Hi

We are looking to land with our children on the 3rd June 2010 at Halifax. The wife and I are going on a return trip 3 weeks prior to sort things out. House, bank accounts, car, meet and greets etc. Will we have to activate visa at this point or do it when we come back three weeks later?

My wife's parents want to come with us to help settle in etc. They are looking to book a one way ticket stay for up to a month then get a flight down to Houston to see my wifes brother then from Texas fly home at some point....

Question would they have any problems with arriving with a one way ticket? or should they book the flight onto Texas as well? This will then restrict the time they can stay or make them stay longer!!

Thanks

John

They may well have a problem with this and may not stay at all. The air carrier may refuse boarding if they are not legal residents of Canada. CBSA may refuse them entry (this is why the airline may not let them on the aircraft in the first instance). The onward flight into the US may help getting into Canada, but it may not help getting into the US or onto the aircraft in the UK or Canada if they get that far. A lot of unknowns, won't know for sure until you try, depends who you have to deal with at the airport and CBSA and USI. A return open ticket if they don't know their dates may be better.

Just get them to buy a one way fully refundable, fully changeable ticket for the return. Once plans are definite, cancel and refund it.

why would you buy a one way ticket? will cost a right bloody fortune, then to get one that is refundable will cost more as you usually lose a percentage of it.
Get a ticket to Halifax, then connection to Houston then back to UK...nothing to it.

One way tickets are for citizens and PR holders...

Depends who they are thinking of flying with etc. One way tickets on charters are simply half the cost of a return, unlike the scheduled airlines. So if they are planning on coming into Canada like this and really don't want to commit to a return date etc. then the refundable ticket would get around the entry to Canada problem - which is all I was suggesting. I did suggest a fully refundable ticket, so there would be NO penalty for cancelling it. If they are planning on using a scheduled airline to come to Canada, then a return - even if they throw it away would be better.

If they are likely to come back for another similar trip in the near future, then i would look at nesting a US-UK-US ticket within the UK-CAN-UK ticket in some way.

Charters don't generally (I have never seen it at all) offer refundable tickets and on scheduled airlines refundable tickets are full price fares (no discounts).

To do the route the OP is asking about, it could be structured with a mixture of charters and scheduled. However this way you end up with different baggage allowances and possible delays. I would suggest getting an agent to book the ticket for you on scheduled carriers, it may cost a bit more, but they have access to far more information and experience in these matters.

Err, you might be surprised.

<deckchair, popcorn>

Always willing to be surprised. That's what I keep telling the wife, has not worked yet though.

G'wan, she's called Shirley innit?

It's just that monsieur martin knows a thing or two about flight ticketing.

I would agree. My comment was that if the OP's parents were intending to come in on a cheap charter then the fully refundable sched ticket would offer a way to avoid any hassles coming into the country. I wasnt suggesting they actually fly on it It wasn't a recommendation as to the most economical way to ticket the proposed itn. Were it me, I would just book two AC tickets - and if necessary pay the change fee on the return leg from Canada. Again, if they are planning on visiting again then you could get more creative. Flights ex-US are generally better priced than ex-Canada even on AC.

What no fight?

<changes channel>

I never did ticketing, just drove the 'bus.

Sorry. i think we agree If the OP had asked the cheapest way to do this rather than how to avoid hassles with immigration it might be different. At the end of the day it depends how flexible they need or want to be with their return ticket, how much they are willing to pay for this, and what their future plans might be.

My parents came out with us last December when we arrived and they had a one way ticket. They intended to book the return from here once they knew we were settled etc.

No problems at YVR!

One interesting way to do it would be to come out on a cheap charter.

Then book a ticket from YHZ to HOU (no premium for one way on NA flights) when here.

Then to get back to the UK book a HOU-LHR return ticket on AC. This allows a connection (though not a stopover sadly) in YHZ. However, if they want to come back to YHZ they can use the return part of the ticket (LHR-YHZ-HOU) and throw away (quietly!) the YHZ-HOU leg.

Flights ex-US are significantly cheaper than ex-CAN. If you can find routings with stopovers it works great. I used to use LAX as a way to get to YVR - cheaper and I got to spend a night in LA. Harder to find stopovers on cheaper tickets though.