sea_flyer_17

Anyone have a good sense of minimum connection time in YVR for international to US (both officially, as well as realistically)? We have an award ticket that's Condor into YVR, then Alaska to SEA. (There was no seats on the Condor direct to SEA).

Thanks!

sea_flyer_17

And, on that note, does Alaska check bags through to Condor (and vice versa)? It's the same award ticket covering both.

jinglish

They'll interline, and the preclearance experience is actually smoother than normal US immigration--rather than waiting for your bags to arrive before going through customs, the immigration officer just shows you a photo of your luggage and confirms it's yours.

I don't know how busy immigration will be during the afternoon with other European arrivals around the same time, but on my two morning arrivals from NRT it was pretty quick, especially with Global Entry. I think last time the whole process of reclearing security, using the GE kiosk, and speaking to the immigration officer took five or seven minutes at most. Just be aware that after that is a loooooong walk to the gate AS uses (at least for QX flights), maybe ten minutes. Whatever the ticketed connection time is should be more than enough unless you DE flight is very delayed.

tonei

When I connected from JL to AA at YVR last year there were only one or two other passengers connecting to the US. Definitely spent more time walking than queuing.

nomiiiii

Alaska enforces minimum time of 2 hours in YVR for international-international if on the same ticket.

sea_flyer_17

Thanks! That explains why I couldn’t get them to switch to a routing just under that.