Air Canada - Everything

and I mean everything you ever wanted to know.  During the months of Oct/Nov, Air Canada ran a promotion called the North American AirPass. 60 days, unlimited travel anywhere Air Canada flew in North America.  I had one and it was outstanding for all my business trips. I packed the trips in and saved a ton of money.

Meet Marc Tacchi.

Marc got a pass just like me. Unlike me, Marc spent 60 days logging 1 million air miles. Little things like going back and forth from Vancouver to Victoria (15 minutes, 500 min miles awarded) to Transcontinental flights all over North America.

And of course, he blogged it all.  You learn everything about Air Canada including details you probably don’t want to know.

“….but no pot roast. In lieu of pot roast, I have now decided I am going to try all the special meals in the AC inventory and rate them in my blog. I will start with the fruit platter…depending on the time of day this can range from a slice of orange and two grapes, to a full-on Carmen Miranda hat. So, for this meal …..”

“I have discovered the most valuable item you can take on this odyssey is a pillow…the pillow is useful for sleeping and for protection against those medieval torture devices – A321 seats. More than one flight attendant gazed longingly at my nice fluffy pillow.”

“1) Since the 1st of Oct I have flown on 41 flights.
  2) Roughly translated into 40,000 miles flown.
  3) 40,000 miles translates into 120,000 including all bonus/promotions.
  4) I have lost 3.5 lbs since starting. AC's breakfast is doing me in”

I thought as I read through this Doc Searls would become insanely jealous of all the wonderful photos he shot from the windows but, Doc’s hobby is safe. Not much in the way of photos unfortunately.

Hit the restroom, get a comfortable seat, and go here to read all of it.

Comments

[Stuart MacDonald]

Mileage runs (definition: trips with the expressed purpose of hitting a status target on a given airline) can be great fun. The best one AC had on offer that I knew of was a few years back, where they did a Q4 thing to Europe where you got something like 4 x miles for the trip, and then double miles for all of the year after. A friend of mine flew round trip YHZ-LHR just to qualify. The best source for details on mileage runs is http://www.insideflyer.com.

And if you're interested in that site, you should also check out http://www.seatguru.com which has seat-by-seat commentary, by airline and aircraft, for a goodly portion of the commerical airplanes flying today. Expect comments like "don't sit in seat 36C of airline X's A340-300 in the Type Two configuration because the seat only reclines half-way and the you hear the attendants chatting in the galley." Great hard-core, global road-warrior, travel-geek stuff. At least great if you are such a beast, as I sadly am.

- Stuart