Vancouver (YVR) flight question

[skis2]

We are returning to Vancouver from our Alaska cruise. I have a question about our flight home to Pittsburgh. As US citizens, is it better to fly a US domestic airline and connect through a US city or fly Air Canada and connect through Toronto? Does it make a difference with customs? Price and times are about the same. Unfortunately, there are no nonstop flights between YVR and PIT.

[Gardyloo]

If it's an Air Canada Rouge flight, pick the US carrier unless you have very short legs. You'll clear US immigration and customs at the last Canadian airport before hitting US airspace, so if you're taking a US carrier out of YVR it will be before departure, if it's at YYZ you'll clear the US border controls there. Your connecting flights within the US will be handled as domestic - no bags handling needed.

[martincath]

Regardless you will go through US customs on Canadian soil, so the only question is whether your choice of flight times works better for you/cost is better doing one or the other.

 

Since you're heading east, generally-speaking early and late flights are more available and usually cheaper than afternoon flights - making a 10am US-bound flight from YVR is very, very hard due to all the customs & immigration steps. Making a 10am Canadian domestic flight is plausible - so moving the customs stage 'downstream' in the journey to YYZ might mean the difference between you getting home at a reasonable hour the same day or hanging around the airport for hours waiting for a red-eye.

[skis2]

Thanks for the information!

[avcruz]

I would fly from YVR to a US connecting city. You will pre-clear US Customs & Immigration in YVR then check your bags all the way through to your final destination. This is nice so that at your connecting airport in the US you are treated as a domestic passenger and just have to worry about getting yourself from Gate A to Gate B.

If you connect via Toronto (YYZ) you will have to check your luggage for your YVR-YYZ flight, then pick it up at YYZ, go through US Customs and then re-check your luggage, then get yourself to your connecting gate - bit of a hassle.

 

It doesn't have to be a US airline - just a transborder flight. And I don't believe Air Canada Rouge flies within Canada, just internationally.