I booked a hotel reward for a specific date 1 week from the date of booking on Aeroplan's website. When the confirmation came through a few minutes after the booking I noticed that the date for the hotel booking was wrong and in fact were for the very day I was doing the booking. I presume this was a keystroke error on my behalf and so contacted Aeroplan immediately to make the change. When I reached an Aeroplan associate minutes after I received the confirmation I was flatly told that are no changes can be made within 48 hrs of the stay date regardless if a mistake was made in booking the reservation! I thought this to be ludicrous and tried to appeal to this associate's sense of reason that I should be able to change this reservation or return the points to my account because of this special circumstance. The Aeroplan associate said that she could do neither and the reservation is in place weather I use it or not! I asked to speak with someone else that can rule on this kind of situation and was told that there was no one available and that it would be a week before I would hear back from anyone. It has now been a week and half and no call from anyone at Aeroplan - although I did receive a questionnaire about my call on the quality of the service that was provided. I also wrote an e-mail letter to their VP of Member Services - Caroline Hagen which came back to me right after sending as her e-mail box is full!
It is sad that Aeroplan has gone this way. I can recall the early years of the program when they were more closely aligned to AC and service was a paramount consideration to them. I suspect that the executives and consultants managing the company now have created strategies and policy's that make it difficult to claim travel rewards, or make changes without sacrificing points. As a business consultant myself, I believe that the design of this company executing a loyalty program runs at odds with the main stakeholders associated with them (Visa and Air Canada). Having said that, Aeroplan's parent company Aimia continues to show good growth albeit at the expense of some Aeroplan members. Good luck to those other posters looking for satisfaction from this company.
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