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Hi,

I will be moving to Florida for about a year in May/June and on my way over I would like to try and get on an MD-11 before they are all gone forever. Obviously that doesn't leave me with much choice of carrier or entry points into North America.

YUL seems to be the best option as long the M11 holds out on that route long enough.

I have looked at booking BHX-AMS-YUL-MCO but the KLM website seems to only give me one-way fares which are ridiculously overpriced. If I try and use cheaper return flights i.e throw away the return journey, their engine is intent on routing me through DTW or ATL instead of YUL, obviously with no MD-11.  

I've never booked a complex routing before so its all new to me but how can I force it to route me through YUL?

Secondly has anyone used YUL to transfer from Intl-Intl? Is it a straightforward procedure with regards baggage etc?

Thanks

Quoting FaddyPainter (Thread starter): Secondly has anyone used YUL to transfer from Intl-Intl? Is it a straightforward procedure with regards baggage etc?

Although yes, what you are doing is Intl to Intl, around here we would refer to that as Intl-Transborder, and yes, at YUL, (and YYZ and YVR) is is very very easy.

If you look on the YUL airport website, it explains it, but what you will do on arrival at YUL is bypass Canadian Customs and go directly to US Customs Pre-clearance. Then you go to the US departure area. The cool part is that you don't even have to worry about your baggage, it will be transferred. It is held during the transfer, and if US Customs doesn't want to see it, it will just go onto your US flight.

Not sure if my answer will be of any use for you, but here it is:

I'm scheduled to do pretty much the same thing you are doing, in May. Europe - Florida and catching the MD-11 to YUL. So I booked myself on a cheap open jaw fare I found a while back, first Europe-YUL (via AMS obviously), then on my return, Florida-Europe through ATL on Delta. So all I needed was a way to get from YUL to Florida. I found some decent one way flights for this, all around $200, but I wanted to get Allegiant Air for my log and I want to log 2 new airports so basically I'm taking a greyhound bus into Plattsburg (USA) in the evening after arriving in YUL, then the next morning Allegiant from Plattsburg to St Petersburg Clearwater. The flight was super cheap and more than offset the bus and hotel, and while the whole trek might seem annoying and stressful, I have time and love these non standard connections so I'll enjoy this.

So in your case: I see you're from Birmingham. So I went to KLM.com and did a search for BHX-YUL and then back MCO-BHX, which you'll have to throw away, but might decide to use for a short visit home later. (maybe Christmas?)
I did some random dates, June 4 (you mentioned that period) and back on Dec 17 so you could use this for a Christmas trip home. You might want a date closer to Christmas but today, Dec 17 is the latest KLM will let you book, so you'd have to wait for another week. The whole thing will cost you 541 GBP round trip, not bad at all, and includes your MD-11 flight. Right from Birmingham. This is probably THE least expensive way for you to build that MD-11 into your trip before it's gone forever.

Good luck!

Oh and by the way, the whole trip is very nice from an enthusiast's perspective: BHX-AMS is on the rare 737-900 (not that rare in the US, but hard to get in Europe) and the way back, you get 3 segments, MCO-JFK is on the MD88 which is nice, then you go JFK-AMS on the 772 and then back up to BHX on the E190. Not bad!

Soren   

So I'd have to book the YUL-MCO sector on a separate ticket? Not that I mind but the added security in case of delays is nice on the single booking, and would the bags still get transferred in YUL with two separate tickets?

Oh and thanks for your quick responses, can always count on A.net  

Yes you have to get a separate ticket. But why not do a buffer day in Montreal? It's an awesome city.
If you're doing this on May 9 by any chance, we're on the same flight!

Soren   

Might see what my budget can stretch to with regards Montreal.

I will find out the exact dates I will be travelling in the next few weeks, but it wouldn't surprise me if we ended up on the same flight, such a small world as it is lol.

Any ideas on what carrier to go with on YUL-MCO? I'm not expecting much in the way of service whoever it is but hey...

Quoting FaddyPainter (Reply 6): Any ideas on what carrier to go with on YUL-MCO?

AC has the only nonstop service but you would have to spend the night in YUL as AC's nonstop (A319) leaves at 0805.

Since KL arrives YUL fairly late (1645) there aren't very many same-day connecting options via the U.S. that would allow enough connecting time. And since you would have a separate ticket, you wouldn't want to risk missing the YUL-MCO flight which would probably be non-refundable.

Since you mentioned May/June, I looked at fares YUL-MCO for the middle of that period (May 31) and DL seems to have the lowest 1-stop options with many connections at CA$197 one way (all taxes/fees included) with connections at either LGA/ATL/DTW. AC's lowest nonstop fare is CA$231 and about the same for connecting service via YYZ.

You could also consider flying out of PBG or BTV instead of YUL. G4 flies nonstop PBG-SFB, whereas BTV does not have any nonstops to Orlando.

You don't need to book separate tickets. Delta.com will let you do this on a single ticket. Just need to use the multi-city search option. I just picked some random dates and went like this:

Leg 1: BHX-YUL on June 11
Leg 2: YUL-MCO on June 11
Leg 3: MCO-BHX on Novemeber 20

Final price was 651 GBP -- How does that compare to the one-way fares you were getting from KL? When you do multi-city itineraries on Delta it doesn't show you the price until the very end, so it's possible that there are other combinations of flights (and especially dates) that would have a lower price. I've had good luck using the multi-city search tools on Orbitz or Travelocity to figure out the best price combinations. Then you can either book through them or go find the same flights on Delta's site.

The outbound itinerary I put together was like this. The connection in YUL is a little tight, but that appeared to be the only option that didn't require an overnight stop:
DL 9415 11:20 BHX 13:30 AMS 737
DL 9393 15:25 AMS 16:45 YUL M11
DL 5136 18:06 YUL 20:55 ATL CR9
DL 1769 22:50 ATL 00:16 ATL 752

I created two 3-stop flights like this last year, and had a couple glitches that I'll warn you about. First, I flew CPH-AMS-YVR-SLC-BZN. The agent in CPH was able to check my bags through to BZN, but had trouble getting my boarding passes for the last two legs. She advised me to pick them up from DL at YVR. Upon arriving at YVR, I proceeded directly to USA customs pre-clearance, where there was a kiosk to print my boarding pass. The trouble was that the kiosk couldn't print my boarding pass either--I had to see an agent because there was something unusual about seat selection. AC had an agent there to help with their connection customers, and she phoned DL's on-call agent to come over and help me, but DL wasn't answering their phone. After waiting a while and trying again, I went back out and cleared Canadian immigration and went to the land-side DL check-in to get my boarding passes so that I could go back to USA pre-clearance. The DL agents apologized profusely and said that there was a funny error with my record that they had never seen before. So this is unlikely to happen to you, but something to think about. On the other hand, the nice thing about going through Canada to get to the US is that (at least at YVR) you don't have to claim checked bags at the first point of entry like you do if you clear customs inside the USA. You get off of the inbound flight and take only your carry-on bags to USA pre-clearance. But that leads me to the problem with my second such flight.

The second itinerary was EDI-AMS-MSP-SLC-BZN (took that routing to get home in time for dinner, as there didn't seem to be any other itinerary that day that would get home until about midnight). Everything was fine with boarding passes, but the ticket agent at EDI couldn't tag our bags all the way through. I told her that the CPH station did it without problem (they actually had to put two separate tags on my bag, because their format won't handle 4 flights on one tag). She still couldn't figure it out, so she tagged the bags to MSP, where we had to claim them in customs anyway. It was pretty painless to recheck the bags in MSP at the post-customs bag drop, but if you ran into the same issue at YUL, I'm not sure how it would work.

Quoting redzeppelin (Reply 9): The connection in YUL is a little tight

As long as the inbound flight is on time, 1:21 is more then enough time. And if you do miss your connection, it will be on Delta's dime, not yours, as they built the PNR.

Quoting redzeppelin (Reply 9): Upon arriving at YVR, I proceeded directly to USA customs pre-clearance, where there was a kiosk to print my boarding pass.

This procedure is in YUL as well, (and they promise us soon in YYZ). The connection baggage is held in a holding area. When you clear US Customs, the agent has the option to have your bags called up if he desires. This is a very sensible procedure, as 99% of the time, baggage is not inspected on entry to the US.

Quoting longhauler (Reply 1): The cool part is that you don't even have to worry about your baggage, it will be transferred.

I don't get how this is cool. I find it absolutely ridiculous that this doesn't happen everywhere.

Quoting longhauler (Reply 10): As long as the inbound flight is on time, 1:21 is more then enough time. And if you do miss your connection, it will be on Delta's dime, not yours, as they built the PNR.

And it's likely going to be more as it's a transatlantic flight with lots of padding in the times. 16:45 scheduled arrival time, but look at the recent stats:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/KLM671
According to this, 16:17 is the average of the last 7 days.
And if you do get delayed, Delta will pay for your hotel and fly you the next morning.
Everything perfect.

Soren   

Quoting Birdwatching (Reply 12): And it's likely going to be more as it's a transatlantic flight with lots of padding in the times. 16:45 scheduled arrival time, but look at the recent stats: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/KLM671 According to this, 16:17 is the average of the last 7 days.

I think there's something wrong with those Flightaware times. It shows the scheduled departure time as 1520 which is correct, but it shows the scheduled arrival time as 1610 which is wrong. According to the KLM schedule it's currently scheduled to arrive at 1700 (it arrived at 1709 on Monday per the KLM website).

Effective April 1 for the summer schedule the block time drops by 20 minutes, probably due to lighter average summer winds, with scheduled departure time 1525 and arrival 1645.

Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 13): I think there's something wrong with those Flightaware times.

In my experience, the airline's schedule is based on anticipated gate-to-gate times, while Flightaware shows scheduled times based on the filed flight plan. They rarely agree with each other. When a flight is complete, I think that Flightaware shows the actual flight time based on takeoff to landing.

Example: SAN has a noise curfew that prevents take-offs before 6:30. DL978 to SLC departs at 6:15 according to the DL schedule, but Flightaware shows tomorrow's departure scheduled appropriately after the curfew lifts at 6:34. Over the past two weeks, the flight has officially departed anywhere between 6:31 and 6:43 per Flightaware.

Quoting FlyingHollander (Reply 11): I don't get how this is cool. I find it absolutely ridiculous that this doesn't happen everywhere.

It's cool because you are clearing Customs without your bags.

It would be like flying YYZ-AMS-RTM, then when clearing Dutch Customs and Immigration in AMS for your domestic flight to RTM, you don't have to claim your bags as your bags have already been transferred. Yes, it should be done everywhere, but usually your bags are inspected at the first point of a domestic arrival, in this case (as the YUL-MCO is technically a domestic flight) your bags are never inspected.

Quoting redzeppelin (Reply 9): You don't need to book separate tickets. Delta.com will let you do this on a single ticket. Just need to use the multi-city search option

That is what I like with DL.

In the past I have flown "crazy" itineraries such as ARN-AMS-BOS-DTW-LAX, ARN-CDG-SFO-SLC-BUR, LAX-SAN-MSP-AMS-ARN and LAX-SFO-AMS-ARN. All has been booked through DL.com.