Well, it's a complicate story so I don't know how to write a good title to my topic. After much thoughts, I decide to post what happened to me on my last two legs of MHD and see what are you guys' opinion on that.

I didn't do a quick a MHD as most of you did, in fact, I expanded the MHD itineary into a month long vacation. In the last two segments, on my way back to Ottawa from San Francisco, we were booked on the last AC flight out of SFO around 20:30. We were supposed to connect via YVR for the latest YVR-YYZ AC flight at 23:45. The AC flight out of SFO was late by an hour, we missed our connection to YYZ. The airport was about empty, and there was probably only one AC agent still working in the ticketing area. Even his ticket boot is showing: "Closed" but he was still there. So we went to him and explained what happened anyway. Our final destination on the ticket says Ottawa but our real final destination is Montreal, so I tried to convince him to rebook us on a flight from YVR to YUL directly next day. Guess what, he accepted!

So the miracle was that the MHD rule says that departure and return must be Ottawa but we made a miracle when the return was directly back to YUL in a transcontinetal J class in a Int'l Business Class cabin (configuration wise) with a nice 4 course meal.

How did that happen? I am not sure. I knew the agent had to use his 'Special Functions' to bypass the system. He was laughing and very happy when his special functions overrided the system. Hey it was over midnight and he still had the patience to help us selecting the seats for the next day and he even made sure we got free hotels and meals for the lay over in YVR.

The next day, everything went as planned. At the luggage drop off area, we explained what happened to another AC agent in hope that she can give us a written proof that we don't have to pay airport tax (b/c we were really just connecting flights via YVR). She helped us by calling the Customer Service manager on duty and the manager walked us to the airport tax area, then she handled everything else for us while we simply stand and wait. It took like 30 seconds. Unbelievable serice quality, almost like a private concierge.

I suspect it was more trying to give you good service, and an ignorance with the actual rule related to this very specific, very rare type of fare. To him, you would just be another full fare J passenger, and as a special service, he adjusted the final segment to get you to YUL rather than YOW. The problem might come from AC's audit department, if they have flagged your file to ensure you met all the rules of the fare. You could still receive a call from them advising you were not entitled to get to YUL on that fare, and so they are recalculating your return portion. This is not overly likely, but might occure if they really are auditing carefully all MHD tickets issued to ensure the travel has occured are ticketed/ routed. [Don't mean to be a downer, but it might happen...some on this forum are more paranoid about such things than are others.]

Can AC actually do that?

If an agent overrides the system with a waiver code or something, surely AC would have to honour that. If the audit department had a problem with the favour in question, wouldn't they go after the agent as opposed to the passenger?

Congrats Guava--any other MHD Club lurkers out there? I have 24 on the completed or about to complete list--pretty exclusive club.

SkinnyJ your package is here whenever you pass through again.

[This message has been edited by BlondeBomber (edited 07-13-2001).]

Call me naive. But, what is a MHD?

In the words of Michael Palin: "It's dead."

MHD was short for Mexican Hat Dance, a remarkable way to travel from Canada to elsewhere in Canada and the US, via Mexico. The benefits were savings on the order of 80-90%, travel in business class on a completely unrestricted ticket, and pick up tons of miles.

A sample itinerary, perhaps the ultimate itinerary, was YOW-YYZ-YWG-YEG-YYC-YVR-LAX-MEX-CUN-MEX-LAX-YVR-YYC-YEG-YWG-YYZ-YOW, in business class the entire way, for under $1400CAD, with stops allowed in any or all of the above cities, and then some, if you so desired. During the recent AC "Fly'N'Qualify" promotion, you could pick up over 25,000 status qualifying miles.

Sadly, it took on a life of it's own, and on May 16th, 2001, UA, MX, and AC killed it. Killed it dead. They took coordinated action to eliminate stopovers in Canada, and severly restricted them in the US. An itinerary that might have cost $1200-$1400 as an MHD now costs $8000-$9000 or more.

If you want to learn more about it, check out this Summary of MHD posts. It contains the entire history, interesting and amusing as it is, up until May 16th when I stopped updating the summary. Be warned though -- it would probably take 24+ hours to read it all. But much of it is an enjoyable read.

Um, Ken, Michael actually maintained that it was, "just resting."

It was Cleese who noted that it, "...wouldn't go, 'Voom!' if you put 4000 volts through it!"