BY STEVE DINNEN
Greetings from Montreal. I’m sitting in the British Airways lounge waiting to board a flight to London,then on to Portugal for a business meeting. Montreal and Toronto are currently way better bargains than Chicago or New York to snare a business-class fare that won’t bust your company’s travel budget.
Even U.S. carriers that will pick you up in Canada and route you through the United States and onward to Europe will charge less than if from a U.S. starting point. Cases in point for a business-class journey dated July 23-28: Des Moines or Chicago to London, $7,980 or $7,875, respectively. Toronto or Montreal on Air Canada will cost you $3,067.
This works going the other way, too. Des Moines to Tokyo Narita will cost $6,692. From Toronto — $2,301. And that’s nonstop. Of course, you’ll also have a separate fare from Des Moines to Canada. But even with that add-on, you or your company will come out ahead. And isn’t it nice to deplane from a 10-hour journey rested from a lie-flat bed rather than crammed into economy?
