vincewy

You'll need a much bigger data set to get the whole picture. A comparison between the same airlines from ORD and YYZ will be more accurate. I've booked TK earlier out of YYZ a few months ago when 1 USD = 1.25 CAD and the price difference was already greater than $2000 on ORD/YYZ - Asia.

YYZ - HKG/PVG/PEK/CAN/TPE/MNL/ICN/NRT/KIX starts at $2713 USD
ORD - HKG/PVG/PEK/CAN/TPE/MNL/ICN/NRT/KIX starts at $5455 USD

This thread should be renamed starting at $2700 USD

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premi...ng-3126-a.html

I pulled the trigger and didn't want to take a chance on currency value and J availability (some routes J seats are sold out months ahead).

You can fly MDW - YTZ RT for $250 USD on Porter during off peak period, stay 1 night in Toronto and go on. Hotels near YYZ are cheap now, just look around hotwire.com

accrue450

That makes this savings very slightly riskier then. Thanks.

vincewy

From Michigan it's not that risky. If you suspect the weather is bad or the flight is cancelled for any reason just abandon YQG - YYZ/YTZ flights and drive to the airport. Again, even with above scenario I always have at least 5 hours between flights - something goes wrong at check-in (major delay/cancellation) at YQG then drive to YYZ.

If you're flying from other parts of US just stay in Toronto for the night to minimize the risk, and please do, it's a great NA city to venture around, even for a day, along with cheap hotels around the airport.

SFflyer123

great find, OP! thank you! ^

levistrauss

I did this earlier this year when my company balked at paying $5500 for a biz class ticket to Shanghai. YVR-NRT-PVG for less than half the price and the cost to fly to YVR from LAX was less than $200. My luggage went all the way through on AA and JAL.

chitownflyer

I used to use the KVS Tool, but they removed access to quick GDS fare listings & show fares without the fare classes on a list. I now use Expert Flyer for fare listings. I do a search from a city to a destination and choose business class. One down side to Expert Flyer is one must specify a date on the calendar and the number of days for the trip. To work around this, I usually specify 7-10 days in the trip length box, but one has to move dates around in the calendar when the potential sale timeframe is short such as for Thanksgiving Biz class sales.

cmd320

I've found this to be true as well. J/F seems much cheaper out of Canadian gateways (YYZ, YVR, YUL) than many similar US gateways (ORD, JFK, IAD, LAX). I've got no problem positioning to YYZ/YUL to take a $2000+ discount on intercontinental flights.

NA-Flyer

The reasons for prices discrepancies between US and CAN are: exchange rate + lower purchasing power in CAN than the US.

izzik

Well, that's not entirely true.. plenty of other countries out there where the USD goes far but airfares aren't dirt cheap (for Americans). Market forces, demand, competition, .. these things drive prices. Econ 101, folks.

Are ORD and YYZ comparable markets? No.
Are fares consistently cheaper ex-Canada vs ex-US? No.

If the price works out in your favor (considering all add'l positioning costs), then go for it. That much has ALWAYS been true.

grandgourmand

Yay, Canada is becoming like CMB and CAI!!!

Only kidding. I'm sure it will change over time, but these cheaper ex-Canada J fares are a sign of our weakened commodity-driven economy. Fewer J fares sold as companies are into cost containment/cutting mode. I can't really prove that, but I suspect it's the case.

NA-Flyer

Believe it or not: YYZ-CAI in J is selling at the same price of CAI-YYZ in J when flying AF or KLM

famosa

Nice discovery OP!

What is really interesting, is that while J fares are significantly cheaper out of Canada, Y fares still remain cheaper out of the US (at least some random ones that I checked).

So there is clearly more than just exchange rate differentials driving this...

vincewy

That's the pattern I see too for legacy carriers as far as pricing orders -

Y (US) << Y (CAN) << J (CAN) <<<<<<<<<<<<<< J (US)

Sometimes the difference between Y and J out of Canada is versy small. If you throw in Y+ into the equation, sometimes Y+ out of US is more expensive than J out of Canada, ouch! For this reason I tend to fly out of Canada when buying revenue J ticket. When I redeem for upgrades, I buy Y fares out of US and upgrade to get the best values.

Smiley90

Well if you think about it - with the Canadian economy kind of in shambles, people would be more likely to buy Y tickets instead of J, so the Y demand is still there and there's no need for a discount.

That said, for international fares, I still see ex-Can often cheaper than ex-USA, at least for border city combinations like YVR/SEA, where you can just drive across the border to catch a flight to save money.

Cat Man Do

I had fun trying to explain this to the CBSA officer at my Nexus interview. She just couldn't figure out why I might want to fly out of YVR instead of PDX to save "a few dollars", and kept asking "Isn't your time worth anything?". Sure it is. I'm willing to take some time to save hundreds of dollars.