[PROMOTION] Air Canada Student Pass
From now until September 30, 2015, Air Canada is offering their version of a Student Pass for students to fly home during the school year. The promotion includes six one-way flight credits which can be used to travel within Canada and between Canada and specified destinations in the U.S.
Here is the link to the details of the promotion:
You should arrive to a page like this in which you can select your choice of a pre-paid package for six one-way flight credits. Once you have decided that you would like to purchase a package, you will need to select your travel boundaries as well as the type of fare package.
Here’s an example of the difference between a Tango Fare and Flex Fare option. If you are collecting for elite status, you may want to consider the Flex Fare option.
Now you will need to select the locations you would like to fly between. As an example, the two locations I chose to fly between are Ontario and British Columbia. Here are the results:
I decided to run another option through to the United States. Here are the results:
You can see that they have given me two types of fare options. First, I have the Tango versus the Flex fare. Seconds, they have given me just an East to West Connector flights versus an Across Canada flight option.
I believe this means that if I were to travel from anywhere in Canada to another location in Canada, it would only cost me $2881.50 for the six one-way flight credits. Now divide that by six, this means each one-way ticket would be equivalent to $480.25.
For the East to West connector flights, we would be getting each ticket valued at $323.18. Now the question would be if this is actually value to us. Let’s take a closer look at some prices during the school year.
If I were to travel Ottawa to Vancouver on December 22nd, (we will assume most students will take a flight home for Christmas), this would be one direct flight from Air Canada. Hipmunk gives us the current lowest price clocking in at $342.68. According to Air Canada, an East-West Connector Pass would allow you to travel between Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal.
If we go back to the value we had calculated earlier for the East-West connector flights, the student pass will give us a savings of about $20 per one-way ticket. Of course, as students we will not always know when you will be able to leave, so purchasing a ticket closer to the departure date without the student pass may actually be valued much higher. In this case, the student pass is very beneficial and cost-effective.
Terms and Conditions
You must travel before June 30, 2016, so we’re generally looking at usage for the upcoming school year in September.
The Air Canada Student Pass can only be purchased in a Tango or Flex fare package.
One one-way flight credit is equivalent to a one-way trip which also includes connecting flights to your destination.
You can only opt into the promotion if you are a full-time student with valid student photo identification from either a Canadian or American academic institution.
The bottom line is, the Air Canada student pass will allow you to lock in fixed rates for your flights home, whenever you book the ticket. For most students, you may not always know you exam schedule well ahead of time in order to pre-book a flight ticket at discounted pricing.