For the next few months it’s tough to spend more than $800 flying on Air France’s new direct flight from Vancouver to Paris.

A few days back I received an urgent email from a friend: “Aeroplan is offering flights to Paris for 14,000 miles!!!!” I immediately logged on to the site and it was true. You had to change planes in Montreal (small bummer), but there it was: only 14,000 miles for a trip that usually requires 60,000 miles. I was about to book when the other shoe dropped—the taxes were more than $600. Not exactly a deal-breaker, but definitely a ballon-deflater. Before booking, I figured I best do a modicum of price shopping so I logged on to Air France‘s site and was blown way. Until at least the end of February I could book a direct flight for well under $750. No miles, no connection.I’m going, not as a travel editor or on some press function, but as an ordinary Joe shelling out my own $$$. And you should too. And you should definitely consult our comprehensive guide to the ultra-chic neighbourhood of SoPi and famed baker Jackie Kai Ellis’ list of favourite haunts in the city of light. And if you absolutely can’t swing a trip you can live vicariously through Editor Anicka Quin’s chat with David Lebovitz, the city’s most famous gourmand.