Smiley90

PDX-YVR roundtrips are so cheap too though!

stephem

And in the case of J fares it's often a couple thousand dollars for PacNW flyers. While the bulk of what is covered in this thread is referenced in other threads that were started over the last week or two, for ex-SEA travellers, DL has been filing some significantly lower ex-YVR fares (that actually connect in SEA) for months now. These DL fares arent as low as the current crop of ST and *A fares, but they have often been $2k less than ex-SEA fares, which even with a walk up fare for SEA-YVR will save you $1700 or more.

Dieuwer

Instead of discounting ex-Canada fares, the airlines could just cut capacity to/from Canada.

Smiley90

Hey now, don't give them bad ideas. This is customer-friendly for a change.

vernonc

Yup we need our Canadian peso to take us far and wide cheaply
And we have nice cities up north that we invite all of you to visit. At least when its not winter.

rbAA

Actually, the coach fares are much lower out of YYZ for me. I repositioned my flying to start/end at YYZ starting in June and using either HKG or PVG, I build in a stopover in LAX or SFO. I just ticketed YYZ-LAX-SFO-LAX-PVG-DFW-YYZ for Jan/Mar and it was hundreds less than doing a West Coast-PVG or HKG. And, the LAX stopover didn't add much to the lowest RT without stops. A bunch more miles as well. Plus, like someone mentioned, Toronto's a cool town. I'll find out exactly how cool in January.

Smiley90

You did LAX-SFO-LAX? You sure that's not a typo? Or is that a separate booking?

PaulInTheSky

I think there's a point that some might have missed - Competition. If you want to lure all the ex-Canadian passengers to go out of their way not to fly AC, this is one way to do it.

It is not just this year, but we are close enough to YYZ to re-position to YYZ. Apparently, we take advantage of the lower cost out of YYZ. The only thing is due to the more reasonable fuel costs, and degradation of the service, there are less people willing to fly, and facing one of the worst travel seasons of travel, airlines have no choice but cut the ticket price.

Seems very natural.

Dieuwer

Why you want to lure them? Ignore them!

rbAA

YYZ-LAX
LAX-SFO
SFO-PVG (didn't feel like doing the red-eye to DFW)
PVG-YYZ

Came up with the routing with stopovers in LAX and SFO. $846

drvannostren

Sarcasm? If we're talking about tacking on another $400 to a $3000J fare sure. But I find the reverse of this is often true for Y fares. Not always of course, but often. So adding $250-600 CAD on a Y fare that was $800 ex-LAX/PDX/SEA/SFO/SJC isn't usually cost effective when flying from YVR is only an extra $300 to start with. YVR-SEA does make sense, but that's when I start looking at my time. Driving 3 hours to save $300...$50 gas each way, $100 to park, suddenly I'm only saving $100 and that $100 isn't worth the hassle of arriving at SEA at 23:00 and driving home.

cfischer

I am surprised this is a thread at all. J prices out of Canada have been much cheaper than the ex-US for many years. Nothing new here.

SkyBuck

Yes, but if all of us visit the same week, it would get rather crowded.

BigKing

This has been the case for a long time, but with the exchange rate this year the price differences are larger. Being SEA based, I have done this several times out of YVR. I suggest that anyone who is planning to try this give careful consideration to ALL the costs though, some of the reasons that I do not always do this:

- The time to position and the buffer time to make sure you do not misconnect. I have had return flights from Europe get into YVR late and missed the last Alaska flight to SEA, ended up paying for a hotel because the YVR-SEA leg is a separate ticket.
- Flights from SEA-YVR are often $250 or more and cost of gas and parking is usually that much or more.
- Flights that arrive from Europe in the late afternoon mean that I am usually getting home at 8 PM or 9 PM, so the return flight is 24 hours of awake time, unless you are a person that can sleep well on an airplane in the daytime.

I think the ex-YVR/YYZ/YUL flights make the most sense when you are traveling with family (3-4 people). At that point you can save $4,000 on airfare and you may need to get a hotel at YVR, pay for gas and $250-$300 in parking fees. Overall you will save several thousand for your extra time and hassle. When I am traveling solo I don't think the ex-YVR trick is a very good deal when I factor in all the expenses and time.
In th

albert436

This was news to me, then again I am a noob.

So thanks for posting about this. I am in Southern California so it may not help me, unfortunately.

Or is there some way it could work from here to Asia or Europe ? I suppose one would have to figure in the additional cost to Canada, plus the extra hours spent travelling. But to avoid the long long transoceanic flight in economy is certainly worth something, isn't it ?