Air Canada has upgraded one of their four daily flights between Edmonton and Toronto to an internationally configured Airbus A330-300 aircraft for the majority of March 2024. With the addition of this widebody aircraft has come availability to fly in Premium Economy and in Business Class with lie flat seats!
Which flights are operated by the A330?
From Edmonton to Toronto it is flight AC178 on all days except Sunday when it is AC 176 (Dep 0005 Arr 0558) – the red eye which is perfect to have that lie flat seat for some shut eye and from Toronto to Edmonton it is flight AC177 (Dep 2025 Arr 2242). These flights are operated with an A330 every day of the week from March 1 to March 29, 2024 (Source Aeroroutes)
Example of Availability
Here is one example of an itinerary between Edmonton and Toronto consisting of one way awards in each direction in March:
Booking tip! When trying to price these as a round trip the points pricing almost doubled (same goes for Premium Economy) Booking them as separate one way flights as shown above yielded the lower points pricing.
Aeroplan typically requires between 25,000 to 60,000 points one way in business class for this route and as you can see these are price below that range. The points requirements shown above are before any preferred pricing discounts provided if you have an Aeroplan co-brand credit card and/or elite status.
And don’t forget to follow our Loyalty Lesson: Selecting the right Aeroplan flight award option to maximize the value of your points. If you don’t want to read it, simply pick option 3:
Transferring points from American Express
If you don’t have enough points in your Aeroplan account this is a prime opportunity for transfers from American Express Membership Rewards. Points transfer almost instantly on a 1:1 basis and if you happen to have earned those as 5x points from the American Express Cobalt Card you are looking at a return of around 22% for each dollar you spent!
Wrapping it up
Here we have another domestic Air Canada route being upgraded not too long after we posted our last Aeroplan Availability Alert for Lie flat business class between Vancouver & Ottawa in early 2024. Compared to the YVR-YOW option however, the Edmonton-Toronto route has a lot more availability. There were quite a few days that I checked that were pricing at the low 24,100 points amount and when I looked at the seat maps for those days, business class was wide open!
Visit AirCanada.com to book your flights
Subscribe & join to learn more:
Want to learn more? Have a question? Join our Facebook group to ask the Rewards Canada community!
Be sure to subscribe to the Rewards Canada News email newsletter so that you don’t miss out on any loyalty program news and offers! You can subscribe to the newsletter here
Images via Air Canada