We're planning a recce to Manitoba this summer / autumn and have been unable to find any reasonably-priced flights to Winnipeg

Sean has 5 days' annual leave left this year, so we really wanted to go on the bank hol in Aug (25th) to get more days there, but Zoom (with whom we originally intended to fly as we have a '2 for 1' voucher) only fly out on a Monday, and fly back on a Monday night (arriving on the Tuesday) which would mean Sean taking some unpaid holiday, which obviously just adds to the cost.

Canadian Affair don't fly to Winnipeg (shame, as they're normally real cheap).

KLM are #1400 - which is just under what we'd budgeted for the entire trip - flights, accommodation, car hire and spending money!

Air Canada etc are all at least #1600 too...

Looks like we're stuck with Zoom which, with the 2 for 1 voucher, would be #640 for both of us (return). This is a good price but only because of the voucher, and whilst this is only our recce trip, if we end up moving out there (which is looking likely) we won't be able to get any more '2 for 1' vouchers so it would be nice to know that there are cheaper ways of flying to and from the UK :curse:

Anita

P.S. Failing that, does anyone know of a way to get hold of these '2 for 1' vouchers on a regular basis...??!!!

Sorry the cheapest flights in the Summer are Zoom, and are I believe the only direct flights. I don't know about any coupons.

August is a busy month in Winnipeg for Hotels, so make sure you book early. Also your car hire, if there is a movie or two filming in the City they tend to run out of cars.

If you have time to do your research it can work out cheaper if you fly to Toronto from London and then book a seperate flight from Toronto to Winnipeg. Hope this helps

Yeah we did look into this but it only works out £20 cheaper as return flights from Toronto to Winnipeg are £320 return for both of us. Plus there's the issue of if our flight to Toronto is delayed then we'll miss the connecting flight to Winnipeg...

Thanks anyway though :-)

This is the way we flew for the last 3 trips to Kenora including our move. As long as you leave plenty of time between your connections you should be ok. We've never missed a connection yet.

If the cost of flying to and from the UK is a big issue for you, then you're probably not ready to make the move to another country.

There are no cheap flights to Winnipeg. Out of Zoom's season, you're stuck going through Toronto/Calgary/Chicago/Minneapolis, and if you need a regional connection at the other end, it's a triple flight hell. It's expensive, especially at short notice. If you don't plan to leave Winnipeg, or would only go during Zoom's season, it's a fine place to live. But cheap or well connected it's not, and I don't see it changing any time soon.

I didn't mean just for us. It's more a problem for our family who would want to come and visit (although high prices are actually a good excuse for us not coming back every year - we'd much rather stay in Canada exploring than fly home to visit family anyway, but Sean's parents will want us back every year...groan!).

Flight prices are too trivial to factor in the decision-making for us anyway. We're set on Winnipeg but would still like to find out if there's a cheaper way of us / our family flying back and forth.

Biiink - Thanks for clearing that up, I'll stop googling 'cheap flights to Winnipeg' now! :-( Like I said to Bazzz, we'd stay put (other than flying back for family emergencies or occasional visits back home). We're going in on the MPNP (you don't need a job offer - wayhey!) and can't wait for our recce - I'm always intrigued by places that harbour such negativity and the more people go on about the mozzies, the cold and the flatness, the more I'm determined that we're going to make a go of it so I can come on this forum and harp on about all the wonderful, positive things about Manitoba that people are too small-minded to find out about :-) (don't mean that to sound antagonistic by the way, oops!).

Anita :-)

Hi Anita,
if it's family time and reconnecting face to face - unless your loaded winnipeg aint the place to come. Lived here 10 years been home 1 seen my mum twice here.

You could always do a 2-fer - you go on holiday to X and they go to X for a holiday - you get to see places and them 2-fer 1

Meeting old neighbours in florida this year.

when we did our reccie there was the mossies but no west Nile - spread from New york in the last 5 years. - 526 cases 2 dead. in Manitoba last year.

what are your interest outside of work?

hi there Grah, that sounds like a lovely idea - be a nice change from having Xmas in miserable old Blighty anyway! My parents could afford to fly whenever they wanted (they wouldn't come out much though as Dad has never flown further than Spain and thinks that was 'long-haul'! He thinks he'll be bored and get cramped up - he has long legs. I told him jumbos are a lot bigger than the Monarch Air jets, and that they have movies and stuff nowadays! hehe).

I've heard all about West Nile - there's nothing anyone can tell us that we haven't already read about, and like I said, the more we hear the more determined we are to prove that people CAN make a happy new life in Manitoba :-)

Sean's in IT, I'm a bilingual secretary (was - I'm a housewife now). We're into horse-riding, hiking, geo-caching, cycling, badminton, snowboarding / skiing (ok so the ski resorts are more hills than mountains, but we never expected any ski resorts in the Prairies so even 200ft vertical is a bonus!). Oh and Sean has already put a snow-mobile on his wish list :-)

We'd eventually like to have a horse again, obviously depending on where we end up (not sure if there are many IT jobs in Brandon or small places like Roblin, Swan River, Dauphin, etc.) so we'll probably end up The Peg, but on the outskirts somewhere more rural I guess.

Oh ps - Sean's parents couldn't afford 'normal' flights like Air Canada so we'd only see them when we fly back (never mind!).

Anita :-)

oh forgot to add - we're planning on giving it at least a year and seeing how things pan out - if we find it's not for us we can always move east to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia (our original destinations but we've since discovered MB). We'll have PR by the time we go over so should be more appealing to potential employers as they won't have to go through the hassle of applying for an LMO, etc. :-)

PS - I read somewhere recently that they've actually discovered a vaccine for West Nile in horses, so it's only a matter of time before they find one for humans. Also, it's prevalent not only in North America but also in France (last year 20 horses died from it) so it's hardly a Winnipeg / Manitoba thing - everywhere with lakes and rivers gets mozzies.

dont know if this will help try air transat./ canadian affair to toronto then get connection through westjet.com to winnipeg sometimes works out the same or if not cheaper than zoom but it means two flights, but can still be done all in the same day good luck.

IT jobs can be had in MB, I know of 2 recent immigrants one who was successful, and one who wasn't and returned to the UK.

They both started working for an Agency, the agency contracted them out to IBM who operate Air Canada's IT operations. One was transfered to Great West Insurance and then managed to get a full-time job with them when one came up.

The other languished at IBM, got fed-up, and left after approx. 2 years here.

I doubt that you would find any IT jobs outside of Winnipeg.

And not all the mozzies are able to carry West Nile either.

Swan River has some IT quite a large Forestry company and then there's the mining companies and all sorts up that way.

Colleges - Schools and the internet companies might be dead man's shoes but they do have the needs.

Good friend lives in Swan GIS/IT specialist for LP and a direct flight from UK takes 7/8 hours then there's the 5-6 hour drive up there.