IMO Both the U.S. and Canada have gotten excessive with the taxes; it used to be the U.S. more than Canada but it sounds like it's "balancing out."

Not surprisingly, it has killed a LOT of travel. This past week, for example, they had an ATL-YUL RT at $116, but taxes would add about another $100. A real deal-killer.

Seems the Canadians have more to lose in this madness, since they run a travel trade deficit with the U.S. and could potentially close a lot of it with open skies and fares that would otherwise be competitive with flying within the U.S.

Also makes you wonder why it's not a NAFTA issue, since all the taxes could be seen as a form of protectionism.

My own strategy has been to fly to Canada only on FF-award tickets (saving on some of the taxes), or to do the time-honored thing of flying to BUF, DTW or SEA and driving. Could be the drug companies are trying to make taxes so high to cancel out savings from buying prescription drugs in Canada

Would agree that the general situation on international travel taxes is ridiculous. Best advice IMO is to COMPLAIN. I have written letters to my congressmen about this. They don't like to hear it, but at the very least I'm denying them a "No one has complained about it so far" argument that they'd be sure to use otherwise. It might also help to point out that the U.S. is losing BILLIONS of inbound tourist dollars and the jobs that go with it over its travel-tax and visa policies.

[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited 11-10-2003).]