canadian-affair.com

Canadian Affair came highly recommended to me, and they didn’t disappoint. They are the winner of the Canada Travel Awards Best Canada Website 2002 and 2003 and deservedly so. They offer exceptionally cheap travel between a good range of airports in both Canada and UK, currently starting at prices as low as £148 return, including taxes! I’m actually now onto my second booking with them (second journey not yet taken… *g*). Both times have been flights ...
...a separate review for them.

I find the website is sometimes temperamental and won’t load. If this happens it’s best to come back at another time. Once on it though there’s useful background information (love the time zones map!). There’s also information on the airlines used, including a seat map that will come in handy if you want to pre-book your choice of seat.

First stage if you are booking a flight is the search ... more

Canadian Affair came highly recommended to me, and they didn’t disappoint. They are the winner of the Canada Travel Awards Best Canada Website 2002 and 2003 and deservedly so. They offer exceptionally cheap travel between a good range of airports in both Canada and UK, currently starting at prices as low as £148 return, including taxes! I’m actually now onto my second booking with them (second journey not yet taken… *g*). Both times have been flights to Vancouver, flying with Thomas Cook airlines. I’ve done a separate review for them.

I find the website is sometimes temperamental and won’t load. If this happens it’s best to come back at another time. Once on it though there’s useful background information (love the time zones map!). There’s also information on the airlines used, including a seat map that will come in handy if you want to pre-book your choice of seat.

First stage if you are booking a flight is the search facility. This fills in pretty easily, including some fields for the return flight that auto-complete. When you click to search you’ll find yourself with a list of possible inward and outwards flight around the date you selected. This is actually a slight change from last year when you’d be offered a selection of complete return flights with the complete prices and including upgrade if you’d selected it. The new system has the advantage that it lets you see which inward and outward flights are the cheapest. On the other hand it means that the prices you see do not include tax or an upgrade. You have to make your selections and go onto a second page before you see full tax-inclusive prices.

I’ve actually just run through the first three pages of the booking form (they were tinkering with it when I booked at New Year), and it’s a little changed. The third page includes your name, meal choice and special requests such as wheelchair access (that’s new since I booked…). That’s as far as I could go without actually booking a flight, so I can’t vouch for what will be after that, they may have changed it! But options to book insurance and an upgrade came later when I last did it.

Overall the booking system is easy to use. The downside of the new system is that you have to be quite far in before you get all the prices involved. I actually rang up to find out what an upgrade would be this year before I made my booking… I think it varies according to the price of the standard ticket, but my return upgrade to Vancouver on my latest booking will cost me £178 including extra taxes. Since this is their longest flight and for high season I don’t think you’ll find many of their flights where you pay more than that.

They do provide some nice extras in the booking process. One is the ability to choose a special meal (diabetic, gluten free, vegan or vegetarian). However I found this a little frustrating. I’m allergic to mushrooms, so I’d like to order a meal that doesn’t have them in. Personally I can’t see why if you can order a choice like this it can’t be a choice of set meals with ingredients available. I’d be quite happy to have a diabetic or gluten free if it was also mushroom free! But no such luck.

One thing that really does work though is the ability to choose a seat. There’s a charge of £7 each way for doing it, and they don’t guarantee you’ll get your seat, but it worked out for me. I love flying, but I’m a little claustrophobic, so to be able to pre-book a window seat was great for me. I reckon it was cheap for the stunning views I got out of the window last year! You can also book extra leg room seats (in Economy) for £25. Problem though… unless they’ve just changed this, you can’t pre-book seats online. Ring the office about it, and check that they send you a new statement letter with the correct details. Your seat numbers and the charge should be marked on your letter. They allocated me a window seat in Economy first time round, even though I’d paid for an upgrade! They made the amendment promptly and without bother, but I’m glad I spotted that early!

You can also buy travel insurance on the website. Last year I got it elsewhere. This year I am using theirs, as a friend last year had a medical emergency that they dealt with very well. Unfortunately they’ve just changed their insurance firm, so we’ll have to hope they are still good!

You can also book accommodation, car hire and even a rail trip across the Rockies (very tempted…), but since I haven’t used those facilities I can’t comment! I did look at the range of hotels available, and they are not the cheapest. If you want a slightly upmarket hotel use them, but if you are going budget you’ll find better deals if you do a bit of searching.

You can pay a deposit on your flight with credit card online. If you pay the balance this way they do charge a percentage. Last year I actually took my balance in cash to their office. It is an office rather than a shop, but they usher you into a little reception room and you get to sit and look at brochures while you wait for your receipt. Nice atmosphere. They are also always really friendly and helpful on the phone. Last year as it was my first flight as an adult I rung them with a lot of ‘silly’ questions, and they always did their best to help. They were also honest when they didn’t know the answer, which I think is good.

Make sure you check out the cancellation terms. Depending on when you cancel you could lose just the deposit or a varying percentage of your total up to 100% if you cancel in the last 7 days. It’s fair in my opinion, but you should know what you are committed to!

Overall they are friendly, do their best to be helpful, and offer excellent value. They are also consistently the cheapest for flights to Canada. Just before Christmas there was another company cheaper, then Canadian Affair dropped their prices to beat them. Last year for my Premier seats I paid less than British Airways Economy. This year the price has dropped considerably! I’m happy!

Canadian Affair has a few ‘sister companies’, The Airline Seat Company, Australian Affair and New Zealand Affair. I think I will be looking at them if my dream of heading down under comes true! They are registered/protected with ATOL, ABTA and IATA.

As I said before, my flight was actually with Thomas Cook Airlines, so check out my separate review for that.

UPDATE, 13TH MARCH 2003

Sadly I have to update my review and change my opinion of this company. You may have noticed in my original review that the con at the top was to check booking details. This was due to a mix up on seat bookings last year. As far as I was concerned I’d pre-booked seats, but when I enquired later I found this hadn’t been done properly and I was actually down one way in economy in spite of having paid for an upgrade! I thought it might have been my fault, and gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Well this year I made sure I booked my seats when I spoke to them in January. I booked window seats both ways and made sure I got the seat numbers. I’ve had a few personal issues going on the last couple of months, so I didn’t chase it up when I didn’t get a new statement with seat numbers and the charge for them added. I told myself it was just lost in the post. I finally got round to it yesterday and got a nasty shock. According to their computer I pre-booked a seat on the return flight, but not on the outward flight. And all the window seats are gone. To be honest, I’ve never flown without a window seat, so I don’t really know how I’m going to be. But knowing how I get if I spend 20 minutes on a crowded tube I’m not looking forward to the prospect of an eleven hour flight.

They were basically not able to give me any real alternative. The first guy I talked to did say they’d give me the reserved window seat on the way back free of the extra charge. But to be honest I’m now wondering if that puts me in the position of maybe losing that one as well. He also told me he couldn’t put a note on my file to look for a cancellation, but he’d do one on his own file to check once a week for me. I even asked about changing flight, but he told me it would cost £160 for me to change to a later flight.

I talked to someone else today. When I asked to talk to her boss, she told me she was the boss. She was also unable to give me any explanation as to how I could end up only pre-booked one way when I was actually told my seat numbers over the phone. She was also unwilling to consider taking any action like contacting the person in my seat and asking if they’d swap, even if I provided a Doctors note. I again asked about changing flight and she confirmed that if I did I’d be charged £25 alteration fee as well as the extra cost of the other flight, which I think was a bit of a cheek, considering it was their mistake and I was looking at losing two days of my holiday to do it. She also offered to move me to a window seat in Economy, but I don’t think that’s really a helpful offer to someone who’s on the large size, has a bad back and neck and is claustrophobic. When I asked she said she’d put a note on my file. Funny she could do that while the other guy couldn’t. Anyone else doubting it?

So I’m left in a situation where apparently they’ve made a mistake. They aren’t willing to do anything about it except give me an unsuitable seat without a pre-booking fee. Right now I can’t see any way it could have happened except by them moving me because it was convenient, maybe to make way for a group or something. As such I can no longer really trust them. I don’t particularly trust them to move me if a cancellation comes up.

They are still stunningly cheap, and I still find they can be helpful. But if they do mess up it seems it’s basically hard luck and they won’t do anything to make up for it. That’s if it was a mistake at all. And after the same problem two years running it’s hard to believe it’s been an honest mistake both times. No choice but to dock two stars and downgrade my customer service rating.

UPDATE 18 MARCH 2004

Well, I rang back Monday. Talked to another nice guy (not the same one as Friday) who did tell me there WAS a note on my file without him asking me (so sorry to the woman on Saturday for doubting that!) and took the time to go through the database checking everyone sitting in window seats (I’m not sure if the others did this in the detail he did). Good news is, he found me my seat. It seems there was a couple who’d cancelled but whose details hadn’t been taken off the database.

I put off updating until I got the confirmation with the changed details, and it turned up this morning! I am much relieved.

Only thing is, instead of a flight with Thomas Cook airline, leaving 11.30 am via Edmonton, I’m now going with My Travel leaving 8 am via Glasgow! (My return flight is unchanged. Maybe this is where the error with my seat booking happened?) Except for a nastily early start it’s not a massive problem for me. I’m even thinking maybe the couple cancelling was due to this, in which case all I can say is as long as I have my window seat I don’t care!

However I am a little concerned that they don’t seem to be telling people about the change. I know of someone else who’s found out by accident, and I’ve only found out because I’ve seen the changes on the confirmation. Them being able to change flights around is in the small print, so you can’t really complain. However, since you have to pay a larger amount if you cancel at a later date, I think it would be nice if they told people earlier rather than later, so if there is anyone out there who needs to cancel they can while they’ll still only lose their deposit…

Oh yes, one other note… apparently you can now book a particular seat online. I guess the change over to that system may have been another point where my initial booking went wrong!

Conclusions… I’d still recommend them on the whole if you are looking for cheap flights, and are prepared to be a little flexible. After all, my main problem with them has been with pre-booking particular seats. A service most don’t offer at all! But I guess the lesson is, double check your flight details. Chase up any details that are missing. If you don’t get a result then ring back, speak to other people and try and be nice. And it’s probably a good idea to check your flight details haven’t been changed by them before those important dates, like when the penalties for cancellation go up!

UPDATE 30th APRIL

Well, you are probably getting fed up of this by now, so I won’t give the blow by blow, but suffice it to say, I went into the office last Saturday (the 24th) to pay my balance and found out that once more I am no longer in a window seat on my outward flight. Not very happy. I got to speak to a (male) manager in person and he assured me they will do everything to get me a window seat back this time, even if it means giving me a seat on another flight. I think having it on paper this time helped (and maybe showing him this review did too…). I’m more hopeful… but no good news yet and a phone call yesterday was the old story! So wish me luck!

 

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