Confessions of a YYC Travel Junkie

[FlamesKickAss]

yeah they disappeared before the sale was over. not for me, its for my girlfriend and she forgot her password for her credit card for online

[jjbouma]

Calgary to Orlando (direct flight) on WestJet:

Depart: Nov 24
Return: Dec 3

$363 CAD

[lucky1]

Originally Posted by cmyden

Calgary to Mayan Riviera - $740 CDN, all inclusive + $200 WestJet credit?

Details:
- 7 days all-inclusive (departs Nov 2, 2009)
- 4.5 star accommodation
- includes flight, hotel, and all taxes.

$660 + $80 taxes = $740 ALL IN!

**PLUS - right now they have the extra westjet travel credit, so when you book, you get another $200 future west jet credit travel voucher FREE! ($400/pair).

So basically if you plan to fly again on Westjet, you basically paying $540 (all-in) for a 7 day all-inclusive vacation!

http://www.westjetvacations.com

^^^ shows on their website, but when I go to try and book it, it gives an error message. You might want to try screen-capping it, and then calling them.

cM

Cmyden....are you still seeing this? I dont see it on the website??

Thanks

[cmyden]

Cmyden....are you still seeing this? I dont see it on the website??

Thanks

I still see it listed on the site. Click on 'Riviera Maya' under Featured Vacations.

[cmyden]

Calgary to Orlando (direct flight) on WestJet:

Depart: Nov 24
Return: Dec 3

$363 CAD

Nice find! I just took a look and found one that's a little bit cheaper...

Calgary to Orlando - $310 CDN

Dec 8-17 on WestJet, direct!

[cmyden]

Calgary to Philadelphia - $357 USD

One week trips on Continental...

Oct 27,28,29
tons of dates in Nov
tons of dates in Dec up to Dec 15
tons of dates in Jan/Feb/Mar

cM

[cmyden]

Calgary to Varadero, Cuba - $399 CDN

http://www.airtransat.com

Oct 26 - Nov 2

Get away from all this snow!

[cmyden]

Some ok deals to Abbotsford, Vancouver, and Kelowna in first half of November.

One week trips departing Nov 3,4,5 10,11,12 17,18,19 (applies to all below)

Calgary -> Abbotsford $192 USD
Edmonton -> Abbotsford $176 USD

Calgary -> Vancouver $232 USD
Edmonton -> Vancouver $211 USD

Calgary -> Kelowna $171 USD
Edmonton -> Kelowna $166 USD

cM

[algernon]

Originally Posted by cmyden

3:10 to Yuma?

Actually, $317...

CALGARY TO YUMA, AZ

One of those oddball fares. Today, U.S. Airways dropped their prices on flights to Yuma by a fairly significant amount.

$317 USD incl taxes, for what looks like pretty much any dates you want to go in June.

Don't ask me what there is to do in Yuma. Golf comes to mind. It's about half way between San Diego and Phoenix.

And I imagine it's pretty damn hot in June!

DENTISTRY!!! There are a ton of 'gringo dentists' just over the border.
For those (like me) with out dental insurance, getting work done in Mexico is a great deal. I went to Guayamas last year and had some root canals and crowns done. The estimate I was given here in Calgary was around $6400 cdn.

I flew down there, had the same work done and paid a total of $2100 including airfare and spending money for 10 days. The Endodontist had the exact same computer set up as my pirate dentist here has, and they had better pain killers down there to boot.

Flame Away, Dentites.

[cmyden]

Calgary to London Gatwick - $571 CDN

Nov 3 to Nov 10, 17, 24

http://www.airtransat.ca


cM

[red sky]

Chris,

I am looking at doing the Las Vegas marathon on December 6th and was wondering if you could find me the best deal for flight + hotel for around 4 nights. I see that the Excalabur would be around $500 but was wondering if you would kindly work your magic and see if you can find a better deal.

Thanks in advance!

[cmyden]

Chris,

I am looking at doing the Las Vegas marathon on December 6th and was wondering if you could find me the best deal for flight + hotel for around 4 nights. I see that the Excalabur would be around $500 but was wondering if you would kindly work your magic and see if you can find a better deal.

Thanks in advance!

Is that price based on 2 people? After taxes ? Were you referring to flight + Excalibur = $500 or just Excalibur ? If it's with flight it seems like a pretty decent deal to me, depending on the dates. Thursday-Sunday is a lot more expensive than Sunday -> Wednesday. I'm assuming you'll probably want to be there at least the night before the marathon of course.

I see that Bally's (great location) is $55/night from Dec 3-7, so that would be $220 + whatever the cheapest flight is (looks to be about $500 on the major carriers), so it would come out to $610 per person, which doesn't seem as good as the deal you found. Where are you seeing that?

I see the Excalibur is showing as $94/night so maybe you were referring to hotel only for $500.

Bally's for $55/night is definitely the best deal I can see right now for a Thu-Mon stay.

Cheapest flight on the major carriers...

Fri Dec 4 2009 to Tue Dec 8 2009
$522 / US Airways

Thu -> Mon = $544

cM

[red sky]

Originally Posted by cmyden

Is that price based on 2 people? After taxes ? Were you referring to flight + Excalibur = $500 or just Excalibur ? If it's with flight it seems like a pretty decent deal to me, depending on the dates. Thursday-Sunday is a lot more expensive than Sunday -> Wednesday. I'm assuming you'll probably want to be there at least the night before the marathon of course.

I see that Bally's (great location) is $55/night from Dec 3-7, so that would be $220 + whatever the cheapest flight is (looks to be about $500 on the major carriers), so it would come out to $610 per person, which doesn't seem as good as the deal you found. Where are you seeing that?

I see the Excalibur is showing as $94/night so maybe you were referring to hotel only for $500.

Bally's for $55/night is definitely the best deal I can see right now for a Thu-Mon stay.

Cheapest flight on the major carriers...

Fri Dec 4 2009 to Tue Dec 8 2009
$522 / US Airways

Thu -> Mon = $544

cM

I was checking on Westjet.ca

They seem to have the best deals currently. The deal I found was for 3 days actually not 4. The flight form Calgary is on Saturday, return on Tuesday. Total for two people is just over $500/person. There are other hotels for cheaper but I don't believe that they are on the strip.

[cmyden]

I was checking on Westjet.ca

They seem to have the best deals currently. The deal I found was for 3 days actually not 4. The flight form Calgary is on Saturday, return on Tuesday. Total for two people is just over $500/person. There are other hotels for cheaper but I don't believe that they are on the strip.

The flight alone through WestJet looks to be $640/person from Dec 5-8, so $500/person with hotel seems pretty good.

[red sky]

Originally Posted by cmyden

The flight alone through WestJet looks to be $640/person from Dec 5-8, so $500/person with hotel seems pretty good.

For anyone else who is interested, you can get 4 nights at the MGM grand over these days for $409+$119 tax

Probably go that route

[lucky1]

cmyden,

what search engine do you use? trying to find flights to Muscat, Oman for certain dates....

[cmyden]

cmyden,

what search engine do you use? trying to find flights to Muscat, Oman for certain dates....

I use a few different ones but my favorite is matrix.itasoftware.com

Strange name... but it's the most powerful travel search engine out there.

[cmyden]

Calgary to Los Angeles or San Diego - $300 CDN or less

Different date combinations in November/December on http://www.westjet.ca

YYC -> LAX
----------
Nov 15,18,22,26
Dec 2,3,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,25,


LAX -> YYC
-----------
Nov 26,27
Dec 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12,16,18,20,21,22,24,25,26


http://www.westjet.ca


and for San Diego...


YYC -> San Diego
----------------
Nov 18
Dec 2, 9


San Diego -> YYC
----------------
Nov 25, 27
Dec 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18, 23, 25

[Maritime Q-Scout]

cmyden, when you search do you manually search, or is there an engine that lets you put in a city and it generates low fares?

it seems like you come up with YYC - Random places with crazy fares on a semi-regular basis, and for random times as well. Just curious if there's somewhere that I can plug in any of the Maritime airports to see what comes up.

[cmyden]

it seems like you come up with YYC - Random places with crazy fares on a semi-regular basis, and for random times as well. Just curious if there's somewhere that I can plug in any of the Maritime airports to see what comes up.

Unfortunately there's no perfect search engine that will let me search every fare to every destination on every date at once. I usually find my fares through a variety of search engines, sites that I monitor, and also from other people giving me tips, such as on the Calgary Flight Deals Facebook group which now has over 700 members.

One of the best ways to find 'random' fares is on FareCompare. You can set up alerts for price drops from Calgary to anywhere in Europe for example. Or to a specific city.

I usually set it up to alert me of price drops of more than $100 to anywhere in North America, and more than $200 for flights to Europe for example.

FareCompare isn't always accurate, so I usually have to follow up with a site like ITASoftware to be sure.

One interesting thing you could do is go to...

http://matrix.itasoftware.com

enter in Halifax, and select 'or any airport within 300 miles', and that would cover a large section of the maritimes.

Unfortunately with the 'month long search' you can't select a radius like that (the computation required would be just too much).

And on FareCompare you should set up alerts to the major maritime airports and have it notify you when the price drops by $100 or so. (Be aware though, the FC alerts often aren't correct, as I mentioned, so they can be annoying)

Oh and the best deal (but doesn't qualify as a great deal) going from Halifax right now is to Shanghai. $852 on United starting in mid November to first week of December, over 14000 miles round trip!

UPDATE: I see there is a flight from Moncton to Cancun for $242 CDN all in, pretty sweet deal. Jan 9-16 on WestJet. Can also depart on the 12th.