PumpkinSmasher

Hey all, I have a question. So basically, I've been eyeing an itinerary that would go from Zurich to Toronto to Montreal on a rewards ticket. In a a perfect world, the journey would end in Toronto, but alas, that's not an option. It seems like this itinerary is married together. However, I don't need to go to Montreal.

So I'm wondering, can I just leave after we deplane in Toronto? I'm a US citizen and plan to take a separate flight to my home base in NYC on the same day within a few hours.

I know different airlines view this a bit differently. I'm not overly worried how the airline will take it unless someone tells me otherwise. It seems to be generally understood that if you don't abuse the "hidden city" policy, it's not a big deal (and I won't be). I'm more concerned about any potential customs issues. I was hoping though that since the additional flight would be in Canada, this might not be a problem. I also would not be checking in any luggage of course.

Any help or insight would be appreciated.

Stranger

If it's the last leg, what would you expect them to do with you if you just disappear?

Just go for it.

pitz

Yeah you can do it for the last segment without any reprecussions. You can even request a refund of taxes and certain surcharges collected for the segment that goes unused and forfeited through the Air Canada website if its a 014 ticket.

No protection of your connection, of course.

Don't see why you'd have any Customs issues. If you're a non-Canadian, arrive in Canada, and are deemed non-admissible, I'm pretty sure the CBSA would be happy to escort you to your already booked flight out of Canada. Because you're travelling on a separate ticket which cannot be linked into your itinerary, you may not be eligible for the Int'l-US transit facility even if your onwards flight leaves from the same terminal. So you'd probably have to do a full clearance into Canada.

PumpkinSmasher

Thanks for the insight. Interesting to know I may be able to receive a refund of taxes/surcharges. The taxes/surcharges on Air Canada flights from Aeroplan aren't cheap so that would be nice.

I'm fine to do a full clearance in Toronto. I just don't want to take the extra leg to Montreal. It's a 3 hour layover plus an 1h 15m flight. The flight time to NYC is pretty similar from both Toronto/Montreal so I'm just trying to save a bunch of hours.

pitz

When I did it recently, I got back ~$50 on a single domestic leg. No availability on YYZ-LGA/EWR/JFK for that day or the next? Keeping in mind that since you're travelling on an Int'l itinerary, <24 hours constitutes a valid connection even on the domestic segments. You can free-standby if you're ticketed in I/J, or pay-SDC if you're in X/Y if you can get a connection confirmed.

PumpkinSmasher

That's really great to hear and good to know. The flight is on a Sunday so I prefer to keep that, as going a day earlier would cut my trip short a day and going back a day later would push me into an extra vacation day. That said, I did try doing a multi-city route with ZRH>YYZ>LGA in I (as that is what comes up when doing the ZRH>YYZ>YUL route) and when I attempt to route it through LGA, I get this: "There are no flights found for all or part of your search. Complete itineraries are required for international Market Fare Flight rewards. Use the Availability Calendar to select other available dates."

However, I wasn't previously familiar with Aeroplan as this is only my second booking, but after reading around this forum, it seems like talking to the Call Center or their superiors in Tampa may produce that intended route? If it'll make a difference, I'll definitely call. Just wasn't getting anything from it. Curious what your take is.

pitz

Ewww, its Market Fare. Then the rules are different. Stick around here long enough, and eventually you'll pick up at least some of the rules. Unless you're sitting on boatloads of AP points that you can't figure out how to spend, usually Market Fares aren't really good value. Most of us aim to have our redemptions at 4 cents/point or better equivalent.

Most of us would try to book something like that with a Classic Fare. And there are a lot of tricks one can use to try and minimize use of the 'metal' of certain carriers that have high surcharges.

The call center usually won't do much of anything for you (other than just spit out what you could find yourself on the Aeroplan website) unless you have another valid routing with availability figured out. And the Aeroplan site itself won't produce all of the possible itineraries, and tends to favour high-surcharge carriers.

If you have some date (ranges) you wouldn't mind sharing, and the actual citie(s) you need to visit, perhaps someone would be able to do a little bit of digging for you.

SparseFlyer

Since when can you claim a refund on a partially used through fare you intentionally missed to take advantage of hidden city?

PumpkinSmasher

Thanks for this. To be clear, the itinerary I'm looking to book isn't a market fare one. That's just the error message it spits out when I try to do a multi-city itinerary. In the end, if I have to book a separate ticket for my SO and I from YYZ > LGA, it's not the end of the world. Looks like it's $132 each.

I've tried many different combinations to try to get home on that Sunday in business and it seems like ZRH > YYZ on Air Canada is the only one available (was happy to consider leaving out of other cities in Europe and returning anywhere near ORD or east to make it happen). I would have much preferred LOT / Turkish / Swiss etc. or any of the airlines with lower Aeroplan surcharges but couldn't find anything on that front unfortunately.

I do wonder though if I book that itinerary as-is and then try calling and seeing if the last part of the itinerary could be re-routed through LGA if that has a chance of working. Seems like it can't hurt even though it may be a waste of time.

rankourabu

If you call, can you not book the open jaw and save yourself YYZ-LGA (and the hassle of flying more AC)?

PumpkinSmasher

That's what I was asking about but wasn't sure. I actually did go ahead and book the itinerary this morning although I could call and ask.

pitz

Ummm, since always? You get the taxes/unused AIFs associated with the skipped coupon back. The actual fare is forefeited. AC hasn't modified its tariff to seize those or to charge a fee for a refund (yet), but conceivably its a future 'enhancement' they could try.

LondonElite

emilio911

Wouldn't they only check your bag to Toronto?

RangerNS

Some inbound European sources are eligible for OSS now, so one would have to short check bags if that is the case. Which may set off alarms within AC.

No risk with only carry-on thought.