Originally Posted by Glaswegian

Tried both with two young kids ... easy isn't the word ... given a choice, I fly direct.

Having said that, the airport staff in Amsterdam were incredibly helpful ... we almost missed out connecting flight so they drove us through the airport on one of the little electric buggies ... the kids thought it was great.

Originally Posted by JAJ

From a regional UK centre it may be easier/cheaper to fly direct to somewhere like Amsterdam or Frankfurt and fly to Canada from there, as opposed to flying out of Heathrow.


Jeremy

Originally Posted by Biiiiink

Agree - we just did Edinburgh-Frankfurt-Toronto for 216 GBP, it was sold as Lufthansa but was actually code share so the transatlantic sector was Air Canada. Edinburgh-Heathrow-Toronto on Air Canada came in at 566 GBP. Crazy!

Okay so it's going east to go west but really, you need much less transit time at Frankfurt than Heathrow, and the connections worked out better for us so bizarrely our total travel time was about an hour shorter.

Originally Posted by mhhp

"tread softly for you are treading on my dreams"

Originally Posted by Covenant

This is absolutely brilliant, and I think sums up the reason as to why any negativity is met with such hostility.

Wise words, M.

Originally Posted by mhhp

Thanks Cov.

It is from a poem by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Originally Posted by Covenant

That's interesting. How are these flights arranged? Is it a specialist travel Agent, direct with the airline? or via a travel agent from abroad?
(excuse my ignorance)

Originally Posted by Biiiiink

These ones were Expedia - I usually scoff at their quotes but this time they were the best of the bunch. They're a bit hit and miss, but you could choose their "advanced search options" bit and force the system to route you through Frankfurt (I'm only saying Frankfurt because I don't know anything about Amsterdam routes, certainly with Air Canada being in the same alliance as Lufthansa Frankfurt's a good bet). Or a travel agent should be able to search that way too.

When we lived down south I used to monitor London-Calgary with AC and Frankfurt-Calgary with AC (although many times it was a Lufthansa codeshare flight) and the saving was always about 150 GBP. Can't find any links now but I've read about particularly leisure business class flyers buying themselves for example a London-Vienna flight, then joining a Vienna-back to London-New York flight and saving over a thousand pounds on the published London-New York fare. Crazy, isn't it?!

If you wanted to make sure you were on Air Canada rather than Lufthansa (but I love both!) I think the codeshare flights tend to be 4 digits so you can spot them that way. This may not be a steadfast rule, just my observation from hours of trawling the web!

Happy searching

Biiiiink

Originally Posted by Covenant

beautiful, hopefully the young lady respected his wishes..

Originally Posted by mhhp

Upon those words,.......I shall imagine she did.

Originally Posted by julius smith

hi, morwenna! yes, i agree totally why some people get annoyed. but as i have always said, whatever i saw, felt or experienced, i put down in words, for the benefit of anyone willing to read. i know there are probably multitudes of happy satisfied people living in canada (and probably mississauga too--i shudder at the thought!!) but from our viewpoint, we had a very difficult time. and our family situation was unique too, so that didnt help either. schooling was very tough indeed for the kids; it is a fallacy that the uk is far ahead; when i looked at the syllabus my kid brought back from school here, i was stunned--he was being taught maths and science that i myself was doing at A level, and some of it at first year of uni in the uk! how could the kids hope to cope with that, when they were barely learning fractions in the uk!! so, yes, my views are not everybody's, and i have always tried to include a little part in my posts saying that i did not want to put off anyone contemplating coming over here, so read with a pinch of salt, as it were! then the uni fees situation reared up; like i said recently, the uni of toronto quoted me $19 000 per year for a 9 year course--thats almost $180 000--the same course which ends up with the same qualifications in the uk costs £1500 a year for 5 years--it doesnt take an einstein to work out which to go for! sure, i had a job here, for which i am very grateful--i know for a fact that 90% of immigrants here have t take up really low paid jobs initially--some even do 2 or 3 jobs i heard. but, come on, i am coming out of this very much wiser and we have learnt a heck of a lot by coming here, living the life, even for only 6 mths, rather than sitting at home on our backsides and just wondering at what could have been! from that point, i am very happy and have no regrets at all for going back. never know, as you say, we still have valid papers, so no-one can stop us coming back again......

Originally Posted by bonny

Hi Julius.
I am also thinking about moving back to the UK.Please can you explain more about the valid papers you spoke of in ref to returning to the UK.Thanks

Originally Posted by hot wasabi peas

I think Julius is long gone. Perhaps send him a PM (private message - click on the poster's name on the left side of the message and a drop menu appears) or enquire in the 'moving back to the UK' forum.

I kind of think the papers Julius was referring to were papers to get back into Canada if he decided he wanted to return back to Canada after returning back to the UK. -- I think! Not sure!

Originally Posted by hot wasabi peas

I think Julius is long gone. Perhaps send him a PM (private message - click on the poster's name on the left side of the message and a drop menu appears) or enquire in the 'moving back to the UK' forum.

I kind of think the papers Julius was referring to were papers to get back into Canada if he decided he wanted to return back to Canada after returning back to the UK. -- I think! Not sure!

Originally Posted by bonny

Hi there.
Bonny here. I just checked you profile and see you are a Canadian living in England. I have a question for you regarding visa's. If and when I move back to the UK my Canadian boyfriend will be coming over as well. Have you any info to help him.

Thanks again