United’s Greenland Flights Bookable Via Aeroplan

We were hyped a few weeks ago when United Airlines announced that it would be adding a handful of very unique routes to its network, including seasonal service from the U.S. to Greenland.

While these flights have just gone on sale for cash, there hasn’t been a way to book these flights using your miles — until now.

Let’s take a look at how you can book this exciting new route.

Book Flights to Greenland With Your Aeroplan Points

The ability to purchase United’s new nonstop route from Newark (EWR) to Nuuk, Greenland (GOH) with cash occurred just earlier this week, though United hadn’t yet set up the option for redeeming miles for this new route. They still haven’t, actually. Searches on United’s website fail to load, but this does not mean you can’t redeem miles for this flight.

Air Canada’s Aeroplan, Virgin Australia’s Velocity, and Azul’s TudoAzul are all showing the ability to book these flights. Among these, only Aeroplan is really a viable option for U.S.-based customers.

That’s a shame, because Virgin Australia is going to charge you just 17,000 miles one-way, while Aeroplan rings in at 35,000 points for economy class. Virgin Australia Velocity points cannot be transferred from any flexible point currencies, making them quite difficult to earn.

Be aware that booking this new route is a bit tricky.

Air Canada’s website doesn’t recognize Nuuk International Airport (GOH) yet, so doing searches can be problematic. We got around this by searching for availability via Seats.aero and using their link to pull up results on Air Canada’s website.

The same 737 MAX that United uses for domestic flights will also be operating these flights.

While we haven’t found any award space for anything other than economy class, note that their first class product is reclining seats, not lie-flat. United itself is selling them as premium economy.

Is It Worth It?

Although Greenland isn’t that far from the United States (the flight to Nuuk is only 4 hours, after all), costs are prohibitively expensive.

This is true for United’s new route, where a round-trip ticket in economy is a little over $1,300.

That being said, 35,000 Aeroplan points is a lot to charge for such a short flight. At this rate, you’d be redeeming your Aeroplan points for a value of 1.9 cents each. That’s above our valuation of 1.5 cents per point, so you’re doing ok with your redemption.

You’ll also want to take into account the fact that it’s basically been impossible to use rewards for booking flights to Greenland, so even paying 70,000 points round-trip for economy is going to be better than options you would have had in the past.

Note that we attempted to purchase this new route and were able to successfully book tickets, so it’s not just a fluke or phantom space.

Final Thoughts

We were very excited when United announced the new routes it’s launching next year, and are even more excited to see that you can now use your Aeroplan points to book flights to Greenland. Because it’s so new, booking can be tricky, so check out Seats.aero for the best booking link for these flights.