I just received the email below

Dear David Owers,

As a valued Air Canada customer, we’d like to share changes planned for the 2013 Air Canada Top Tier Program. As the program includes the introduction of new tier levels and the realignment of some benefits, we are announcing the key benefit changes a year in advance.

Note that these changes apply to the 2013 Top Tier benefit year beginning March 1, 2013, and therefore do not affect the 2012 Air Canada Top Tier Program.

The 2013 Top Tier Program, which will feature two new tier levels, has been redesigned to better recognize and reward our customers. It also aligns our program with industry leaders and ensures that the Air Canada Top Tier Program remains highly competitive internationally.

Here are some of the highlights of the 2013 Air Canada Top Tier Program for each of the five tier levels:
Members earning 25,000 Status Miles or 25 Status Flight Segments will enjoy 2013 Top Tier benefits similar to those offered with the 2012 Top Tier Program

Members earning 35,000 Status Miles or 35 Status Flight Segments will notice changes to their 2013 Top Tier benefit program as compared to the 2012 Top Tier Program:
Star Alliance™ Gold recognition will be replaced by Star Alliance Silver. Members, however, will be able to choose Star Alliance Lounge access as a Select Privilege
Upgrades with eUpgrade Credits will apply on Tango Plus and Latitude fares for travel in North America, and Latitude fares for travel to international destinations
Members will continue to enjoy many Air Canada Priority Airport and Reservation services, complimentary access to Maple Leaf™ Lounges, three complimentary checked bags on Air Canada flights, Bonus Aeroplan® Miles for eligible flights as a Select Privilege, and more

Members will be able to achieve new levels of recognition with the introduction of two additional tiers:
Members earning 50,000 Status Miles or 50 Status Flight Segments will enjoy the 2013 Top Tier benefits earned at 35,000 Status Miles, as well as:
A higher upgrade priority
Upgrades with eUpgrade Credits which apply on Tango Plus and Latitude fares system-wide
Additional eUpgrade Credits
Star Alliance Gold recognition

Members earning 75,000 Status Miles or 75 Status Flight Segments will enjoy the 2013 Top Tier benefits earned at 50,000 Status Miles, along with:
A higher upgrade priority
An accelerated earning of Bonus Aeroplan Miles for eligible flights as a Select Privilege
Additional eUpgrade Credits
An exclusive Threshold Program

Members earning 100,000 Status Miles or 95 Status Flight Segments will enjoy 2013 Top Tier benefits similar to those offered with the 2012 Top Tier Program

To view more details with the qualification levels and associated benefits for the 2013 Air Canada Top Tier Program, click here.

Over the course of 2012, we will continue to introduce improvements to the program, as some new and exciting benefits are currently in the works. Also, we will be unveiling the names of the new tiers.

To keep you updated on the latest news, we will be communicating with you regularly throughout 2012. We also encourage you to bookmark aircanada.com/toptier2013 and to follow us on Twitter @ACTopTier.

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This is really a big change for Aeroplan as it used to be a program in which it was relatively easy to get gold status (35,000 miles). Now to get Star Alliance Gold only at 50,000 miles, while it does put Air Canada more in line with other Star Alliance carriers I think it might push people away from their program- at least the people who fly less than 50,000 miles per year and were still enjoying the perks of Elite. Personally it won’t affect me as I typically fly 50-75K miles each year.

One thing I am glad to see is Air Canada announcing these changes a year in advance. This gives time for people to get used to the changes and also gives them the time to make any adjustments before the program goes live.

I just found out about the new Aeroplan Be a Miles Millionaire contest which runs from now until June 20th. The grand prize is 1 Million Aeroplan miles and there are 160 prizes of 25,000 miles.

This contest runs from today until June 20th, 2008. To enter you just need to collect Aeroplan miles from selected companies- each mile earned gives you one contest entry. Qualifying miles are any  Aeroplan Miles earned through Home Hardware, Esso, Tropicana-Quaker, Uniprix, Rogers Magazine Service, Primus Canada, Bose and Aeromove.

Usually I don’t enter contests, but the chance of winning a million miles will probably sway me to give it a shot. What I like about this contest is that there is a variety of retailers to choose from.

See full contest info here.

According to an article on yahoo  Air Canada has just added new fuel charges on all of their flights- effective immediately.

The new surcharges are $40 return for flights of less than 480 kilometres, $80 return on flights between 480 kilometres and 1,600 kilometres and $120 for longer flights.

It’s nice to see that Air Canada feels that they can do this without any warning at all. For a $25 additional fee for the second bag they gave 2 months warning but for a minimum $40 increase we get none. Thanks Air Canada.

According to the article  West Jet does not have any extra fuel charges- but they are considering them. I hope that if West Jet decides to do this it will not be out of the blue.

As seen in the National Post- Air Canada is introducing a $25 fee for checking a second bag on all flights within Canada and the United States starting on July 15th. The reason given for this is the increase in fuel charges. Usually I would tend to blame the airlines, but with oil prices increasing the way they have been I can see their point… Read the article here.

The annoying thing is that not only does it cost more to fill up my car- but now it costs more to fly too… Of course, not everybody is suffering.

Having recently come back from a trip to Dubai- I think that I have just had the experience of two airlines at the opposite end of the spectrum of airline experiences. One of them was one of the best experiences I have had and one was one of the worst. The airlines in question are Air Canada and Emirates.

Lets do a head-to-head comparison

Pre-flight

Check-in

• Air Canada has a very efficient self check-in process and bag drop off at Dorval airport.

• Emirates: self check-in did not work so had to wait in line

Advantage: Air Canada

Gate

• Air Canada does not make you enter the gate area prior to boarding (which is quite small).

• Emirates does make you enter the gate area, however, it is a huge area with enough capacity for double the number of passengers.

Advantage: Neither

Aircraft

• Air Canada: Aging Boeing 767

• Emirates: New Boeing 777

In-flight

Entertainment
Movies

• Air Canada transatlantic flights have one choice- you can watch the movie on the screens the middle. Or not.
• Emirates- Selection of several hundred movies on your own personal entertainment screen.

Advantage: Emirates

Music

• Air Canada- 8 channels to choose from.
• Emirates- Selection of several hundred music and video channels from your own personal entertainment screen.

Games

• Air Canada- none
• Emirates- Selection of 20 games from the personal entertainment screen.

Advantage: Emirates

Internet Access onboard

• Air Canada- none
• Emirates- available for a fee

Advantage: Emirates

Food

• Air Canada- 2 choices- beef or chicken
• Emirates- also 2 choices, but the quality of the food is significantly better

Advantage: Emirates

The Emirates experience contrasted so much with the Air Canada experience that it mades me ashamed that Air Canada is my national carrier. I was discussing this recently with a good friend of mine who said that he will only fly British Airways to and from Europe, because he is equally disgusted with Air Canada. 

Air Canada really needs to update their long haul aircraft. If I have a long flight to take, they will not be on my list of chosen airlines.

Now Air Canada has introduced a mobile boarding pass. What a great idea! 

They already had Mobile Check-In which allows you to log into mobile.aircanada.com on your wap enabled phone (which I haven’t actually used). Now, for certain flights, Air Canada will send you two sets of SMS messages to your phone.

The first message confirms your flight, the second sends a barcode which can be scanned, thereby eliminating the need for a paper boarding pass.

I was just thinking the other day that it is strange to arrive at an airport with all of your flight info- yet still had to print out a boarding pass just to get from the entrance of the airport onto the actual plane.

A couple of years ago I started keeping my flight information on my phone (without printing anything) until one day I had a hard time at Heathrow for not having any physical documentation regarding my flight. That was the point that I started printing out all of my flight details…. but now I may try to eliminate these printouts again.

All of the details of the new Mobile Boarding pass can be found on Air Canada’s website here

I am planning for my usual trip to Washington in February and on the e-ticket that was sent to me I got invited to contribute to the Air Canada Carbon Offset Program.

If you take a trip and contribute to this program, then Air Canada will use your donation, and also make a matching donation to Zerofootprint. 

For those who are taking flights and also want to be environmentally conscious, I think this is a good start.