Workarounds For Poor DL/WS Interline Connections on USA-CAN Flights
In the last few years WS has significantly improved it's USA offering but somehow connections and interline options with DL have gotten worse. This is especially true when flying from smaller centers in Western Canada.
When traveling to the Southeastern 1/3 of the USA it appears that they will only connect you through ATL and building specific itineraries with DL or WS appears to be much more difficult than UA/AC as noted in the following discussion
Multi-city versus connections. Much cheaper? Any disadvantages?
When building specific itineraries on DL/WS I'm not necessarily looking for the best price in many cases it's the best times.
The routing I'm working with now is PNS-YQU. I used Jan 13 as my test date.
The earliest WS/DL will get me into YQU on a single ticket is 1:22AM
But if I buy two tickets (PNS-ATL-YWG-YYC and YYC-YQU) I can leave at 9:41 and get in at 8:12 it makes the shortest duration of any of the WS/DL offerings and the cost is $448CAD for the two tickets
For comparison if the two tickets are PNS-ATL and ATL-YWG-YYC-YQU the price is $557CAD for the two.
Right now I'm typically getting better connections on US/WS shared routings (bought on one ticket from UA and found on a Google Flights search) than I am from this supposed great DL/WS partnership.