Cheap flights to Canada

[MadameBalls]

Afternoon all! We are a family of 6 (4 kids, 2 adults) and we are looking to fly to Canada next summer in mid July. I am keeping my eye on air fares but they all seem so expensive. Does anyone know when the sales happen? Preferably for Air Canada or BA... or even which sites are the best for cheaper deals. Expedia and ebookers don’t seem to have anything at the mo!
Thanks in advance.

During the summer, Westjet fly from Glasgow to Halifax in Nova Scotia, and there you can connect with other flights to Canada.

That’s high season and direct flights will be expensive. They don’t need to put these flights in the sakes but keep looking. Use the BA or Air Canada sites. Air Canada are awful by the way. State owned and miserable staff. We used them in September. Choice of films, music and tv was awful too. We had their premium seats so got more leg room. Economy was very squashed.

It won’t be cheap to travel to Glasgow if you are nearer to London. You could end up doing 2 stops. With DC, that’s horrible. Dig deep and fly direct but don’t hold your breath about the sales. These flights would have been released in August/September.

Where are you flying from?

Air transat?

We can fly from either London or Manchester . Hoping to fly into Halifax . Will look at Westjet and Transat - thank you 😊

Watching as I’m flying in June as well and it’s so expensive I may have to cancel.

We flew with air Transat, there’s a kids club that you can sign up for before you fly and they give free snacks and headphones to the kids. Don’t pay extra to buy seats together as they automatically put families of 5 or more together. We booked using Canadian Affair website, it was the cheapest I found.

Forgot to say, we flew last August and it was around £2700 (ish) for return flights for 2 adults and 3 kids Manchester to Toronto

Westjet and air transat from London aren’t actually cheaper than BA or Air Canada. Both are like easyjet and charge you for everything. So when you add everything up you end up paying the same.

Your best bet for a reasonably comfortable journey to Toronto with kids is to go via New York or Chicago. I found the entire experience a lot easier even though it was an indirect flight.

How much do you think is reasonable?
We flew Air Transat Manchester to Vancouver a couple of years ago and paid £750 each.

I paid 380 / each this year in august from London to Toronto. Flew with BA but AC was coming up similar. We booked approx 4-6 months in advance. No extra charges.

flights to vancouver were coming up to 580 at the same time

We are a family of 5 with relatives near Vancouver. Most recently we flew air Transat as they were £2k cheaper than BA/AC. They were perfectly fine to travel with and really good with the kids club/kids. Don't discount them just because they are seen as a budget airline I would use them again.

Is Halifax your final destination or are you travelling on somewhere else?

I have family in Eastern Canada, just over the border from Maine, and have always found it really expensive to fly there - and internal flights can be really costly.

We flew to Boston and then drove, allowing a couple of days to cover the journey. The drive up the coast is a lovely one, so it made it part of the holiday - but obviously don't know if that's an option for you.

Another time we flew direct to Halifax with Canadian Affair - no idea if they still exist! - but they only had 2 planes, so there were often long delays if one/both ended up being held up by air traffic controls etc. They were cheaper, but not really sure it was worth it.

Ooooh lots to think about and investigate here. I like the idea of flying into Boston and then travelling up . I think I’m looking for a price of about 1500 (I know! I know!) That’s what it was about ten years ago when we last went. Think I am going to have to do some adjusting in my mind. Thank you so much for all your suggestions and ideas.

Halifax is the final destination... Family live there x

If you fly to Boston, you can get a ferry from Bar Harbor in Maine, to Yarmouth in Nova Scotia. It takes 3.5 hours on the CAT ferry

this is interesting too

Canadian affair/transat as a company still exist and they have a London office. However, they do not fly direct into Halifax.

You won't pay £1500 for the six of you; those days have sadly long since gone (those sorts of fares have not been seen since Freddie Laker's days). Also July is peak season. Bear in mind that children pay adult fare at around 12 years of age on some carriers.

Its just under 665 miles from Boston to Halifax and you may well encounter some problems in driving the car from the US into Canada.

Not all companies will allow cross border travel, and in fact, there may be different rules between different rental locations for the same company. You will be violating your renters agreement if you cross without their approval, and all kinds of very expensive problems will come up if you get a ticket or have an accident. In addition, U.S. Customs actually requires that the rental company has given their consent for the car to leave the country so it had better be in the rental agreement.Most auto insurance will cover you in both countries but you must confirm this with your provider.
You must always carry your usual insurance card but you may need to get an insurance card for the country you are visiting as well. Your carrier should provide this at no charge. If you take out the rental agencies insurance they should issue you a non-resident insurance card which must be kept in the rental vehicle. Given all this potential hassle I would avoid the car rental idea.

Make sure you understand how the mileage rates will work when converting between metric and U.S. standard measurements.
Keep in mind that rental agencies are never responsible for legal fees, fines or tickets. You may see additional penalties or fees if they end up being assessed against the vehicle.

You will also each need an ESTA for all travellers coming into the US and if you are not Canadian citizens also an ETa for Canada for each person travelling.

Given you have children as well I would look at direct flights to Halifax (think Swiss fly there) or alternatively flights to the nearest airport that someone like BA flies into in Canada (probably Montreal).

We flew to Toronto with Aer lingus with flights included both ways to Dublin from London for 2000 last July.

Sorry that was 4 of us. I'd say 1500 is very unrealistic! Unless you fly with Norwegian air no frills into America first.

BA have not long since had their sale and will probably do another one between December and March.

Try KAYAK as well re fares to Halifax

From memory, we hired our car in Boston from Enterprise, and there was no issue taking it into Canada. (Nor was there an issue crossing the border).

I chose dates at random, assuming that a) your DC will have to pay full fare, and b) they're at state schools, and c) that you're going for 2 weeks (26 July - 10 August).

With Westjet, it comes to £3,875.08 - more than double your desired fare!

see here

Those are actually pretty good fares too - the return ones are less than £300 each!

Thank you, all. I know I am not going to get what I want but you’ve all given me some options I hadn’t thought of.