Purley

I don't understand. Everyone here recommended flying with Canadian Affair. I went on their website and the planes come up as Thomas Cook or My Travel. Even if I phone the Travel Agency here called My Travel - nobody in travel agencies has ever heard of Canadian Affair.

I tried three or four agencies and they all said the same thing - I have never heard of Canadian Affair.

It obviously exists but it obviously is not an airline. I thought it was a Travel Agency.

Anybody got any explanation?

Stivo

We booked our holiday to Toronto with Canadian Affair last year and actually flew with MyTravel and Thomas Cook Airlines.

I had presumed from the start that Canadian Affair are an Agency.

Headhurts

They have just opened an office in Canada.

The URL for the Canadian version of their website is:- www.canadian-affair.ca
It's not working yet though, so you could try the UK one:- www.canadianaffair.com

SirTainly

I flew with them to Calgary, and had no complaints, other than the planes being very late arriving on the return trip, which could have happened with anyone.

When you fly with them everyone else on the plane will be Canadian affair passengers, they just use other companies planes. I would imagine it's a cheaper way for them to obtain planes than leasing their own ones, which require expensive infrastructure etc. It's cheaper for them to use a company that already has the planes and support equipment, which is beneficial to T. Cook as they can use their planes to generate revenue when they are not in company service, (the plane I took was used by TC on other days to fly to Carribean IIRC).

Purley

Oh - I guess they must be an English company. Whenever I ask for flights from Calgary to Gatwick they always seem to quote Air Transat. On an earlier thread on here some people had said that there was more room and the seats were better on the Canadian Affair flights. But if Canadian Affair is just a travel agency and they use other companies' planes, then you might book through Canadian Affair and fly on an Air Transat plane - is that correct?

I know when I looked on the Canadian Affair website - after you choose a flight the planes have My Travel or Thomas Cook beside them. So - do My Travel and Thomas Cook own their own planes or are these Air Transat planes too?

Here I am trying to get a Canadian Affair plane because various people said they were the best - but they really don't seem to exist!!

Stivo

To be honest, we prefer Air Canada.

The baggage allowance is better than the charter flights, free food and drink throughout the flight and more legroom in 'standard' class.

Headhurts

They only use My Travel and Thomas Cook Airlines, who both own their own aircraft. They are definately breaking into the Canadian market, as I had a brochure from them in my post this morning. In the brochure, it said that they had just opened a branch in Canada and there was a card that said that if you knew anybody who is in Canada that may wish to use their services, they would send them a brochure.
I am happy to put your details in it and send it back to them if you want a brochure.

Purley

Thanks. I will see what my travel agent says when she calls back.

She was checking with Charter tours and she found an Air Transat flight that also uses My Travel. She said that Air Transat has its own planes but on that particular flight, the plane was owned by My Travel.

From all the posts that I have read on here, including a previous thread of mine about Canadian Affair - its all very much one particular person's experience over another person's. I have always flown Air Canada and I have always had really good service and helpful friendly staff. However, other people say they had bad service on Air Canada.

I suppose its like when I checked on Epinions. The first person would say that the particular dishwasher was a piece of junk - the second person would say its the best dishwasher they have ever owned.

The only thing the travel agent is checking right now is that she found me a My Travel flight on Monday June 20th for $1,006.05 (inc. taxes) that leaves at 8.35 pm.

On the Canadian Affair website I found a My Travel flight on Monday June 20th for $876 that leaves at 6.05 pm.

Mind you, coming back, the flight she found left at 11.20 am. but the one I found leaves at 9.25. So perhaps its worth $130 more so we don't have to leave my sister's so blasted early in the morning. In order to get to Gatwick three hours before the flight leaves, we would have to leave home by 5.30 am for the earlier flight. Whereas if the flight leaves at 11.20 - we could wait until about 7.30 am to leave home - which is much more reasonable!

daisymoll

If you travel on a thomas Cook flight with Canadian Affair you will get 35" of legroom. this is extremely spacious and really made the flight 200% better for me. You do not get this if you go with a My Travel Flight. I think the idea of using Canadian Affair is that you bbok direct with them without using your own local travel agent.

SimonG

Did it really make that much difference. I'm looking at going back at the end of March / early April and purposely looked for MyTravel rather than the Thomas Cook. Just because the last time on the MyTravel plane we sat nearer the rear of the aircraft where the seats on the sides went from 3 to 2, which meant the aisle was a lot wider.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

stepnek

You know I was under the impression the last time I saw a Canadian Affair brochure (which was a while ago) that it depended on where you were travelling to as to which airline was used. Flights to the eastern side were with Thomas Cook and flights further west were with My Travel.

tallperson

I'd say it depends on your height. At 6'2" it really does make a LOT of difference to me but I guess other people wouldn't even particularly notice. Also if you're travelling with little ones it helps to have as much space as possible.
I personally would always pay for legroom over seat width/movies/food etc.

Just my two cents worth,

ross&carolyn

When I booked my flights last year and this year I found Globespan.com were a bit cheaper than canadian affairs, they use air transat planes. my friend used canadian affairs last year and they were fine.
In terms of leg room and stuff I suppose you get what you pay for, if we had booked on a scheduled flight on air canada it would have cost us £600-£800 whereas the charter flights are £200, cost being an issue to us because we are a family of 5!

Julie & Andy

Same here as we are a family of 5, we booked through Meridian Line Travel, who are part of Globespan but it worked out at £40 cheaper. They were the cheapest we found, and like you for 5 tickets its not cheap, but this helped and the flight we could not fault. We would definately use them again.

Purley

My travel agent phoned somewhere and told me that My Travel flies out of Toronto and Thomas Cook out of Calgary. I prefer Calgary. Its a smaller airport. One time years ago I was flying when my kids were young and the flight from Regina to Toronto was late and we had to race all the way through Toronto airport to catch our connection. Since then I have always gone through Calgary and I much prefer the smaller airport.