Overlapping Itinerary question (YYZ)
 

Hello great people of Flyertalk,

I've got a trip planned from Prague via Frankfurt to Toronto and then on to Windsor, Ontario. The thing is, something last minute came up and I booked a flight to Las Vegas from Toronto eight hours after I arrive there next week.

I called AirCanada looking to cancel the last leg of my flight (YYZ-YQZ) so that I can pick up my bags at YYZ for my flight to LAS. They told me there's a €125 fee to change my itinerary, even though I just wanted to cancel one leg of my trip.

Since I find this appalling I'm looking for alternatives to avoid paying that fee. I've flown into YYZ before, with a connection to YQG, but I want to know the following.

1. Will I always have to pick up my own bags when YYZ is my first point of entry into Canada, and therefor have the option to just not drop my bags for the YGZ flight and check back in upstairs for the later flight to LAS?

2. Will/Can I get into any sort of trouble when not taking the last flight of my itinerary and then trying to check in for another flight that same day?

Thank you all for your help.

The last time I had an intl itin connecting through YYZ (albeit a few years ago), my bags were interlined all the way through to YVR. I believe you pick up your bags only when arriving from the US.

As such, I think your only hope is asking the PRG airline counter to ticket ONLY to YYZ.

As for #2, I don't think anyone can definitely answer that.

From the YYZ Website:

Step 1: Go to Canada Border Services (CBSA) checkpoint

Step 2: Claim your luggage.

Step 3: Recheck your luggage

So basically after you land from Frankfurt, you will clear Canadian immigration, which will force you to claim your luggage and then recheck it to Windsor. so in this case you can just no-show the last leg and make it to Vegas!

Thank you so much! I feel like an idiot for not finding that out myself ;) Hence my perfectly chosen user name.

I hope it isn't a return ticket back to PRG, because missing your YQG segment will cancel the rest of your itinerary.

Now that I think about it, yes, I did have to pick up my bags and claim through CBSA when I arrived at YYZ.

You could also wait until after the Windsor flight leaves. Then go up to the AC counter and say that you were distracted and missed the flight and will go to Union Station to get a train. You could ask about getting a refund and listen to the response before deciding what you want to do officially.