Air Canada Adds Fuel Surcharge Onto Partner Award Tickets.

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The big news all over the blogosphere tonight is that Air Canada’s Aeroplan program has started collecting fuel surcharges on some partner airlines.

I’ve never accumulated Air Canada miles as I’ve long feared this day would come.  Nearly 2 years ago I said that “I won’t accumulate miles in Aeroplan because they scare me…too much risk that they will introduce fuel surcharges on Star Alliance tickets (after all they charge it on Air Canada redemptions)”

Well that day has come.  They’ve already implemented this on many Star Alliance carriers like Lufthansa, Austrian, Asiana, Thai, and ANA.  I’m sure more will follow shortly.  ANA used to not charge the surcharges on select partners and slowly they added them onto all of their partners.

If you have Air Canada miles burn them on partners like United, USAir, Air New Zealand, Singapore, and Swiss before it will start costing $$$$ to redeem Air Canada miles for travel on those airlines as well.

Then find yourself a program that doesn’t charge pesky fuel surcharges!
Continental/United (Star Alliance, Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner at 1K:1K), USAirways (Star Alliance, Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K), and LAN (Oneworld, Starwood transfer partner at 20K:50K) never collect a fuel surcharge.
American (Oneworld, Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K) and Alaska (Partners with carriers from multiple alliances, Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K) only does if you want to travel on British Airways.
Delta (Skyteam, Membership Rewards transfer partner at 1K:1K and Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K) doesn’t charge fuel surcharges as long as your flight originates in the USA (except if you fly on V Australia, in which case they do charge) but they do charge fuel surcharges for departures from many countries outside the US.
Other programs like EuroBonus (Star Alliance), South African (Star Alliance), and TAM (Star Alliance) also reportedly never charge fuel surcharges.  Smaller US based programs also don’t charge fuel surcharges.
From there it starts getting more obscure. Like British Airways (Oneworld,  Membership Rewards transfer partner at 1K:1K, Chase Ultimate rewards transfer partner at 1K:1K, and Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K) doesn’t charge fuel surcharges on select AA flights and on LAN flights. Or Flying Blue (Skyteam,  Membership Rewards transfer partner at 1K:1K and Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K) not charging fuel surcharges on select Delta flights.  Air Berlin (Soon to be Oneworld, Starwood transfer partner at 20K:25K) allows you to redeem more miles to avoid paying any surcharges or taxes.  Etc, etc…

For people with Starwood Starpoints or Chase Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Chase Ink Bold Ultimate Rewards points they can still transfer points to Star Alliance carriers that don’t charge fuel surcharges when redeeming miles, but for people with Membership Rewards points this means that there are no more Star Alliance carriers that are surcharge-free, although there are other carriers from different alliances to still choose from while avoiding fuel surcharges.

Like I told you in September, I transferred my entire hoard of Membership Rewards points out to Continental and this change only helps bolster my decision.