Another flight price error booked & honored, Toronto-Paris round-trip for $300 CAD/person

Friday Sep 18
AirCanada.com had a price error of missing the carrier surcharge (about $450/ticket) to their Europe destinations

It started about 1 pm, ended around 2 pm (lasted only 1 hour and so), but I managed to book YYZ-CDG round-trip, $1000 CAD for 4 of us, for March 2016 (it'll be 6-11C in Paris, oh well)
By the time I try to book for May 2016 ($50 extra per person), AC already fixed the error, but they came out same day on Twitter to say they'll honor the tickets

I can't believe it still happens, but this is price error #4 for us in the last 2 years already!!!
I don't need to plan any trips ahead now (besides the annual summer back to Taiwan), I'll just let price errors dictate where we will go in future. I need more vacation days!!

None of these destinations below were on my soon-to-visit lists, but I am glad to have visited Italy (loved it), Seoul (so-so), Turkey (so-so), Dubai, and finally, Paris!!!

2014

• Wideroe - NYC-Milan Italy $300/person
• Delta - YYZ-ICN $500/person, booked for 2015 April
• Aeroplan stopover error - YYZ-IST in Business for 50K miles/person instead of 105K, for 2015 May
• Etihad JFK-AUH $200/person, booked for 2015 Nov

2015

• Air Canada - YYZ-CDG $300/person, booked for 2016

Tools for planning a Mini-RTW itinerary

I used the below tools to plan and book my Mini-RTW trip

Tools
Award Nexus - free website to check rewards & routes (free for FlyerTalk members). A sample resultset for SIN-BKK is shown here (includes both direct and non-direct flights)

ANA Tool - you'll need to sign up for ANA member, and do a manual search on ANA first before you can search on Star Alliance member airlines

Continental Rewards - this helps you to see available rewards routes

RoboForm  - Password Manager, Form Filler so I don't have to re-fill ANA form every time

 
FlyerTalk Aeroplan forum - this helps you decide the "valid" routings and help/tips on which airlines/class are better (e.g. I got tipped about the LX ZRH-YUL to make my Atlantic ocean return segment possible)

• Please list your AP Taxes and SURCHARGES on AP reward tickets
• List of valid and booked mini-RTW itineraries

What's Next?

• Be ready to spend hours and hours to find available permutations on your desired dates (+/- 1 day)
• I spent at least 3~4 hours BEFORE I know my vacation dates to decide my vacation dates :)

e.g. Toronto to Tokyo can have various permutations - YYZ-NRT direct, YYZ-ICN-NRT, or more common via West Coast YYZ-YYC/YVR-NRT or YYZ-[SEA/SFO/LAX/ORD/EWR/IAD]-NRT...which were unavailable to me on my dates.

Tips

• Going through US saves you fees (especially fuel surcharge YQ) on Air Canada flights, which are ripoff. But US means custom delays and troubles also
• Use AwardNexus Route Explorer to find possible permutations (e.g. YYZ-TPE)
• If you want to book Airbus A380 Business/First class, only available routes now are mostly on LH/Lufthansa) between FRA-JFK/MIA/PEK/SFO/NRT (Frankfurt-New York/Miami/Beijing/San Francisco/Tokyo) as SQ doesn't release their A380 seats. FYI FlyerTalk members aren't big fans of LH J class though, which is why I gave up on flying LH A380 routes
• Book your trips EARLY - award space open up 355 days ahead, so you can book up to May 10, 2012 if you book today (May 11, 2011). More important for popular routes like anything involving Sydney