So I always thought this wasn't allowed. Even on award tickets, in the rules it always says "25k miles - Wholly within USA and Canada", but when you try to book a ticket between 2 Cdn. cities on DL or AA for example which I have tried in the past, it just says "this routing pair not allowed".

Today while looking for a UA award ticket YUL-YVR, assuming it would be an AC Star award, I was given the routing YUL-IAD-ORD-YVR and YVR-DEN-ORD-YUL on the return. Anyone else see that before? Must be interesting when going through customs....

-mike

Not on award. I
have flown: YYZ-ORD-YYC-ORD-YYZ on UA on a paying ticket several times. When asked by US Customs, I simply reply, Like to support United. Custom officers smile and couple have said: "Thankyou for flying United."
As for their Canadian Counterpart no reaction.

A flight between 2 Canadian cities, as part of a single continuous journey, can only be legally served by a Canadian carrier. A US carrier going between 2 Canadian cities with routing via a US city is called cabotage and is not currently allowed. You can do it with 2 separate tickets and sometimes the systems let these cabotage bookings slip through, but they are not legal nonetheless.

Remember you're paying that outrageous US customs/immigration/ag fee of $40 or so. If on two separate tickets, you're paying it twice! I've done it a couple of times, back when CP used to have very cheap weekend sell-offs. It was sometimes cheaper to book YEG-YYC-DFW return and DFW-YYZ return than YEG-YYZ-YEG. On occasion I have also seen a NW routing between YYZ-MSP-YEG show up on ITN, competitive with non-stop all Canadian flights at the time.

It is my understanding that you are allowed to do this on an award, as you are not "paying" the US carrier to transport you. I've certainly done it on an award before (YYZ-ORD-YVR on AC and UA, issued by US), and have had no problems at all with any of the airlines or at immigration.

There are other examples of this, for instance, DL flies JFK-BCN-MAD-JFK and you can fly the BCN-MAD segment (by itself) as part of an award.

There are examples of US carriers selling Canada-US-Canada travel as part of a single ticket as well; I am not sure how they justify it (looks like they record it as two separate segments on the fare breakdown, although each one is priced lower than if you bought them individually) - you can book America West from Toronto to Vancouver for about $250 (US) one way leaving tomorrow plus $58 in taxes, broken down as follows:

Tax: US Domestic Segment $6.40
Tax: Canada GST $18.15
Fee: US Immigration $7.00
Fee: US Passenger Facility Charge $4.50
September 11 Security Fee $2.50
Fee: Canadian Airport Improvement $12.72
Fee: Canadian Air Traveler's Security $6.74

A current UA FT thread is re-visiting this.

Have x-linked them here.