Minion Monies: How Much did my Birthday Flights Cost?

I’m often asked how much my trips cost. “Minion Monies” is a series of posts attempting to recount trip expenses and try to shed some light on my travel cost. All prices will be in CAD unless stated otherwise. Prices will be for when the travel occurred. It’s likely prices will change over time so keep that in mind!

The following will be an accounting of my Birthday Flights to Nowhere from December of 2021. If you’ve not read the blog, you can do so here. Since this was a short trip there is no summary. However, I did do a short wrap up in my last post which can be found here. It might provide some extra context to the costs below!

The Flights ($249.81 & 283,200 “Points”)

Vancouver (YVR) to Dubai (DXB) In Lufthansa Business Class($116.86 & 115,000 Aeroplan Points)

For flying from Vancouver to Dubai, I did a partner airline redemption via Air Canada’s Aeroplan Program. Normally this flight would cost 100,000 Aeroplan points. But, I ended up paying an extra 15,000 points in order to make the flight fully refundable. Because of a newly discovered COVID strain, I already made several modifications to my itinerary. So while, this flight didn’t suffer the same fate, paying the extra 15,000 points did offer me a little extra peace of mind. In total, this flight cost 115,000 Aeroplan points and $116.86.

I did a quick search for a similar price at the time of writing this post and it would have cost $7490.06 if paid in cash. 

Dubai (DXB) to Zurich (ZRH) back to Dubai and onward to Toronto (YYZ) In Emirates First Class ($72 USD & 150,000 Alaska Mileage Reward Points)

To book the First Class Emirates flights, I used the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. Typically Emirates partner redemptions via Alaska cost 150,000 points to go from the Middle East to North America. Due to some creative routing in their system, I ended up booking three flights (from Dubai to Zurich, back to Dubai, then onward to Toronto). 

In some ways, you could count this as three first class flights for the price of one! This booking cost me $72 USD and 150,000 Alaska Mileage Reward Points. 

Oddly enough, in trying to find the actual price of these flights. I couldn’t actually make this routing using the Emirates website. Instead, I had to look for the DXB-ZRH-DXB portion as one round trip ticket and then the DXB-YYZ flight as its own one way ticket:

Obviously, if the flights were booked under one itinerary the price wouldn’t be additive like it is, but I would surmise that the value of this flight is likely in the $20,000 range. So no complaints here!

One thing to note here is unfortunately, booking Emirates through Alaska is no longer available. As of July 31, 2021 the two airlines have ended their partnership. So regrettably, if I want to pursue this aspirational flight again, I will need to seek another avenue. 

Toronto (YYZ) to Vancouver (YVR) In Air Canada Business Class($41.95 & 18,200 Aeroplan Points & 4 eUpgrades)

My flight home to Vancouver from Toronto was booked via Air Canada’s Aeroplan once again. However, instead of booking directly in business class (which would have cost more points). I instead leveraged a perk that comes with my Air Canada status called eUpgrades. This allows me to book flights in economy, but then apply a preset number of eUpgrade credits to bump my booking into business. 

I booked a “Lattitude” fare option which would require less eUpgrade credits but a few more points. Altogether, this cost me 18,200 Aeroplan points, 4 eUpgrade credits and $41.95 

If I were to book this was just cash, it would cost around $1813 so a fair bit of value here too.

Total Flight Costs

^{*Alaska Mileage Plan points and Aeroplan points are not really equivalent so this is just for “totalling” purposes}

Miscellaneous Costs ($315)

The only other expense incurred on this trip was PCR Testing. Because It’s still flying during a pandemic, I needed a PCR Test to board my flights to Dubai. I also needed a PCR test to return to Canada. Because I actually wasn’t going to be away from Canada too long, I ended up taking two PCR tests via LifeLabs’ FlyClear Service.

I took one test a day before departing for Dubai and the second test the morning I departed.  By the time I would return to Canada, my first test would have just been beyond the 72 hour PCR test requirement the Government of Canada required.  However, the test I took the day of would be valid for my return.

As PCR tests are still pricey, both tests cost me $315 in total (157.50 each with tax included).

Total Cost

If you add everything up:

We get a grand total trip cost of $564.81. Average that out over “three days” and its roughly $188.27 per day. There were no food or accommodation costs because in a sense everything is covered through the flights. Most times my sleeping was done on a plane or in an Airport lounge. Meal service aboard the plane and even food from the lounges were excellent. So in some ways I probably slept and ate better than if I booked myself a hotel or found a restaurant!

Obviously, there is a points cost in order to take some of these aspirational flights. So I feel its important to also represent the point spend as well. In total, I redeemed 283,200 points from two programs in order to make these flights work. Given, I’ll likely never pay full price for this sort of itinerary (roughly $30,000 in cost), I feel I got strong value from points I’ve collected over time!

Hopefully this helps give a bit more insight into the costs associated with my Birthday Flights in Emirates First Class!

If there is extra information you’d like to know, or have suggestions on how this can be done better, please feel free to drop a comment below and let me know!