emma dog

Doesn't surprise me. I just got hit with a $500+ R/t ticket ATL-MCO during March on a K fare.

bwhite

If your husband will be using BUF and driving to Toronto be aware there are several bridges that he can use to get across the river into Canada and back again.

I have generally found the Peace Bridge to be least congested and easiest to cross, assuming he is not a Nexus holder. The Queenston/Lewiston bridge can have some very long wait times. There are several sites that will give you border wait times for each bridge, in both directions. Google 'Canada border wait times'.

If using a GPS, he may want to pre-load the bridge of choice as a destination since the quickest path as determined by a GPS will not factor in border wait times. Allow for this in the time budget for departure.

There are several gas stations very close to BUF for refilling the rental when bringing it back.

nabco

I fly into Toronto and Montreal quite often, I either fly into Detroit or Buffalo for Toronto and Burlington, VT for Montreal

jamesteroh

Or fly into DTW, drive to Windsor (there may even be bus service from the airport) and then take VIA Rail to Toronto.

Airfare out of DTW to YYZ has gotten out of hand (and also to YUL where it has tripled in the past 5 to 7 years).

VIA rail is pretty punctual (if the train arrives over 1 hour and 10 mintues late they have to give you a voucher for half your fare and if it's over 4 hours and 10 mintues late it's your full fare) and the station is convenient to downtown so if you need to be downtown you save the time and expensive taxi fare of the commute from the airport as well.

WhiteYUL

From a canuck's view all the points raised are great ideas. I can vouch for high fares ex-YUL/YYZ and on a Direct ATL-YYZ/YUL with virtually no competition my eyebrows only raise when the fare is below $900, advanced purchsed. Don't try getting something last minute, it'll set you back close to 2Gs. In an RJ. For 2 hours or so.

BTV/PBG are easy and quick drives to YUL, inder an hour. DTW/Windsor to GTA I find are longish, but do-able and really nice in the fall. Haven't done BUF to GTA in ages, though.

baccarat0809

As a BUF native, I agree with what the others have said already but want to add my opinion on the 3 bridges to choose from.

#1 peace bridge. Probably the easiest way to get across BUT can back up with truck traffic.

#2 rainbow bridge. Best for quick crossing though a bit out of the way, you can more than make up the time due to the truck traffic at #1 or #3. No commercial traffic allowed here.

#3 queenston-lewiston bridge. Mainly designed for commercial traffic this bridge has the greatest probability of being backed up.

When he lands he should google the bridge times and then choose. I would also recommend #1 provided there was no wait time. If there is a wait time then #2 without a doubt is the way to go.

bwhite

One last thought having been bitten by this... cellular voice and especially data is very expensive when roaming in Canada. My old Blackberry had a Garmin app that required a live data connection to work as a GPS. Very expensive GPS to operate when roaming out of the US. Suggest he sets "Data when roaming" to OFF and avoid long cell voice calls until well back into the US. INTL SMS adds up quickly too but most allow receive when roaming for free (costs to send a reply though).

The TomTom GPS app on my iPhone does not need a live data connection to work and is self contained with US/Canada maps so it works great in Canada.

WhiteYUL

Good points on the roaming, however, there are either temporary roaming bundles from your carrier or pretty reasonable NA roaming packages. I manage a few dozen Verizon Wireless accounts (US) and the (vocie) packages are a far sight better than pure roaming charges. But watch our for data, I know this one guy use his data card up here and get dinged for $1700 after a stay of a few days.

belle3388

Good helpful tips/advice, y'all

Thanks again.

Tomphot

Very disappointing - trying to make a trip to YYZ on DL - as usual, non-stop is pricing at $917
United offers non-stop service for $480.

DJMeatBall

United doesn't have a hub at YYZ or ATL... maybe it's an Mapleflot, errr, Air Canada codeshare?

Out of my Element

haven't seen anyone suggest ATL-BOS, then switch to Porter to the downtown airport.

SamuelS

YYZ - ATL is Mapleflot, but you can buy the tickets via UA as they have their own allocation of seats and it's sometimes less.

Mapleflot YYC-LAX was always massively cheaper (as much as half) when booked as a CO flight rather than as an AC flight, a few months back. Now they seem to be more closely aligned.

Singleflyer

YYZ is very expensive, and it always has been.

About 8 years ago ONE WAY YYZ-MHT on a beech 1900 was more than $900.00

And that was the norm

aubreyfromwheaton

I would not pick DTW as a coterminal for YYZ! It's a boring 3.5-5 hr drive on the 401!

In fact, I have chosen to fly Porter Air YQG-YTZ rather than drive which was awesome.

You have to still drive to Windsor if you want to take the train to TO.

Call Porter Air and beg them to start a YTZ-ATL area route.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhExEZvJNI