Hi, my wife and I are on a United business class award ticket to China in May. Though I did a fair amount of research trying to pick a good flight, I'm afraid I did not pay enough attention to the close connection in YVR. We are inbound from San Francisco on United and will be connecting to Beijing on Air Canada:

Fri, 13MAY16

UA784 SAN FRANCISCO, CA (SFO) 8:30 AM
VANCOUVER, BC CANADA (YVR) 10:52 AM

AC29 VANCOUVER, BC CANADA (YVR) 12:10 PM
BEIJING, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PEK) 2:10 PM (14MAY)
Flight operated by AIR CANADA

So, that is a 1 hour 18 minute connection, which would normally be fine for a simple domestic flight, but I am now concerned about being able to get through immigration formalities (if any), whether baggage must be picked up and re-checked (possibly involving Canada customs), plus the sheer amount of time it takes to get from wherever UA flights arrive (or wherever immigration/customs exits) to where AC flights board. Plus whether we have to go through a security check again.

One additional factor is that AC does not make seat selection available in advance for this flight, at least for UA customers on the UA site. So maybe we have to wait in line yet again at the gate for boarding passes, if they cannot be issued at SFO on check-in.

Add to this the frequent propensity for morning flights from SFO to be delayed due to weather (marine fog in spring and summer months).

Needless to say I am beginning to be sorry I booked this itinerary and am now in a mild state of panic about it. If we miss the connecting flight it might be difficult to get to Beijing to join a group tour which begins on May 15 (I did build in one extra day in case of airline woes, though).

Advice? Experience? Much thanks. Rebooking this will be painful but is probably better than missing the flight and being at the mercy of AC.

Call Air Canada with date, flight number and last name they will assign a seat and give you Record locator for future travel. There is a website links all over advising what the transfer process via YVR and whether it is so able or not. I think if on the same ticket and they are aware of inbound connection they will monitor your status via both carriers as neither one wants you stranded in Canada. I also anticipate like EWR UA pads their schedule extensively so even 65 minute in queue for takeoff and you still land on time.

There is a connection wizard here -

http://www.yvr.ca/en/navigating-yvr/...rough-yvr.aspx

You should be able to avoid Customs and just have a cursory immigration check. Your bags should be checked through.

Note that due to a quirk with Air Canada online check-in you can't check in until 24 hours before your AC flight (not your UA flight). So you'll be able to check in at 12:11 PM.

Thanks. Yes, I have seen the YVR connection navigator, which appears straightforward except that unless I am missing something, it gives no time estimate at all. (It refuses to load on my Mac with Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, but does work on my iPad.) I have been in some Canada Immigration queues (mostly in YYZ) that took more than half an hour, so some guidance there would be useful. If these particular queues are only for transit pax, I imagine they would go more quickly but it's not clear if that's the case.

gglave, I'm not sure what you are referring to by online check-in with AC -- if I have a seat assigment by phone, then the UA check-in agent will give me an AC boarding pass at SFO, right? (In which case I don't actually have to check in with AC, I can just go to the gate.) Or are you saying that AC will not give me a seat assignment by phone in advance?

The connection should be no problem. YVR is a small airport (compared to mega-hubs like LHR anyway) with only one terminal building and you don't need to queue for the main immigration line. Baggage does not need to be claimed and re-checked. Obviously if your flight is delayed that is a different issue, but I highly doubt you will take more than 20 minutes gate-to-gate for this connection at YVR.

I'm referring to using online-check in (also known as "web check in") on your computer 24 hours before your flight to enter your passport information, select better seats if they're available, enter your contact information for flight-delay text-messages etc. and print our your boarding passes.

Then you just proceed to the luggage drop-off stations at the airport and then head to security.

If you check in online you're also greatly reducing the chance that you'll be bumped.

United online check-in should be able to produce you both your United and Air Canada boarding passes, but if not you can check in separately - Once at United.com and once at AirCanada.com. Start with United.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...necheckin.aspx

https://www.united.com/travel/checkin/start.aspx

http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelin...eller/checkin/

For your trip home, most hotels have computers and printers available for guest use to check you in.

Thanks, yes, I use United online check-in regularly (most recently yesterday for today's flights ) and for international onward connections on partners, in some cases it produces both boarding passes (UA->NH), sometimes it says to go to the check-in desk at the airport.

I have never dealt directly with the connecting partner in advance, though, and the one time I tried (Lufthansa) they said they could not give me a LH record locator and United "owned" my PNR and they could not make any changes or do seat assignment. So who knows. I guess I can just call AC and ask them.

Since based on the above responses, I am not going to try to rebook the itinerary since all the alternatives I see are not very good, and the really good one (nonstop SFO-PEK) would require changing two Saver awards for two Standard awards, which would be a serious mileage hit. So what I'm most concerned with now is getting an advance seat assignment and boarding pass for the AC flight so as to be able to speed through the connection, esp. Immigration.

As RooseveltL said, call Air Canada and get a seat assignment and Air Canada's record locator for their leg.

I'm 96% sure that when you check in online with United they'll produce two boarding passes - One for UA, one for AC, however, as I said upthread, you won't be able to do this until 24 hours before your AC leg.

If for some reason UA can't check you in, you can use your AC record locator to check in for the AC leg on their site.