Airmiles for flights
A reader asked about using your airmiles for flights. What sort of fees are involved? How early do you have to book to get flights on high-demand days? How often you can get flights in high season? etc…
Very good questions and the topic of a couple of posts. Today I’ll outline the fees involved when using your airmiles to get a flight.
To begin, the one flaw of airmiles is having to actually pay money to fly free. Many people don’t like this ‘hidden fee’ and would prefer to spend their points on merchandise and/or gift certificates. Personally, I don’t mind as i’m still basically flying for free.
Anyway, to fly using airmiles you must pay the following fees
- The taxes on a regular flight
- A booking fee (I think it’s $20) ( I heard there might be no fee if you book online…can anyone confirm this?)
- Any extra fees associated with a flight (Airport improvement fee, US sept 11 security, US international tax, etc…)
Remember to always book early as you don’t want to be disappointed. If anyone else has had experience with this please leave a comment. Myself and my readers would love to hear from you.
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Comments
Oh - is this a Canadian website, i.e. with reference to Canadian Airmiles program? I know there are other Airmiles programs which differ in the UK and elsewhere.
Hi Anne,
That is quite the problem. I never get cancellation insurance as I’d like to assume that I will find no reason to cancel my trips. And if I did have to cancel my trip for whatever reason it’d be worth losing out on the money that I’d invested in the flight. Weird or wrong thinking? maybe. But it keeps me content. 
I’ll take a look around and see what I can find about cancelling a flight booked with airmiles. I know that I’ve read something about that somewhere and I can’t seem to remember off the top of my head. I’m sure i’ve written it down though.
If you haven’t booked on points to Europe yet I’d recommend actually not using your airmiles for that purpose. If you have the BMO mosaik Mastercard you can travel anywhere Westjet flies in Canada and US for 1600 airmiles. That works out to 12 flights … Where as, I’m not even sure if 20000 airmiles would get you 3 flights to Europe…
Hi
I’ve done a fair bit of travelling on Airmiles points. My big complaint is the expense of cancellation insurance through them. I have BMO Mastercard Airmiles credit card with the Gold Travel option which provides cancellation insurance for travel. HOWEVER, there is real doubt whether they would refund anything other than the fees etc that you charged to your Mastercard - i.e. they would not provide you financial compensation or give you the Airmiles points back. I have talked to World Access/Allianz who provide the insurance to BMO Mastercard and they say they don’t have anything in writing but they would “tell Airmiles to reimburse the points”. But I say (and insurance people tell me too) that there’s no reason or compulsion for Airmiles to do that! I don’t want to be out my close to 20000 Airmiles for my 3 flights to Europe if I had to cancel somehow. I do wish I could rely on the Mastercard insurance coverage because that costs $70 and the Airmiles coverage will cost almost $450!!
Any thoughts, folks?