My niece is spending the year as a nanny in Calgary. We've already initiated plans for her parents (as well as Mrs. Swede's parents) to fly to DEN over Christmas and New Year's. I figured, YYC is not too far, airfares shouldn't be too expensive.

$800-900 round-trip?! Are you (bleepin') kidding me?!

Are fares ex-YYC to the US always this expensive? I realize this is over a very popular time of the year, but I could have never fathomed tickets being this expensive. I started looking in early September, and fares have only decreased to the low $700 range just recently.