For many years, Aeroplan charged $90+tax per person for any change or refund to an Aeroplan ticket. This fee applied without regard to the significance of the change – any change came with that fee. For refunds within 22 days before departure, the fee was $90+tax to change the booking to a trip outside 22 days, and an additional $90 to refund that ticket.
A while ago, I booked a trip between Sydney SYD and Nuku’Alofa (Tonga) TBU using Aeroplan. On Star Alliance, the only routing available is via Auckland AKL on Air New Zealand, and only in economy (Air New Zealand barely releases business inventory to partner airlines – however, you can typically find one business seat on Shanghai PVG to Auckland AKL). Unfortunately, the AKL-TBU segment is extremely challenging to get two seats on, so I was pretty lucky that I got dates that worked for my itinerary.
