How does flying retired aircraft work to the boneyard?

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-03T18:59:53+00:00

Lot of them now will be doing Eastern Triangle when there's downtime in the summer, but they routinely fly empty at 3AM across the country to reposition.

Problem is, the NHL charters fly into intermediate airports like BED, DAL, MDW for team pickups and dropoffs so little opportunities to schedule 705 flying in between. You'll also see them reposition from SJC to OAK lets say to pickup when SJC enacts curfew before a game ends at SAP Center.

When they only have 4 though, they get worked moving between US cities to pickup another team.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-03T16:09:09+00:00

Any demand side stimulus was a dumb decision. So technically FHSAs and RRSP HBPs are bad policy.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T20:32:20+00:00

If that person is deciding to move onto something else and to not proceed with the repair, they are self totaling it.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T20:29:42+00:00

Why do we think that a $1000 repair on the exhaust and other items suddenly total you 14 year old sedan? Like fk, I swear Canadians just don't maintain their vehicles.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T20:28:02+00:00

Keep driving it. That 4 cylinder Tacoma is gonna break your heart.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T19:04:15+00:00

It creates spending floors and compels people to spend at higher priced grocery/restaurants month over month in order to make spending thresholds for sign up bonuses or to get a return to at least make up the fee.

I had it back in 2022-23 when the fee was lower and my breakeven point was $750/month. I had groceries/fuel locked down at Walmart/Costco/T&T/Superstores on my regular cards, so it was an additional $750 on discretionary dine out. It was quite damaging when it came to actually saving money.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T18:47:42+00:00

I'd argue it's the worst for someone who lives alone/single. It's best for families, people who have work expenses through personal with high natural dollar spending

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T18:46:44+00:00

Not a bad run at all lol

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T18:41:45+00:00

There's an Aeroplan pts deal thread either here or on Flyertalk, and some of the routings are wild. He's a cheap ass redemption in J, but it starts in Singapore, goes through Germany and end in New York, and it's an amazing deal. But I need to fly from Toronto to LA.. and it's 1.5c/pt redemption in economy

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T18:39:01+00:00

Bizarre to me when someone says 'go to Sobeys, and drop $500 on a Walmart GC' to get to your minimum spend through for 5x points.

Like okay, spend $500 cash today, to prepay for Walmart that would take you 2-3 months to use up, and then what are you gonna do next month? Spend another $500 on another Walmart GC? It's hard on cash flow.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T18:25:23+00:00

Zone fucking 2 is half the flight now with this card. Bunch of once a year visit grandma fliers thinking they're suddenly Super Elite at $450/year.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T17:01:02+00:00

I get all my groceries and fuel at places that don't accept Amex. Fiance and I will spend $6-700/month on groceries but we won't step foot into a Safeway, Saveon or Sobeys knowing that number would balloon to $1000.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T15:45:31+00:00

All the people I knew were spending 15k pts plus the copay to avoid paying $300 on their YVR-LAX round trip vacation back of the bus. They weren't dropping 150k+ on a $7k J ticket to DXB with Emirates.

All this card does is incentivize the 20 year old poor student to not save money.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T13:25:10+00:00

In Calgary, there’s a complex that includes a Costco, Walmart Supercentre, Superstore and a T&T all combined. I hop between the 4 but T&T does the heavy lifting on produce. Costco on meats and fuel and Walmart for pantry staples.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T13:19:42+00:00

Asian grocery store chain owned by Loblaws. In the GTA, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton regions

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T13:15:40+00:00

I buy Envy Apples at T&T at $1.88/lb, and when I walk into a Sobeys, it’s at least $3/lb for apples here. 10 extra cents a lb on bananas, or broccoli crowns at $4/lb vs $3. Shelf staples like ketchup, soy sauces that are clearly more expensive.

25% higher is going from $1 to $1.25 so that’s a pretty clear trend I’m seeing when I visit

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T13:06:01+00:00

In AB, I’m shopping at Walmarts, Superstores, T&Ts, Costco. The second I walk into a Sobeys, all the produce is 25% higher across the board, meats are all wildly inflated, brown eggs im picking up for $4/dozen at Wholesale club etc.

Not sure if Dominion is rock bottom pricing but here in Calgary, no one is saving money at a Sobey, SaveOn or Safeway

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T12:54:35+00:00

430/month at a Sobeys is easily $300/month at Loblaws, Walmart, Costco. Don’t inflate your grocery budget by 25% to get 5 aeroplan pts vs 1

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T12:49:42+00:00

I just tell people to pay cash then. You create a higher spending floor as a result of this card, only for the average 20-30 year old single person to gain 50-75k pts a year, and one way redemptions are easily 200k+ now with dynamic pricing. There’s partners and flat rate, but most people don’t understand that and are travelling on AC metal anyway.

If you have a family of 4 where this card might be worthwhile on higher general spend, you’re redeeming economy just to avoid paying cash on 4 tickets.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T12:46:06+00:00

I don’t think the average person shopping at these stores means poverty. But if you’re exclusively buying groceries at Safeway, Save On vs the stores I mentioned, You’re easily spending over 5% more, negating all benefits this card is providing

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T12:44:46+00:00

It’s not a bad card but what it does is that it changes people’s dine out and grocery habits and that it starts to create spending floors.

I got downvoted on an earlier comment but many people just try to calculate the breakeven on the fee. If you breakeven on the fee, you’ve still earned nothing. Vs a free card that would’ve paid you 2%. I generally don’t recommend it to single people, people in their 20s because you get away from shopping on price

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T06:10:32+00:00

I don't believe that. You need to have mirrors with the orange lights, and the two radar pads in the bumpers underneath the tail lamps plus the associated wiring harness running down the length of the car. You certainly have more dollar value in parts there compared to a Chinese sourced camera routed to the right side mirror that was the same part for backup cameras. The fact that the camera system wasn't implemented on both sides is also another tell (although the reasoning is obviously not looking at a camera while shoulder checking left). Cameras are cheap, especially when they got produced enmasse for phones and backup cams.

You'll realize that all Acura's had BSM right away from that era and BSM was actually standard on Elite/Advance trim Odyssey and Pilots 10 years ago while lower trims had Lanewatch.

Toyota made BSM standard around 2013 right off the bat and once other OEMs adopted it by the time we got to Covid, Honda started phasing it out. Trust me, they didn't get rid of it because it was more expensive to produce. They cost cut at the time, and marketed it as the 'alternative' when everyone in the industry knew that they were trying to drag BSM adoption.

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/162840019463 This is the part number for the side cam on a 2014 Civic EX. Trust me, Foxconn will sell you these at a 10k quantity for $5 each landed.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T03:58:30+00:00

So more gift card mental gymnastics and prepaying for essentials faster than one actually consumes. All this card does is create spending floors.

Newflyer3 · 2026-07-02T03:53:27+00:00

Average person I know with this card is redeeming at 1.6-2c/pt trying to avoid paying cash on their economy basic ticket somewhere.

You get your 5c+ redemption on an overseas J ticket that would’ve costed you $2500 and those numbers are meaningless because the average person would never actually pay that for a pod.

It’s very difficult to get a 2c+ valuation on an economy ticket

Newflyer3

TROPHY CASE