California - Need Advice! Which stopover for YYZ-SAN? ORD, DEN, IAH, MSP, DTW?

Hi!

My first post here so please be gentle :D

My wife and I will be travelling from YYZ to SAN mid-April and I'd like to know what's the best stopover for convenience/comfort (read: minimal interruptions). We don't do much flying, and are not well versed, but we had a big fiasco a few years back where we got stranded in our HKG-ORD-YYZ circuit because the 1 hr stopover was not enough to change terminals and pass security :(

There are a plethora of economy flights across airlines with stopovers ranging from 30min to 4 hours. What is a good stopover, or are they all equal in terms of convenience for US/Canadian travel? ORD, DEN, IAH, MSP, DTW?

SFO and LAX are also possible, but I want to stay away from Air Canada at the moment, with the current labour strikes and risk of interruption.

I'm leaning in favour of Delta airlines with 1hr stopover in MSP or DTW (maybe ATL on return), but I'm worried whether 1 hr would be enough time for an intracontinental flight.

Any advice or insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Dots

You should go through US customs and immigration in YYZ so your flight to any US destination is then treated as domestic. As a result at many US airports you should not have to go through security again to transfer -- I know for a fact that is the case at ORD and DEN and I bet other people can confirm if it is the case at the other airports.

There could be a fair amount of walking or shuttle train riding at both ORD and DEN.

Welcome to FT, Dots!

I personally prefer DEN and avoid ORD given the weather risks but generally speaking i would focus more on avoiding regional jets and choosing the schedule that fits best (assuming you have no preference of frequent flying program and prices are the same)

Do you have a preference for carriers/frequent flier program? United is a Star Alliance partner with AC. I'd prefer DEN over ORD if you choose United. If you go Delta, I'd fly through MSP due to more flights to SAN, just in case something happens.

SFO and LAX are also possible, but I want to stay away from Air Canada at the moment, with the current labour strikes and risk of interruption.

American Airlines flies non stop from Toronto to Dallas/Fort Worth and Los Angeles where you can connect to San Diego. You will not have to go through security at DFW or LAX.

Do you have a preference for carriers/frequent flier program? United is a Star Alliance partner with AC. I'd prefer DEN over ORD if you choose United. If you go Delta, I'd fly through MSP due to more flights to SAN, just in case something happens.

Also IAH on United, which earns AC miles for you. Like others, I would avoid ORD which has more weather problems than most others. All the airlines are similar in coach - which means passively unpleasant.

Also IAH on United, which earns AC miles for you. Like others, I would avoid ORD which has more weather problems than most others. All the airlines are similar in coach - which means passively unpleasant.
Yes, IAH would be an okay transfer point as well in terms of weather. I haven't been there in years so I don't know how easy it is to get from gate to gate.

Yes, IAH would be an okay transfer point as well in terms of weather. I haven't been there in years so I don't know how easy it is to get from gate to gate.

Depends on the gates involved. If too far to walk, you take a train (be sure you get the one that goes within the airport) and then walk. We were connecting to an international biz class flight, so could use a very nice United Club.

My personal rules when making a domestic connection -

1) Minimum connecting time, anywhere - 1 hour
2) Travel early in the day - delays are usually less and if you miss a connection, you are much more likely to be able to get on a later flight
3) Develop a positive attitude - sxxx happens - don't worry in advance about things going wrong, and if they do, maintain your perspective about what is important in life ;)

Thanks for everyone's quick response!
We booked our flight YYZ-IAH-SAN and a red-eye return SAN-LAX-IAD-YYZ.
We opted to avoid the windy-city ORD as suggested

Thanks for everyone's quick response!
We booked our flight YYZ-IAH-SAN and a red-eye return SAN-LAX-IAD-YYZ.
We opted to avoid the windy-city ORD as suggested
And you'll earn more Aeroplan miles with that routing. Happy travels!

My personal rules when making a domestic connection -

1) Minimum connecting time, anywhere - 1 hour
2) Travel early in the day - delays are usually less and if you miss a connection, you are much more likely to be able to get on a later flight
3) Develop a positive attitude - sxxx happens - don't worry in advance about things going wrong, and if they do, maintain your perspective about what is important in life ;)

I'd like to give a quick update -- We arrived in San Diego with our baggage intact, and had a great week.

Our flight, however, was not without a hitch.
Apparently our 0600 flight from YYZ was not permitted to depart due to a supposed "curfew" and we didn't take off until 0630 -- thus we missed our connection flight by only a hair. I had to stand in line for 40 mins at customer service for us to be put on standby for the next flight from IAH to SAN. Most of the flights were overbooked and we only boarded the second flight by dumb luck. In total, we spent four hours at IAH and arrived at SAN at 1400 instead of 1000.

In contrast, however, our colleagues had 3-4 hour stop-overs, and even with delays and surprises, they made all their connection flights and arrived on time.

I guess what I've learned is similar to your first point, but for myself, minimum connection time of 1hr - 1h30m on domestic flights. It's much more of a pain to be put on standby for 4 hours than to wait 4 hours for a designated connection.

Given all my sour experiences with air travel, I now appreciate the added comfort provided by Porter Airlines (Canadian). I believe their entire fleet consist only of CRJs, but the free snacks/meals and beer/wine on economy (even 1hr) flights - and to top it off, every problem I've had with Porter, they've either reimbursed or offered flight credit for future travels.

I would be surprised if United gave a flight credit for a missed connection due to their fault - I'm just relieved we made it to SAN with baggage intact after all that kerfuffle!

I'd like to give a quick update -- We arrived in San Diego with our baggage intact, and had a great week.

Our flight, however, was not without a hitch.
Apparently our 0600 flight from YYZ was not permitted to depart due to a supposed "curfew" and we didn't take off until 0630 -- thus we missed our connection flight by only a hair. I had to stand in line for 40 mins at customer service for us to be put on standby for the next flight from IAH to SAN. Most of the flights were overbooked and we only boarded the second flight by dumb luck. In total, we spent four hours at IAH and arrived at SAN at 1400 instead of 1000.

In contrast, however, our colleagues had 3-4 hour stop-overs, and even with delays and surprises, they made all their connection flights and arrived on time.

I guess what I've learned is similar to your first point, but for myself, minimum connection time of 1hr - 1h30m on domestic flights. It's much more of a pain to be put on standby for 4 hours than to wait 4 hours for a designated connection.

I would be surprised if United gave a flight credit for a missed connection due to their fault - I'm just relieved we made it to SAN with baggage intact after all that kerfuffle!
First off, glad you had a great time in San Diego! Hope the weather was beautiful.

Second, sorry to hear about your flights. I think the curfew reasoning might be some BS. From a quick search, it looks like curfews were relaxed at YYZ. There really was no curfew reason for the flight not to depart the gate at 6AM.

Glad you made it on a later flight. Next time, while you are waiting in line for customer service, get on your phone and call customer service. They can also rebook you as well. Usually, the phone wait will be less than a physical line. At least your bags made it - that can be really dicey with delays/cancellations.

If you have to make your connecting flight, you're right it is often better to leave more time between flights in case your first flight has issues. My parents are off to Barcelona soon and instead of giving them 1.5 hours connection, they are taking an earlier flight that will give them 2.5 hours connection. If they don't make that second flight, they will lose a lot of time so some padding was good.

Sounds like your return flights weren't quite as bad though!

You learned some valuable lessons and still got to your destination, where I gather you had a good time. We always aim for a good amount of time between flights, including domestic ones. Not just what the airline regards as "legal" (minimum they regard as doable, and which may show on their Web site). On some travel advice boards I see people tell others they don't need to worry about a connection if the flights were purchased together, especially on one airline, since the airline(s) must get you to your destination. But, as you found, there may not be space on the very next flight. We ran into this when we arrived late at IAD from Brazil, missed our connection to Boston, and had to wait for one or two full flights to depart before we could get one. And if an overnight is required, and the delay isn't regarded by the airline as their fault (e.g., due to weather or-- with an international flight-- you being delayed in Immigration/Customs), you could be on your own for a hotel.

Truly bizarre that an airline schedules a 6 a.m. flight when a "curfew" (airport restriction) prevents that. You're writing a letter of complaint to the airline?

Truly bizarre that an airline schedules a 6 a.m. flight when a "curfew" (airport restriction) prevents that. You're writing a letter of complaint to the airline?
I concur. I think you should write a letter to United and complain. United also has a flight to Wash DC/IAD at 6:00 and 6:08 to Newark EWR.

Ah, I wish these things had a "Save Draft" button like in emails :/

So I'm back in the frigid north known as Canada. It's freezing here, I saw snow falling this afternoon. Why do I live here :( SoCal was nice with highs in the 70s, low in the 50s. Here, we're lucky to get highs in the 50s and above freezing in the evenings :/

So our flight back was not much better.
Our flight was on UA scheduled for SAN-LAX-IAD-YYZ.
Our first leg SAN-LAX was delayed due to weather, which would have caused us to miss our red-eye LAX-IAD, but the express commuter terminal was able to push us onto a Delta flight that was departing around the same time.

We arrived in LAX - but because we flew Delta instead of UA, we were at the wrong terminal. To compound this, all gates were full on arrival so the flight taxied to the hangar where we deplaned and were shuttled to terminal 5. We were able to catch a golf-cart that carted us to terminal 6, then went all-out on foot to terminal 7 to literally the farthest gate just in time to make final board. When boarding, our tickets were revoked with the error message "customer not found". Perhaps the push to Delta somehow affected our other flights? or perhalps the UA system did not see us board the SAN-LAX and released our LAX seats for standbys? Anyhow, the gate quickly printed us new tickets, but my wife and I were not able to get paired seating, but we were more concerned with making the connection, than seating.

Our IAD-YYZ leg was relatively uneventful. We had time to buy a bagel and pick up a few things at the duty-free. We also did not get paired seatings, but it was only a 1hr flight and we were exhausted and just wanted to go home.

Finally in YYZ our (one and only) checked baggage was nowhere to be found. The customer service attendant discovered it was in mid-flight from LAX-ORD. We left our information, filled out some papers, and went home. Note, we live about a 2hr drive (130 mi) outside of Toronto. We got a phone call late in the day that our baggage had arrived in Toronto and will be delivered to our home the following day (Monday)

It was a grueling experience, but you know what, in the end, we got to the end in one piece. We arrived on time, but not our baggage -- that's better than the other way around. It wasn't very fun, but looking at the larger picture, it could have been a lot worse. And hey, this is economy :P

Not even smooth sailing on the return...very unfortunate.

I think this is even more to include in a complaint to United. That UA messed up the LAX-IAD leg was not good, tickets not being recognized, and you ended up sitting apart. Worse could have been that it was oversold and you didn't get a seat at all. Either way - it is United's fault. Did it also lose your seating on the IAD-YYZ leg? If so, I'd mention that too.

There is one bright spot. If you kept your Delta boarding passes you can claim Delta mileage and you can also mention to United that you want miles credited for your original SAN-LAX flight. It is allowed.

I would definitely write UA - I think they will give you some compensation - whether it is miles or a voucher.