Airlines around the world aren’t making it easy to fall in love with travel again, with service cuts and refund woes, but Air Canada appears to be bucking the trend. The airline is not only making earning miles more accessible, its adding celebrity chef driven meals and snacks to all cabins in an attempt to make flying fun again.
Air Canada’s New Celebrity Chef Partnership
Air Canada has made a habit of partnering with many of Canada’s most revered chefs, and it’s just added another name to the list. Joining David Hawksworth, Antonio Park and Vikram Vij, Jérôme Ferrer will now curate all meals on international flights leaving Canada bound for Europe and Asia, not only for premium economy, but economy too.
The new meals kick in July 28th, 2020, and join a procession of other meals being reintroduced to the skies, after a brief hiatus during covid-19. From July 28th, travelers on Air Canada can expect the following culinary treats in each cabin, according to the airline…
- Chef David Hawksworth’s Canadian-themed dishes will be showcased in Signature Class on flights to Europe and Israel, as well as to Australia when those flights resume.
- Chef Antonio Park’s meals will be featured in Signature Class on flights to Asia and South America, once those flights resume, and in Signature Class and Business Class within North America
- Chef Jerome Ferrer’s meals will be presented in Premium Economy and Economy Class on international flights departing Canada
- Chef Vikram Vij’s creations will be featured on flights to India when those flights are able to resume.–
- Limited inflight food options in Economy Class onboard North American flights greater than two hours will be re-introduced on a pre-order basis.
Curious what exactly will be served? Air Canada will begin releasing menu details for upcoming flights on AirCanada.com over the next few weeks, and menus can also be found in the next iteration of the Air Canada mobile app, due in August.
Miles that expire frustrate customers, and Air Canada hasn’t gone as far as to make them last forever, yet, but they’ve made two very positive changes to keep them from ever expiring on you. For a start, miles now expire after 18 months of inactivity, rather than 12.
Earning a single Aeroplan miles restarts the clock on mileage expiration, and points purchases, credit card points transfers and now even UberEats orders can do the trick, let alone flying. In other words – always be earning. This leads to the other good-new-news, which is that even if your miles do expire, you’ve got 6 months to either take an Air Canada flight, or grab an Air Canada credit card to automatically reinstate them without a fee.
If you do neither, you can still pay a fee to reinstate your miles. It’s clear that Air Canada’s plan to survive covid-19 is to charm passengers back into the skies, which is a very welcome departure from the tactics of many other airlines at the moment…
