Flying to Canada

Greg said:
Please don't fly Air Canada, they're no way near as good as Virgin, though my last Virgin experience leaves much to be desired!

Premium is well worth the extra if you can afford it. I've done the LHR to YVR plenty of times, the flight goes quite quickly, though good IFE is defiantly needed!

9 and a half hours goes pretty quickly when you've watched a fair few films! :)

Good luck!
Click to expand...

When was your experience with Air canada?

I flew in November with them economy (free tickets) and chose window seating on both flights. Every seat had USB ports, mains outlets and it was all fine with decent leg room in the middle of the plain behind the row of seats next to the emergency exit doors.

Was a comfortable 7 hours. Both flights landed 30 minutes ahead of time as well.
 
mrk said:
When was your experience with Air canada?

I flew in November with them economy (free tickets) and chose window seating on both flights. Every seat had USB ports, mains outlets and it was all fine with decent leg room in the middle of the plain behind the row of seats next to the emergency exit doors.

Was a comfortable 7 hours. Both flights landed 30 minutes ahead of time as well.
Click to expand...

Where did you fly from and to?
 
Heathrow to Toronto Pearson and then the reverse back.

Pearson is absolutely amazing. The refit there is superb. You have ipads/USB/power on every seat and dining table area. All the seats are soft and leathery padded. It looks cool as. You put your flight number into the iPad and while you're surfing the net it will keep you updated about the status of your flight etc.

20131202_060410_Richtone(HDR)_2.jpg
 
mrk said:
Heathrow to Toronto Pearson and then the reverse back.

Pearson is absolutely amazing. The refit there is superb. You have ipads/USB/power on every seat and dining table area. All the seats are soft and leathery padded. It looks cool as. You put your flight number into the iPad and while you're surfing the net it will keep you updated about the status of your flight etc.

20131202_060410_Richtone(HDR)_2.jpg
Click to expand...

Damn you, I want to go on holiday now. :P
 
Vanquish-Storm said:
Hello I know there are a few well traveled fellows on here so I was hoping for a bit of help.

We are looking to Fly to Vancouver in June (any time in June) from Manchester. At the moment we have looked at Virgin they do a flight from Manchester to Heathrow onto Canada.

Would you suggest upgrading to premium is worth it for the long flight? I am over 6foot so would like more leg room! Would you take advantage of the lounge at Heathrow and is there a Virgin lounge in Vancouver for the flight back?

I have the Virgin flying club membership which I think gets me 7% off and more miles back so would Virgin even be the best option? Who else fly to Vancouver?

With Virgin they priced us up the flights (inc the Manc to London), 3 nights in a hotel and 14 days RV rental.
Click to expand...



What I did was fly to Seattle, the flights were half the price of Vancouver.

There are busses up to Vancouver that are cheap, but I rented a car because that is what I wanted for a road trip around BC anyway. This had the added advantage that car rental is also half the price in Seattle, and there are no issues driving into Canada.

It is an easy 3hr driver up the I5 into Vancouver.
 
D.P. said:
What I did was fly to Seattle, the flights were half the price of Vancouver.
Click to expand...

You were very, very lucky then - my trip actually started/finished in Seattle, or was supposed to. Thats where I wanted to be. But despite months of waiting the flights were never anything other than even more expensive than Vancouver. Only British Airways flies direct to Seattle.

Eventually it worked out cheaper for me to fly direct to Vancouver and then one-way car hire to and from Seattle.

Seattle can be cheaper if you take an indirect flight, obviously, but for direct it's very expensive!

There are busses up to Vancouver that are cheap, but I rented a car because that is what I wanted for a road trip around BC anyway. This had the added advantage that car rental is also half the price in Seattle, and there are no issues driving into Canada.
Click to expand...

This bit is spot on - the car was much, much cheaper in Seattle and came with unlimited mileage cross border whereas cars rented from Vancouver seemed to have a km limit if you took them into the USA.
 
[TW]Fox;25578478 said:
You were very, very lucky then - my trip actually started/finished in Seattle, or was supposed to. Thats where I wanted to be. But despite months of waiting the flights were never anything other than even more expensive than Vancouver. Only British Airways flies direct to Seattle.

Eventually it worked out cheaper for me to fly direct to Vancouver and then one-way car hire to and from Seattle.

Seattle can be cheaper if you take an indirect flight, obviously, but for direct it's very expensive!



This bit is spot on - the car was much, much cheaper in Seattle and came with unlimited mileage cross border whereas cars rented from Vancouver seemed to have a km limit if you took them into the USA.
Click to expand...


I had 1 stop on the flight (Montreal I think), but I really don't mind 1 stop on a long flight, time to to stretch th legs and find some real food.
 
D.P. said:
I had 1 stop on the flight (Montreal I think), but I really don't mind 1 stop on a long flight, time to to stretch th legs and find some real food.
Click to expand...

Oddly I was finding that if I wanted to change planes I could fly Air Canada to Seattle via Vancouver, on the Heathrow to Vancouver non-stop, for less than just flying as far as Vancouver. Slightly bizarre. In the end I decided I couldn't be bothered with the extra time involved and opted for the Virgin non-stop to Vancouver (Which was loads cheaper than non-stop to Seattle as BA have that market sewn up sadly, presumably every flight is full of Microsoft and Boeing employees :D).
 
I found the buses surprisingly expensive. For two of us one way cross border car.rental was similar money.

I wanted to use the train but it only runs twice a day at stupid times.
 
We went via early morning train from Seattle to Vancouver, was very, very enjoyable :) It is a stretch to get up so early but to be honest it was worth it and meant we got into Vancouver nice and early to start the day, almost felt like we were kicking off a second bonus holiday after spending a fortnight on the west coast of the USA.
 
I'm heading to Vancouver and Seattle next month on Honeymoon.
I've never been outside of Europe so will be quite an experience.

We're flying BA from Heathrow to Vancouver direct.
We'll then make our own way down to Seattle before flying Seattle to New York. We're returning New York to Heathrow.

I found booking all of the above via American Airlines was cheaper than BA despite being on the BA flight.

Has anybody ever taken the Ferry from Vancouver to Seattle? It's meant to be a good trip but I've yet to look up how long it takes. We did considering going to Victorian for a few days before Seattle then Ferry direct from Victoria to Seattle.
 
Last edited:
Tesla said:
I'm heading to Vancouver and Seattle next month on Honeymoon.
I've never been outside of Europe so will be quite an experience.

We're flying BA from Heathrow to Vancouver direct.
We'll then make our own way down to Seattle before flying Seattle to New York. We're returning New York to Heathrow.

I found booking all of the above via American Airlines was cheaper than BA.

Has anybody ever taken the Ferry from Vancouver to Seattle? It's meant to be a good trip but I've yet to look up how long it takes. We did considering going to Victorian for a few days before Seattle then Ferry direct from Victoria to Seattle.
Click to expand...

Did you book it all online? Do you mind giving me a rough price of what you paid? :D

We have been quoted £1400 per person including flight from Manchester to Heathrow then into Vancouver. 3 nights in a hotel and 12 days RV Rental. To me that doesn't sound too bad but I could be wrong.
 
Last edited:
Heathrow > Vancouver
Seattle > New York
New York > Heathrow

£690 each. All booked online through American Airlines. We've yet to decide how to get between Vancouver and Seattle but it shouldn't be too expensive.

I checked the flight price recently in the BA "sale" but it's now over £800 each.
 
I have flown to Vancouver on multiple occasions with both BA and Virgin.
The flights are expensive unless you book early.
I have only flown in Premium or World Traveller Plus and Virgin are in my opinion much worse than BA in this class.
Virgin premium economy have a box underneath the seat that prevents you from stretching out your legs. BA don't have this and you can get your legs out flat under the seat in front.
Economy may well be similar between BA and Virgin (except for the chance of an antiquated and pretty much unusable IFE system on Virgin).
 
Nice deal, cost me £750 each just for return to Vancouver in economy. You've done fairly well there.

Look into one-way car hire between Vancouver and Seattle. Almost nobody does it but I found Avis did and offered a very low rate, presumably as they use it to return US plated cars to Seattle.

I think I paid £36 for the car and the fuel was 15 quid tops. It then only took about 3 hours to drive down to Seattle including the time at the border. If you wanted, you could stretch it out to a day and head up to Mount Baker, which is beautiful. I did that on the way back up.

P1090320_zpsa4147493.jpg
 
Last edited:
^^ F.... U!

I want to go back :(

[TW]Fox;25578478 said:
You were very, very lucky then - my trip actually started/finished in Seattle, or was supposed to. Thats where I wanted to be. But despite months of waiting the flights were never anything other than even more expensive than Vancouver. Only British Airways flies direct to Seattle.

Eventually it worked out cheaper for me to fly direct to Vancouver and then one-way car hire to and from Seattle.

Seattle can be cheaper if you take an indirect flight, obviously, but for direct it's very expensive!



This bit is spot on - the car was much, much cheaper in Seattle and came with unlimited mileage cross border whereas cars rented from Vancouver seemed to have a km limit if you took them into the USA.
Click to expand...
Apart from the issues of carrying snow chains, or having winter tyres. That will cost you extra, or even worse, the rental won't allow you to put chains on. Joy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom