yubinjeon

I am traveling from ICN. My final destination is YQB.
Unfortunately, I was unable to purchase a ticket that takes me all the way to YQB.
My flight is ICN - PEK - YVR.
I have to purchase another ticket from YVR to YQB.
I am looking at which ticket to buy. The options are terrible.
My flight arrives in YVR at 11:30 am.
The YQB flight is either 13:05 pm or 23:20 pm.
PEK - YVR is air canada and YQB flight is also air canada.
I need to get the bags and re-check them, right? I will have to go through the immigration as well.
Do you think I'll be able to make the 13:05pm flight to YQB?

jc94

What time of year? My belief in airlines in general is so poor that my next different ticket change involves a ~28h layover between separate tickets. However that's winter.

If you buy both tickets with AC, they likely will transfer the luggage to final destination, but if you miss the connection for any reason including weather and mechanical you will very likely have to buy an on the spot replacement ticket.
I would phone AC and ask them to add YVR YQB onto the ticket and suck up the change fee. Personally. Very easy to get stuck in a long line at customs or delayed even an hour and then you are in trouble.

Or plan to spend the day doing something in YVR and take the later flight. Which almost certainly means you're going to have to collect luggage and re-check it.

yubinjeon

I am going this July 22nd.
I called AC and I'm hearing two different things. One person said that YVR requires you to get your luggage through customs and then re-check it. The other one said that I will be able to connect luggage between PEK-YVR flight and YVR-YQB flight. Which one is true?

YEG_SE4Life

You can get your luggage transfered. When you check in, you ask the check-in agent to check your luggage through to YQB. The suggestion above was that you call AC and add the YVR YQB to your current ticket, as an additional segment. Have you tried doing that? I don't really know if it will work. There is also a flight leaving YVR< through YYZ that gives you an extra 10 minutes (13:15).

Often1

At a minimum, OP should check with AC as to the cost of the change. Whether on one or two tickets, Customs will be at YVR.

If he is stuck with two tickets, the transfer time -- this is not a connection as it would be on two tickets -- is a matter of OP's risk tolerance. If he no shows for the second flight, even if it is because he arrives late into YVR, he faces having to purchase a new ticket at walk-up prices, In this situation, I would purchase the later flight and see if I could talk my way onto the earlier flight if things work out.

pitz

delete...

tjl

International arrivals to YVR will go through Canada immigration and customs. The line at the immigration hall can be long in the late morning, due to lots of large aircraft from Asia arriving around that time.

http://www.yvr.ca/-/media/yvr/docume...glish-2017.pdf shows the terminal map and various possible connecting paths. You would follow the path from the international gates (D 48-78) to Canada, which is down to the level 2 customs hall (including picking up checked baggage), then back up to the Canada gates (A, B, and C).

skybluesea

This is correct, YVR does NOT have the baggage bypass available like in Toronto from select EU & US origins. And even with NEXUS, unless you have baggage priority baggage delivery can be slow at times during a peak summer day, and Sunday 22 will certainly be humming.

Does your ticket class permit Same Day Change?

If it looks like you will miss cnx with significantly tardy departure out of PEK, then call AC reservations and pay the fee.

maybe other folks who are more versed on SDC can comment, as this can avoid you needing to buy walk-up fare.

good luck, but with two tickets, remember you bear the risk as AC more than willing to do so, but for a hefty premium.

CZAMFlyer

At the airport in ICN, the AC agent can look at your separate reservations and link them, avoiding the worry of missing your connection in YVR. Obtain a boarding pass for your onward travel from Vancouver, or at least confirm that you've been checked in for the flight.

YVR does have a baggage (customs) bypass process for many Air Canada flights. Unfortunately, coming from Asia, yours is not eligible.

Clear immigration via a kiosk. Collect your bag from the carousel. Exit the baggage hall to the left with the majority of passengers, hand in your customs receipt to the CBSA person and exit into the general arrivals hall. Take an elevator/escalator one level up and follow the signs to domestic (Canada) check-in. Drop off your bag there and clear security at the C gates.

90 minutes should be plenty of time, even at the midday peak Asia arrivals time, so you should feel secure buying the 13:05 flight.

skybluesea

Correct if flight on time, unfortunately, FlightAware reporting AC 30 only on-time 6 times out of the last 14 arrivals.

again, suggest investigating Same Day Change rules if your ticket permits...

pitz

(I had the same theory but deleted my post earlier upon this realization)

... Only problem is, the OP won't be interacting with an AC agent at ICN. He will be interacting with an Asiana, Air China, etc., agent for the ICN-PEK segment that ultimately connects to AC in PEK. Even if the AC check-in is open for their 2X daily to Canada, they can't do anything to a ticket whose first segment is on another carrier.

So whether the linking can be accomplished by the ICN check-in agent is questionable. Language, IT, policy, or even training barriers could exist.

If it were a pure all-AC itinerary, then there would be, without question, an ability to link the tickets and have a purely on-line connection with (auto)-protection for a misconnect at YVR.

But its obviously a mixture of 2 carriers, so there is certainly the possibility that a proper linking of the tickets could not be accomplished by the airline in question at check-in. An AC gate agent at PEK (the first interaction the OP would have with AC staff) might not be able to accomplish such either, and certainly would not be able to re-tag the bags. Although I have seen, at YVR Int'l baggage re-check after customs, a pile of bag tags printed out and waiting for passengers who were anticipated to need baggage re-routing.

Best way to go is the long connection (hanging out in YVR isn't the end of the world!), or have it all put on the same ticket or PNR's that are verified to be linked prior to the departure date. At baggage re-check, they might even be willing to put the OP on an onwards flight sooner if he explains the situation and the red eye is looking heavily booked.

BernardBlack

I have some similar questions:

I am booking two business-class award tickets from Australia (BNE/SYD/MEL) to YVR using Singapore miles. The inbound AC flights from Australia all arrive within ~30min of each other, by 07:30, and then there is an onward AC flight to DEN (the final destination) at 08:45, or otherwise around 14:00. (The outbound YVR-MEL a couple of weeks earlier is already booked.) The 08:45 flight meets the MCT, and can be booked with any of the inbound flights from Australia, but doesn't leave much extra room (70-90min scheduled layover).

There will be several other people accompanying these two passengers, but their tickets will be purchased with cash at some later time. It is much cheaper to buy YVR-(BNE/SYD-MEL) roundtrip and YVR-DEN as separate tickets for cash.

There are also UA flights YVR-DEN, including a happy medium of ~11:00, which could in general be included in a Star Alliance award, but I'm making this booking right at the outer end of the AC calendar (for award seats) and UA isn't yet open.

So, my options are:

1. Include YVR-DEN 08:45 in the award booking, and try to get everyone else checked-through from Australia onto the same flight. Can I get AC to link separate AC-only itineraries for the other passengers? Will the protected connection for the J award pax cover everyone else too?

2. Include YVR-DEN 14:00 in the award booking, and have everyone hang out in the terminal at YVR for six hours. If I book this, and the inbound arrives in plenty of time for them to make the connection, will AC entertain a same-day fly-ahead request?

3. Just book the (BNE/SYD/MEL)-YVR for now and get everyone economy tickets on whatever is cheap closer to the time.

Does anyone have any notes or recommendations?

YEG USER

LondonElite

pitz

If you can get things linked, whether a PNR link prior to arriving at the airport, or an at-airport linkage of all of the tickets, then MCT is just fine. Nobody will make you buy a new ticket or pay change fees for a no-show if you're properly checked in for a series of separate tickets that respect MCT if something is delayed and a connection is broken.

The key is that it can be a big risk at an outstation, particularly one for which a language or IT barrier may be a problem, getting everything linked up. Some carriers, such as BA, even absolutely refuse as a matter of policy (however misguided such is!). So if you try to DIY multiple independent tickets on independent reservations, this needs to be kept in mind.

And yes, good point about schedule changes, although if a schedule changes and damages MCT, certainly earlier travel could probably be arranged due to the schedule deviation. But at what price to one's sanity compared to just forking over the extra $$ or using a TA that can PNR-link properly.....