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Yes, there is online checkin that gives you a choice to print a boarding pass or e-mail it your phone. There is also an app that lets you check in online. My experience with connections. WestJet checkin (app or in person) usually generates boarding passes for both Delta and WestJet flights. Delta Check does the same. The one thing they don't usually get right is passport information. You usually get called up at the gate and they ask to see that again. Clearly the OP had a different experience. That is unfortunate.

I have never had the case where all the kiosks don't work. That would be terrible. The airlines these days only have staffing levels assuming most people are self serve ahead of time at home or on the kiosks.

I think this comes down to federal vrs provincial laws. I don't think provincial laws apply to any inter-provincial or international trains, aircraft or ships. The provincial liquor age does not apply. Rules on servers don't apply etc. Taxes don't apply. That removes a lot of the tax. Then on the federal side there is no GST on international journeys. The removes the rest.

Most legacy airlines only discount return flights to Europe. The one way tickets are expense. Air Transact, WestJet and I guess TAP are exceptions to that rule.

Seattle to Portland I would just take the train. The train is going to take 3 hours but you avoid traveling from downtown Seattle to the airport, the lineups and security. I don't think you save much of any time flying.

YWCA Hotel is usually a good deal. Profits made from the hotel go to the non-profit that owns the hotel if that makes you fell good. If your looking for low cost, clean and well maintained hotel that is fairly basic, then the Days Inn on West Pender is walking distance to the pier. The rooms are small and the views are limited, no parking being a 100 year old build. I usually stay at the Sandman Hotel. It is close to YWCA Hotel. Both of those a longer walk from the pier.

That is going to depend on who your carrier is. Here is the map for Bell. https://www.bell.ca/Mobility/Our_network_coverage

It is not mandatory. If you chose to use it, it asks the same question that show up on the kiosk and there is a separate express line you go into. When you get to kiosk and scan your passport it asks if anything has changed from what you entered on the ArriveCAN app, if you indicate no change it prints the receipt and there are no other questions. If your arriving late morning to around 2/3 pm in Vancouver the line up for customer can sometimes be long and it is worth it. Any other time of the day and it is usually not that bad and your not saving a lot of time using ArriveCAN.

Over the last few years western countries have slowly moved towards accepting each others security. It depends, if you arrive in LIS from a country in Africa they would very likely have routed your through security again. From a country that has an equivalent clearance your would skip. My last flight to Portugal was in the spring. YVR-YYZ-FRA-FAO. No security in FRA, just passport control.

If it is row 1-3 it is in the front Cabin. If it is row 4 it is the bulkhead in front of economy.

I fly them all the time. They are mainstream airline these day. Flights are generally on time in the summer. In the winter all airlines in Canada need to deal with weather. Your will find the inflight service comparable to the major US Airlines or Air Canada. As for the credit cards. Yes, if you book on the Canadian websites in CDN$, with a US$ credit card the bank will do the conversion to US$. When you do the booking on WestJet you can add your Delta loyalty program number to the flight and you will earn with Delta. In Canada the front Cabin goes by different names than the US. Air Canada calls it business class. WestJet calls it Premium. It basically the same kind of seat as what the airlines in the US call first class with similar service to First in the US. For WestJet the 737 have 3 premium (aka First Class) rows at the front. The WestJet 787 has an international business class. premium cabin and economy. The 787 mostly operate between Canada and Europe or Japan. It is very rare they use those domestically or to the US.

There are a few exceptions. However for the most part transatlantic flights are almost always cheaper as round trip with a Saturday stay over. If you search online you want to pick the multi-city option and get both outbound and return priced on the same ticket. United, TAP Air Portugal, Swiss, Lufthansa and Air Canada are all star alliance partners. That means you credit miles from any of these airlines into your United loyalty program. The one thing to keep in mind is if your booked into the cheapest fare you may be getting very few miles. Some low fares may only give you 25% or 50% miles. There may even be a few rock bottom fares with 0. If your trading in points, on United all Star Alliance (including TAP and Air Canada) operated flights should be available for you. 220,000 is a good amount of points. you should be able to get something with that. You may even be able to business class with that number of points. Usually the points don't include taxes and fees. With international travel those can easily be a few hundred dollars.

Typo on my part. Should have been "not allowed".

If your handicapped you are allowed to sit in the exit rows. Bulkhead yes.

Your suggesting that extra step adds value in the process? Ok. Most other parts of the world they have found that to be not worth the extra inconvenience.

It depends. If your in Business or Premium seat selection is free. If your in economy it is also free if it a more expensive ticket (what WestJet calls EconoFlex). The lower cost economy fares have a fee for advanced seat selection. At checkin there is no fee. Should also add with Canadian carriers (including WestJet) if your traveling with children under 14 the airline is required to seat you together with your kids and is not allowed to charge seat selection fees. Sometimes that works online sometimes you have to call in.

The US is the only country I have been to where you stand in line to do an ID check with TSA. Then once you do the TSA ID check you go into the next line to have bags x-rayed. Most other countries don't do these ID checks there. In Canada the ID check is done by the gate agent as you board. In some places like Germany they use kiosks and don't even bother with that. The Clear sales people can be quit annoying. I am not saying it is scam, just that the people they are trying to sell the service don't get it. You standing in line holding a Canadian passport and they are trying to convince you to get out to line to go a kiosk to sign up for a service you don't qualify for.

I have also gotten in the habit of always doing the Arrivecan app. Having the express arrivecan lane helps when it is busy. When it is not busy as you say it does not matter.

You should not fell compelled to buy anything. I find US airports very unpredictable. Some are extremely disorganised with how they do the security checks. Most US airports also do this weird passport/driver license check just before the security check. At the airport there are these marketing people trying to sell membership in clear. Some weird express security subscription. However it is a bit of scam, in they get you out of line to fill in out an application at near the end it asks if your a US citizen and rejects your application if your not. Then the sales rep looks confused and sends you to back of the line again. It is uniquely US things. In other countries security can be faster or slower. Really depends on the country and airport.

Perhaps banks behave differently in the US than what I am use to in Canada. Banks have little desire to see money go into the hands of scammer and have no problem yanking it back from them. If the OP signed some paper it should have said what it was for. If they did not deliver then it is pretty clear justification to undo the transaction.

Perhaps I am miss reading the OP story but it sounds like, the OP was told her tickets had been changed and was not able to use them now. It is fairly simple, the OP paid for a flight from point A to point B. If the airline is saying the ticket can't be used then the OP should be getting her money back. The details about how someone hijacked and repurposed the ticket is interesting but that is the airlines problem to solve not the OP. Clearly the airlines does not have adequate safeguards in place.

They are not buying tickets, they are buying air travel. If they are denied boarding or the airline tells them the tickets are not good that is sufficient to dispute the charge.

I would phone the credit card company again and talk to a different agent. Tell them it is not a legitimate merchant and you want to dispute the charge as you did not receive the service you were charged for.

Skytrain is not going to be overly crowded heading out of downtown to the airport. Most traffic is heading into the core. Also being a Saturday it is going to lighter than a weekday. At the airport it is going to be busy. Many of the flights from Asia and Australia arrive early in the morning and a good number of those passengers are connecting onto the US. Add in the local and cruise traffic. It is busy but the lines tend to move quickly. You don't need to leave at 5AM. I would head out around 7 AM and then grab breakfast at the airport once your past security and US customs. If your in the US departures area there is a Starbucks and a sit down restaurant (named after the local hockey team) around gate E81 if you want a proper breakfast.

The way this works is when a travel agent (or some other entity that is kind of acting the same way like a cruise line) books a flight they are in control of the ticket until around a day or two before when control transfers to the airline. Under rare cases the airline will take over control earlier. So Air Canada is going to tell you to go talk to NCL. This is the published economy fare structure at Air Canada for flights to the US: https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/book/fare-options-and-fees/to-the-us.html#/ The special deal NCL and Air Canada negotiated is going to be based on these, there could be some special "NCL" specific conditions that we don't know about. If you are in Basic then you can't make changes. If your in Standard you can change it at the airport or in advance but it costs money. If your in a higher fare class the change may be free. If Air Canada reschedules your flight then that opens up the ability to make changes for free.