of doing it on AC's direct YYZ-LIM-YYZ route rather than some other contortionist itinerary options. As an SE, I can use IKK to grab some seats -- easy, so far.

However, the award ticket fuel surcharges for this route are atrocious: $290 on route where I can get a revenue ticket for $786. On top of that, I need to pay 50K miles for a Y award ticket, or 75K for J. Now, those mileage prices are jumping by 30% for reservations made after the end of February, as I recall.

So I'm looking for the collective wisdom of this group: should I delay booking the travel as long as possible (maybe until late February) in the hopes that the YQ charges will at least go down, if not disappear altogether? Or am I just going to be risking not getting a ticket at all, even with IKK?

Tom, use KVS to check the loads, but I would wait to see if the surcharge is dropped by then.

Can you make better use of the miles with a different trip, Australia?

It is unlikely that AC fuel surcharge will go down anytime soon barring intervention by Ottawa. If you read between the lines of what Montie Brewer said, AC plans to use "YQ" as a revenue enhancement box, something like a cookie jar they can tap into as they please regardless what the price of jet fuel is right now.

Keep in mind that AC's flight from Toronto which is thrice weekly, is actually your only way of getting there. Neither UA or US offer service to Lima. You can always wait until end of february to see if the YQ has been lowered, but I would doubt it. On that route I have never seen the flight sold out so I wouldn't worry too much about getting a seat.

Cheers

taupo, KVS is showing the flights as wide-open at the moment, but it does make sense to monitor those. SYD isn't really an option at the moment as the vacation time available won't allow us to do the AUS/NZ trip that we want to do. Another year for that!

Guava, am not expecting the government to interfere on behalf of the Aeroplan members. The hope is that the combination of inexpensive fuel and the competition dropping the fuel surcharges for their programs might induce AC to do something before March 1. But certainly there is no guarantee -- if none of that happens, I'll either book in J (for at least somewhat better value) or just buy revenue tickets.

I went with my family to EZE 1 year ago in J on IKK. Would highly recommend J for the South America flights- less points than to Europe!

I recently booked 6 IKK tickets to EDI from YOW, and could not wait for the
for the YQ to go down as it involved a BD flight. Paid ~$500/pax for J IKK.

If I were you, I would monitor until mid-Feb, then book J.

I haven't checked lately, but my understanding is that AC is still charging the YQ for AP tickets on routes where the fuel surcharge has been dropped on revenue tickets. So you might not be any further ahead if they drop it anyways.

On YYZ-LIM-YYZ the YQ charge on a revenue ticket is $290 R/T, the same as for a reward ticket.

Is this legal?

Right, my point was that the $290 charge for a reward ticket will likely remain as a "carrier surcharge" even if the fuel surcharge is eliminated on revenue tickets (as happened with NA flights.)

"Classic" rewards are starting to look like Starwoods "Cash+points" awards.

Legal? Well, I don't think anyone is going to jail over it.

There are a couple of threads going about this: fuel surcharges again and aeroplan fuel surcharge bestof2k9

It's just another way our points are being devalued!