zrs70

Canada in general has some of the most intrusive interrogations of all my international travels. Multiple times I've been raked over the coals.

The most classic was years ago when I was doing the same day mileage run. I was sent not only the secondary but to a third round. The officials thought the family tree I had (in preparation for a funeral I was to officiate at) was a drug ring.

rworne

Hmm,

Thanks for the info. I don't know who I got ahold of, but I always had good experiences in the past on the 1k line. They did cheerfully offer to refund all three tickets - I told them no dice, I do not think I'd see prices like that again anytime before the holidays.

My only concern is if they put me on a flight with an absurdly long layover - as the agent mentioned it was 5 hours - with a travel-weary wife and kid. Funny, for all the flying I've done, I've never been in this situation before. It's usually travel for my employer and money typically fixes everything. In this case, we needed to travel several times already this year for family matters and it's making me budget-conscious.

So from what I read, United will only want to put me on their planes to fix this? NRT is out of the question - that would actually add quite a bit to our travel cost and time. United's HND to SFO flight leaves after midnight IIRC, and when I've taken it, it was usually late coming in to HND. And HND really, really sucks that late at night. But beggars can't be choosers, even though they refused to offer it when I called.

rworne

See here:

Passenger Guides | YVR

Select:
"From an International City to the US" and "United" for the airline.

It describes the process. You go through immigration and customs for the US at YVR and arrive in the US as if it were a domestic flight.

truncated

If your flight is in 4 months then HND-SFO goes to a daytime flight from 10/30 (1655 departure 0905 arrival after DST ends) so that shouldn't be an issue any more — and UA should definitely be able to open space on their own metal, so maybe call again and ask for that?

fumje

I think the question is what times of day do/don't Canada immi./customs need to be cleared. Never had to transit in Canada, but that sounds horribly confusing.

rworne

Didn't that link specify the hours the US lines were open? Outside those hours you would need to go through Canadian immigration. I could have sworn it said something about that.

mahasamatman

Unless you have Global Entry, where it takes no more than 4.5 minutes.

transportprof

Or NEXUS, for the frequent cross-border travelers.

And in reply to previous comments, I am not surprised that CBSA is on the lookout for drug ring members, given the size of the drug "industry" in Vancouver. I guess that I am so square I don't even get close to such scrutiny.

There is a lot of "hot money" passing through YVR on short visits and quick-turnarounds, so I'm not surprised that mileage runs trigger red flags at CBSA. I wish we didn't have such an underground economy in BC (it's rumored to be larger than the legitimate economy) but I'm glad that our border officers are standing on guard for the worst offenders - and this doesn't include FT Evangelists! As any Canadian would say, for almost any reason, "Sorry!"

mahasamatman

Nexus includes Global Entry, so I'd say we're both right.

fumje

I do see a cryptic caveat that
but no hours are revealed that I can find.

Kacee

It used to specify hours.

They have been enhancing the availability of one-stop . . . it used to be very limited in terms of both airlines and hours, seems to be expanding which is definitely a good thing.

Not talking about legitimate scrutiny but agents who act like authoritarian jerks (the term "jackbooted thugs" comes to mind b/c these agents actually do wear jackboots). Who send you to secondary as punishment if they feel you have not been sufficiently meek and submissive. Believe me, I fit no known drug smuggling profile.

WineCountryUA

Topic Check

We seem to be getting pretty far afield of "schedule changes and what to do." There are other forums for discussion of Travel Border Issues especially when not UA specific.

Let's return to our regular schedule topic.


WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

Flying Machine

Has anyone had a schedule change due to the UA HKG-SGN reduction of service starting at the end of October? How, if any resolution did UA suggest other than ANA (Air Japan) throught NRT for Flights to and from the USA? Thanks and Safe Travels

swiftaw

Okay, I have a dilema. Since it's Saturday, I thought I would check for the weekly schedule changes, and sure enough there is a change to one of my wife's itineraries.

She is flying back from Europe on New Years Eve and her original itinerary was Europe-EWR-DEN-XXX all in paid J. This has now changed to Europe-EWR-XXX, however the last leg is on a EJ145, so no J. (And this leg is 3.5 hours long)

Obviously this is less than ideal, so I looked for alternatives. However, due to the fact that it is New Years Eve there aren't very many flights late in the day, so the options are limited. In fact there is only one other option, which would be Europe-SFO-XXX, all in J. The only problem with this is that the connection time in SFO is only 90 minutes and that seems to be tight, especially as she doesn't have GE and she'll have checked bags.

What would you do? Stay with the current itinerary and explain she'll have to spend 3.5 hours on an a RJ145, or switch to an all J itinerary and risk her missing the connection in SFO and being stranded there on New Years Eve?

Any advice would be appreciated.

LordTentacle

If she is a US citizen and does not need to declare anything... frequently its under 15min at SFO to clear immigration and equally quick at customs
Also depends on what time the flight arrives into SFO as there are quiet and busy times

90min does not scare me very much for SFO for an international to domestic connection