UK to Vancouver

[Wirral Girlie]

A quick one for maybe Globaliser here as he was very helpfull when we travelled to US last year!

 

I need to book to flights from Manchester to Vancouver for the beginning of September. Art the moment BA have sale and the price of £590 return is the cheapest its been since I started checking last October!

 

I would prefer to fly with BA but is it better to book now or wait till closer to September?

 

Kim :rolleyes:

[Ephraim]

September is a shoulder season, but prices will likely move up if only under worry about the price of oil.

 

Have you checked out FlyZoom? They have a non-stop flight to Vancouver and from £446.85 return. Air Transat (in association with Thomas Cook) has flights from £385.00 return. FlyGlobeSpan also flies this route from £405.00 return. Of course you didn't give dates or city, so I checked using the cheapest days in September as well as leaving from a London airport, but they do fly from other cities in Britain.

[Wirral Girlie]

Thanks for info Ephraim,

 

Have already checked the other companies you mentioned but they either don't go on the dates we want, have only 20kg baggage allowance and inflight service doesnt look as good as BA.

 

We want to fly out from Manchester UK on 2nd September returning on Sunday 14th September. BA is our preferred airline and we will have to go via Heathrow, which is not a problem.

 

Their current sale price of £590 per person seems good but should I wait in case a better price comes up nearer the time?

 

That is the big question!!

 

Kim

[Globaliser]

Their current sale price of £590 per person seems good but should I wait in case a better price comes up nearer the time?

Personally, I wouldn't wait. Although I'm not an expert on Vancouver pricing, it looks to me like a reasonably good price for that time of the year, and the chances of you doing better by waiting to see whether a better fare comes along later are probably well outweighed by the chances of this period not going on sale again or the fares not really being much lower than this in a future sale. That's always a possibility, but predicting the future of a commodity market (as air travel is) is always notoriously uncertain.

 

Three things to point out:-

1. If you log-in to the site, either as a registered customer or an Executive Club member, you should get £20 per person off the public price. If you're not already a registered customer, it's well worth creating an account just to get the discount. BA is not a bad spammer, so there's little downside to doing this.
2. World Traveller Plus is available for about an extra £200 each way (plus the extra tax if you depart the UK in WT+). If you decide to do this, you might also be able to save some money by buying the domestic separately from the long-haul, because you don't then get a useless "upgrade" into a higher booking class for the domestic flights. The supplement from London is only about £150 each way.
3. If BA is regularly your preferred airline and you are comfortable with booking on the BA website, did you know that if you buy 200 shares you would qualify for the shareholders' discount? You get 10% off the base fare on all leisure trips for yourself and people travelling with you on the same booking. (Obviously, occasionally this would be less than that £20 discount, which is a regular sale thing, so you do have to watch out.) The current scheme allows you to do this as many times as you like each year, for any trip that starts in the UK, in any cabin. It's an annual thing, so if you bought shares now you wouldn't qualify for discounts until purchases 1 January 2009. But the current share price is about £2, so even if you bought the shares for no reason other than to get the discount, it might not be that long before you'd save the entire cost of those shares - and you should still be able to sell the shares later.

[Wirral Girlie]

Thanks Globaliser that's really useful.

I am registered with BA so the extra £20 is a bonus! :D

[startwin]

Thanks for info Ephraim,

 

Have already checked the other companies you mentioned but they either don't go on the dates we want, have only 20kg baggage allowance and inflight service doesnt look as good as BA.

 

We want to fly out from Manchester UK on 2nd September returning on Sunday 14th September. BA is our preferred airline and we will have to go via Heathrow, which is not a problem.

 

Their current sale price of £590 per person seems good but should I wait in case a better price comes up nearer the time?

 

That is the big question!!

 

Kim

 

BA does have excellent seat sales that beat charters prices much of the time. We always do Vancouver/UK with BA. A note of caution however - you will fly out of Terminal 5. We flew into it on its opening day (nightmare) and back to Vancouver 3 weeks later. They still haven't sorted out all the problems, and I doubt they ever will. The charters fly out of Gatwick, which is a plus right now. ;)

[Globaliser]

A note of caution however - you will fly out of Terminal 5. We flew into it on its opening day (nightmare) and back to Vancouver 3 weeks later. They still haven't sorted out all the problems, and I doubt they ever will.

I was at T5 yesterday, and everything seemed to be doing exactly as reported by others, namely all going reasonably well.

[Wirral Girlie]

Well I booked our flights with BA for £570 each which I am very happy with (even though the flights cost more than our 7 day cruise to Alaska!)

 

I'll keep an eye out for Globalisers posts over the coming months re-terminal 5. By the time we go away in September I'm sure all will be running smoothly!

 

Thanks

Kim :)

[DanJ]

Gossip I've been hearing would suggest not to make any longterm plans with FLyglobespan.

 

Also suggest checking Air Canada. I beleive they have a UK website at http://www.aircanada.co.uk

[M&A]

Well I booked our flights with BA for £570 each which I am very happy with (even though the flights cost more than our 7 day cruise to Alaska!)

 

I'll keep an eye out for Globalisers posts over the coming months re-terminal 5. By the time we go away in September I'm sure all will be running smoothly!

 

Thanks

Kim :)

 

That's a good price, if you compare to Air Canada - Manchester/Vancouver return for the same dates its $1412 or 710 Pounds

[Wirral Girlie]

Yes, I'm very happy with the BA price. Have just looked at the Air Canada website and it works out at $1628 per person for the dates I want!!

:)