Canadian Airlines Plus - Web specials are a joke

Just had a look at CP's web specials for this week and it is basically non existence. They took US web specials out. The list is getting shorter and shorter by the week. Even AC took out YYZ - YVR when they used to have it every week.

Soon Web Specials will become a thing of the past in Canada.

And AC has NO specials *west* of Winnipeg. An evil AC ploy.

BTW, got a call tonight from someone doing a customer satisfaction/service rating on my 1 March LAX-YVR flight. Of course I gave thumbs up except for the checkin and baording (handled by AA).

At the end of the survey, they asked about how knowledgable I was about the merger and what my concerns about it were. It was 1) upgrades, 2) fares, 3) frequency of service, 4) quality of service.

Didn't say that I gave thumbs up on service and value for money as I flew there and back in business class for C$400! I wonder who commissioned the survey.

p.s. they spelt Sandspit wrong, and this is the 2nd consecutive week there are not flights east of YYC from YVR.

Doubt if the YVR-IAD flight will ever become a weekend special.

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 03-29-2000).]

Web specials will soon be a distant memory. The selection is terrible. There are very few flights west of Halifax! I thought that there would quite a few west flights on CP and eastern flights on AC but I was wrong.

I did those customer service surveys as part of a summer job about 3 years back. I'm surprised that they still do them. I imagine that it would be a lot more interesting to hear what people have to say these days than it was then. People were generally pretty positive.

The CP webspecials are not the only ones that have changed. I often use the Air Canada websaver specials for week-end leisure travel out of Winnipeg. Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto were frequent postings on the site.
In the past weeks, the well has dried up to only Chicago. Is this a trend ? You can only visit ORD so many times...

I suspect there are a combination of factors.

I am finding that LGA/EWR - YOW/YYZ/YUL are on the list (in some form) almost every week, and EWR YHZ is there about one in three.

I think two factors are in play at present:

1) Capacity is higgledy-piggledy. I don't think anyone has a handle on who is operating what, or how much excess capacity there is anywhere. You can't offer net-fares if you don't know how many seats you have to fill.

2) We're heading into higher traffic season. Late March-April is a bad time for traffic, generally. You do not have your summer schedule up--so your big aircraft are still committed to winter routes, and you don't have your summer employees on line, but you do have March Break and Easter traffic filling up available places.

This might be anecdotal, but I seem to remember that last year was pretty awful too at this time of year for websaver fares.

I don't know what CP's offerings were like last April, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they were in clearance mode--offering up just about any empty seat to get some additional cash. Given where their load factors were, I think they may have been exceedingly generous.

AC*SE is correct. This is a combination of heading into peak season (school break has just wrapped up in western Canada and is starting in UK -- my flight was full of British school kids today in the back cabin) and route rationalization between the two carriers. The rising prices are also a factor of fuel prices. So I don't blame this one on a Miltonian conspiracy.

[This message has been edited by Shareholder (edited 04-01-2000).]

The one thing I really do like is the fact that Fairmont Hotels and Resorts published websaver weekend rates with AC this week. There really were some GREAT deals this week http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Look at AC's (and to a limited extent CP) web specials today! $282 RT YYC-YYZ all taxes included on AC and CP. Compare that to UA's US web specials for transcontinental flights and you would be paying a lot more.

Yes, noticed the fares this weekend between YYC/YEG and YYZ have come down about $20 from their levels a couple of weeks ago. US$160 (Cdn$280)is a very competitive fare. That's about Cdn$50 more than I'm paying for BA's best weekend special fare LHR-BRU.

NOTE TO FISCH: Regarding Fairmount Hotels websaver rates, there are only 2 listed this week.

I tried to book the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal this weekend, and was told that there is a 2-nt minimum. Apparently, this applies to all websaver fares for Fairmount properties, although it doesn't state it on the website!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Effective immediately web specials will no longer be offered on transborder routes. This is due to the inability to offer electronic ticketing. Until CP and AC are on the same computer system, the only transborder web specials will be found thru AC who do most of CP's ground handling in the US.

Effective immediately web specials will no longer be offered on transborder routes. This is due to the inability to offer electronic ticketing. Until CP and AC are on the same computer system, the only transborder web specials will be found thru AC who do most of CP's ground handling in the US. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Well, anyway, that's there story, and they're sticking to it.

(CPYVRThanks for the info. I have no doubt you have faithfully reported what you have been told. It's just that I don't have a lot of faith in the people making those decisions, or the associated press releases. After all, I've regularly used web specials without e-ticketing, and I can't see how that would "prevent" CP from offering web specials.)

Yes, I have as well, for example flying YVR-LAX on an AS codeshare, where an e-ticket was not available. The agent I spoke with on the phone just extended the time I had to purchase the ticket so that I could pick it up at the airport on my way.