Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[cmyden]

Calgary to Hong Kong, China in April - $865 roundtrip after tax

Just noticing that there's a flight in April to Hong Kong, China for $865 roundtrip after tax. All others seem to be a minimum of $1150 or so, but this one is 25% cheaper.



Try April 12 to 27 on Orbitz, here's a screenshot:



It has an 80 minute layover in Vancouver, then a 75 minute layover in Beijing. About 19 hours of total travel time each way. By comparison the fastest it can be done is on Air Canada, at about 15 hours each way (Calgary -> Vancouver -> Hong Kong). Those flights are around $1380.



If you're thinking Disneyland this summer, consider SNA

What's SNA ? That's the airport code for John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, which is essentially Anaheim, which is the home of Disney.



Up until now, to get to Disneyland, your best bet was usually by flying into LAX (Los Angeles) about 43km from Mickey's house. SNA on the other hand, is about half that distance. Flying into LAX though, was usually cheaper, and more importantly, direct. You couldn't get to SNA without stopping over somewhere, which meant it wasn't worth the hassle, even if it was a closer drive.

Today though, Westjet announced they're offering direct flights into SNA from Calgary and Vancouver this spring/summer.

But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is, right now Westjet is showing summer fares into SNA for $310 roundtrip after tax. That's about 40% cheaper than the cheapest fares into LAX, on *any* airline, including Westjet. The cheapest into LAX are around $500. In fact, there hasn't been much of anything this year to California under $400. So $310 in the summer is definitely an interesting price.

Even over July long weekend for example, here's June 28 to July 6 on Westjet.com ...



So they could be just looking to fill up some seats on this new route. Other airlines have been quick to drop their SNA fares out of Calgary to match this. United and Alaska Airlines are both at $323 right now. But they have layovers, so Westjet's non-stop flights at $310 are a no-brainer.

Look for the flights on Westjet.com that are $98.99 each way before tax, those are the cheap ones. They seem to be cheap up to about mid July.

cM

[shinyDark]

cmyden, all this travel info is great, thank you, but i have a question... why do you sign your name/initials at the end of your posts? This just does not make sense to me.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by shinyDark

cmyden, all this travel info is great, thank you, but i have a question... why do you sign your name/initials at the end of your posts? This just does not make sense to me.

It's just to verify that the information is authentic and coming from a trusted source.

Seriously though, not really sure why, it's almost out of habit. I think part of it is because I don't like how close my sig is to the bottom of the text without it. There needs to be some breathing room. I could just add something to the sig but that would be too easy.

[CRXguy]

cmyden,

What price range should I be looking at when booking to Montreal? I've been seeing $530-570ish. A group of about 7 guys for May 5-8th. This is our first time there.

Also, my sister is flying down to L.A during the Easter holiday. What's kind of price should she expect?

Thanks.

[flamesrule_kipper34]

Any Vegas deals for a group of friends and me for anywhere from 3-4 nights anywhere in Feb. 18 to 27?

Any help would be appreciated!

[3thirty]

Originally Posted by flamesrule_kipper34

Any Vegas deals for a group of friends and me for anywhere from 3-4 nights anywhere in Feb. 18 to 27?

Any help would be appreciated!

If you search on expedia the mon-thur vegas trips are pretty cheap, decent flight and nice hotel should be under $500 and that includes show tickets at MGM hotels...

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by CRXguy

cmyden,

What price range should I be looking at when booking to Montreal? I've been seeing $530-570ish. A group of about 7 guys for May 5-8th. This is our first time there.

Also, my sister is flying down to L.A during the Easter holiday. What's kind of price should she expect?

Thanks.

There hasn't been anything too great domestically in a long, long time. The bottom price to Montreal has averaged around $500-$550 roundtrip after tax.

When's Easter this year? I'm too lazy to Google it. The bottom price for LAX (and most of southern Cali) has been around $400 roundtrip after tax lately. But during holidays of course, you can usually tack at least 10-20%.

Make sure she considers SNA as well, as noted above. Even though Westjet isn't flying there until after Easter, other airlines seem to have dropped their prices throughout the year to SNA to match Westjet.

[cmyden]

Any Vegas deals for a group of friends and me for anywhere from 3-4 nights anywhere in Feb. 18 to 27?

Any help would be appreciated!

As 3thirty notes, there's two very different price worlds when it comes to Vegas. There's Friday to Sunday, and then everything else.

Feb 21-24 for example, is $316 roundtrip after tax on Delta. Short stopovers in Salt Lake each way. Comes home early though.

Alaska Airlines is $405 and leaves at 12:45PM. Longer stopovers though.

Everything non-stop looks pricey.

Same goes for hotels, weekdays are far cheaper. Palms and Hard Rock are going for $55/night it looks like. Treasure Island is $72, nice hotel.

[theonlywhiteout]

hey chris im sure you've been asked this a dozen times but...

im changing banks and looking at a different credit card possibly... what would you recommend for a rewards card with primary interest in flights and not rewards, and flexibility in booking and using existing sales? thanks in advance you do great work

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by theonlywhiteout

hey chris im sure you've been asked this a dozen times but...

im changing banks and looking at a different credit card possibly... what would you recommend for a rewards card with primary interest in flights and not rewards, and flexibility in booking and using existing sales? thanks in advance you do great work

Only asked once in this thread though! Here's a copy/paste of my reply:

What's the best travel rewards card?

The best card around *used* to be the Starwood Preferred Guest from Mastercard. There was no annual fee, and it was incredible how quickly you could accumulate points on it. You could also transfer your points to virtually ANY rewards program. Even with modest usage we used to get 2 trips a year out of it.

There's people that research and scrutinize the cards to death, the best info is likely on RFD. Here's the 82 page thread regarding the Starwood card.

Unfortunately Starwood decided to terminate their relationship with Mastercard. When they did that, they allowed people that already had the card to switch over to a new one, forgoing the $89 annual fee for the first year. The new one isn't as good, but still the one I use.

Here's a chart that compares all of the current ones available:

http://www.rewardscanada.ca/cccompare.html

and here's an article written in July 2010 from the same website with their picks for 'best travel card':

http://www.rewardscanada.ca/topcreditcard2010.html

There's so many cards and quite a few factors that come into play when deciding which is the best card for each person.


Here's a good article...

The Best Travel Rewards Cards in Canada

Choosing which credit card is the absolute best is a very difficult task because everyone has a different opinion on what makes something “the best”. Most people would agree that the value of the rewards you get in proportion to the amount of money you spend on the card is a good measurement of what is best, but determining that value isn’t always possible. We have taken a very systematic approach to determining what the best credit cards in Canada are by assigning each credit card a score based on four distinct categories: Typical Return, Maximum Return, Flexibility, and Insurance & Perks.

They list the Amex Starwood Preferred Guest as being the best travel card. The folks on RFD usually seem to agree on that one as well, but *only* if you shop at a lot of places where Amex is accepted.

For an overall card, I know the RFD crowd is really high on the MBNA Smart Cash Platinum.

In that article they do a nice job of explaining why it's tough to determine reward value for each individual purchase. And they also explain what values and assumptions they used to determine the 'best' card for most people.

[theonlywhiteout]

after comparing those cards... my BMO gold airmiles seems pretty comparable. I've accumulated 3000 miles in a year and a half, and it seems pretty on par with the other cards. the ability to use the wstjet card tho for westjet dollars and take advantage of seat sales seems to be pretty awesome to me tho

[cmyden]

Calgary to Costa Rica - $416 roundtrip after tax

I tend to take notice when there's a flight to Central America that's less than 50% of what it usually costs. Especially when it's to a country as awesome as Costa Rica, with volcanoes, toucans, monkeys, and zip-lines through cloud forests.



Try February 12 to 20 on http://www.flightcentre.ca/ from Calgary to Liberia, Costa Rica (LIR)

This is what you'll see:



Direct each way too.

cM

[FFR]

^^ Wow. If only I wasn't already going to Hawaii in February. We were hoping to go to Costa Rica in May - I only wish that price was available then! That's incredible.

[3thirty]

Hey Chris, What area of L.A. would you suggest to stay in. We may be all over the place from Disneyland, to the Honda Centre in Anaheim,to the beach to downtown L.A. Anywhere central you suggest or a better location than others?

Thanks in advance...

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by 3thirty

Hey Chris, What area of L.A. would you suggest to stay in. We may be all over the place from Disneyland, to the Honda Centre in Anaheim,to the beach to downtown L.A. Anywhere central you suggest or a better location than others?

Thanks in advance...

Plot the http://tinyurl.com/4hkxwo7][/B]top 10% of hotels on TripAdvisor (in terms of quality) from the Los Angeles area on a map and this is what you'll see..



Note how concentrated they are in West Hollywood. The green binoculars represent Things to Do. Ignore the purple transit icons, everyone else in L.A. does.

I would say the closer you can get to West Hollywood or Santa Monica the better.

[mykalberta]

Has anyone flew out of Santa Ana SNA in LA?

Westjet has some descent prices on direct flights there this summer. Just wondering if anyone has ever flew out of there, how are they equipped for rental cars etc? Thinking of making a mid week pilgramage down there in the summer. Thanks.

[cmyden]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Has anyone flew out of Santa Ana SNA in LA?

Westjet has some descent prices on direct flights there this summer. Just wondering if anyone has ever flew out of there, how are they equipped for rental cars etc? Thinking of making a mid week pilgramage down there in the summer. Thanks.

http://www.ocair.com/Groundtransport...entalcars.aspx

These ones are all on-site...

Alamo Rent–A–CarAvis Rent-A-CarBudget Rent-A-Car Enterprise Rent-A-Car Hertz Corporation National Car Rental Thrifty Car Rental

Personally, if the flights were equal (time and price), I would *always* choose SNA over LAX. The airport is less busy, cleaner, easier to get around, and newer. LAX is a terrible airport.

[getbak]

I'd say those locations are way too far north if Anaheim is a big part of the trip. There are lots of decent hotels in the Disneyland area and because there are so many, so close together, you can usually get decent prices if you're not traveling at peak times.

There are plenty of decent beaches in the Orange County area as well.

Because traffic down there is so bad, I'd make every effort to minimize the amount of time spent on the freeway.

I've even changed hotels partway through my trip to be closer to Disneyland for the time I was spending in that area and closer to Hollywood for the time I was spending there.

[cmyden]

^^ I agree with Getbak. Traffic around L.A. is always a nightmare. I guess it depends on what kind of experience you're looking for. I think that's a smart idea about changing hotels too, if you have a rental car.

[Kavvy]

cmyden,

Thanks for all your information eariler. You requested me to post what deals I may of found, we ended up with a resort called the Royal Playa De carmen on West Jet Vacations, we never really found an amazing deal but are quite happy with it!

Air Canada had better travel times but was more $$