YOWgary

Yeah, there's a lot of that going around.

That 0600 flight was J9 R9 until they cancelled the next two flights this afternoon.

hsandhar

Yes, non-stop. My bad, should’ve used that first.

hsandhar

In case anyone is interested, quick update.

YYZ-LAS (non-stop) cancelled by AC this evening for both departure and return. Ended up taking the AP 65% bonus cancellation offer. For a base fare of 2043.96 (2 tickets; business), I got 113,080 AP.

WestJet was showing non-stops for the same dates, so booked the Premium with them; about $150 cheaper than AC's business, oh well. If WestJet cancels, then at least I can get a "proper" refund instead of credit, might take a few months though.

hollywoodcory17

WestJet's December schedule should be published by the weekend, and I don't believe LAS will be happening, at least not from YYZ. The only routes I've heard that are planned to resume are HUX, HNL and OGG, with a possibility of MZT.

Also looks like AC has chopped YYC-IAH in December too. So far PHX and OGG are still there for now.

bambinomartino

Well slap my butt and call me Sally!

I got a flurry of emails today, throughout the afternoon about changes, etc., even a "refund" that really worried me. Then my AC app went nuts and I could not see my reservation so I thought oh no, not again and called AC! Well, turns out there was equipment change and seat reassignment (the refund of $0.00 was about that), so we are all good for my now Saturday YYZ-PLS flights.

Then I saw today's posts on here and I just checked the flights that I used to have, and yup, gone! All December flights (x23 supposedly) are gone except for the Saturday flights. And from a 320 it's now been changed to a 223!!! So glad I changed my dates to Saturday! I really cannot overstate the role you fine people played in that, opening my eyes to the scam AC has been running, selling tickets to flights they never intended to fly following my KOA booking fiasco. Thank you!!! Renewing my subscription to expertflyer helped too in realizing just how anemic demand was for the route.

The business class cabin is full for both inbound and outbound (Dec 26 - Jan 2), and except a couple of 9s (Y and M if I recall), everything else is zero outbound, and zeroes across the board for availability on the return leg. With it being once a week only, I sure do hope no overbooking/bumping.

It also appears that 2 of the 5 weekly flights have been cancelled for the YYZ-BGI route for December.

Fingers crossed we've seen the worst of it.

hsandhar

Ouch. Then I’d much rather cancel these tickets tomorrow first thing (within 24 hours of booking), get the full refund, and then try to book it next week (if the route is still on the list (assuming the schedule comes out on the weekend).

Thanks for the info.

YYCCL3

YYC-FRA gone until at least Jan 12 now. So yet another trip that I won't be taking that flight will come to pass.

I won't be going through Mexico again though, there will be no more F and the other reasons I had to go that way will be taken care of on my imminent journey.

Adam Smith

Welcome to FT

No guarantees the flight will operate. You could always play chicken and hope they cancel it and you potentially get a refund, depending on what the policies are at that time.

What's the cost of the new tickets vs the cost of the Japan tickets? If you just change an existing ticket, you will forfeit any residual amount. For example, if you paid $800 per person for the Japan flights, and the Mexico flights are $600 per person, you'll lose that $200 per person. If you got a great deal on Japan, you're in luck - you can just pay the difference and be on your way, i.e. if you reverse those numbers, you pay $200 per person of "additional collection" (sometimes referred to as "ADCOL" around here) and it's done. I doubt this could be done online, but the call centre can certainly do it.

A refund for what reason? If AC runs the flights, they won't provide you a refund, and I'm not aware of anyone else who would do that either. As crappy as AC has been to its customers recently, the only way to get a fare that you can refund if the flight isn't cancelled is to buy a refundable fare, or purchase cancellation insurance that lets you cancel for any reason. Although in the latter case, beware of payouts - a friend of mine purchased that insurance for a trip he booked back in March and cancelled a couple weeks later, and last I heard, he still hadn't been paid out by the insurance company.

In any case, you may want to check the terms of your booking. Depending on the fare type that you purchased, they may be refundable, less a cancellation penalty. If you bought a Standard fare, you're out of luck, but any higher brand and you may be able to get your money back less the penalty. Whether it's worth it to you to pay that penalty is up to you.

You also have the option to cancel the Japan tickets in exchange for Aeroplan points. That should happen near-instantaneously. If there are good options on points to Mexico (or wherever else you might want to go), perhaps that's a good way to do it, although most FTers would say that paying 1.82 cents per point is not great value.

But ultimately, if you want to avoid losing value, taking the gift card and waiting on it might be your only option. If you want to book something in the interim, your only option would be to pony up fresh cash to AC for the new booking.

There's really no great solution these days, unfortunately.

bambinomartino

Just to add, AC is still scheduled to fly DAYLY from YYZ to PLS starting January 11. Not a chance that will happen of course, but according to expertflyer a few people have purchased tickets for many of those "daily" flights. This is unconscionable, and surely actionable!

hollywoodcory17

AC's changes to it's planned Hawaii schedule is the plot twist I didn't even see coming in 2020:

YVR-HNL now resumes December 17 now 3x weekly, well YVR-OGG now resumes December 17 4x weekly.

YYC-OGG is unchanged, still scheduled to resume December 4 once weekly. Crazy to think AC could resume Hawaii from YYC not only before YVR, but even before WS does. J class bookings also look pretty good on this flight too from what I can see. I imagine the Alberta testing pilot is to thank for this.

All subject to change of course as we all know.

bambinomartino

AC 587 (YYC-OGG) is cancelled for December 4 and 11 per expertflyer, but is on for the 18th, although it shows only a handful of occupied seats in Business and Economy (789). YVR- HNL on the 17 is still on, and looks pretty full (only 1 seat left in Business).

The challenge still remains with the pre-flight testing to avoid quarantine. There is yet to be any Canadian lab listed on the "trusted partner" list. There are already a ton of Japan-based ones.

hollywoodcory17

Your right, must have just cancelled it as I double checked this morning before posting it. There was only 4 empty J class seats before it was cancelled. So now both AC and WS hope to resume Hawaii in mid-December.

I see YYC-PHX is still scheduled from the 3rd for now.

EvilSilentBob

Thanks Adam, appreciate the welcome. As an infrequent flyer (3 a year in the before days) I love the enthusiasm here. I'm more likely to play chicken, and, if we fly, perhaps connect to an Asian country that is accepting travelers and is safe.

hsandhar

Hey guys, just a bit confused here, could use your help. Long story short, AC cancelled YYZ-LAS for late Dec (and early Jan return), so I got the refund as AP. I then ended up booking a similar flight on WestJet but ended up cancelling that as well as one of the users here pointed out that WestJet's December schedule (once it comes out) will probably axe that too. I cancelled the WestJet within 24 hours so I get the full refund on my card.

So I was just going through AC's latest schedule https://services.aircanada.com/porta...ABC975DFD72085

According to the schedule (screenshot attached) , I see that they're starting a YYZ-LAS from Dec 1, and its the same flight they cancelled yesterday.

Am I correct in assuming that according to the schedule, they will be starting this route again on Dec 1? in that case I'd rather wait till Dec 1 and book the non-stop instead of trying to find connecting flights for now.

On Time Reports

AC has canceled all flights to LAS until mid January.

Don't go off that schedule. If you go off that schedule, then they'll be flying 3x daily to Shanghai and 2x daily to Beijing - we all know that ain't happening.