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Saltin posted:Do it. Use your credit card. I still regret not doing it last year on my flight to Frankfurt. I told myself I'd do it if it were less than $1000, and it was $1500. They should sell upgrades once you've walked past the lie-flat beds and see the horror that awaits you in economy.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:54
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The horror that waits in economy is presumably a drunken shithead Albertan coming back from Spain, complaining that the credit card scanner won't read his Triple XXX Platinum Concierge American Express and now he won't be able to post worthless drivel on online forums straight across the Atlantic. There's probably some combination of fedora/cowboy hat and unlit cigar chomping going on too.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:57
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eXXon posted:The horror that waits in economy is presumably a drunken shithead Albertan coming back from Spain, complaining that the credit card scanner won't read his Triple XXX Platinum Concierge American Express and now he won't be able to post worthless drivel on online forums straight across the Atlantic. There's probably some combination of fedora/cowboy hat and unlit cigar chomping going on too. Yeah but at least that card will get him complementary lounge access.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:05
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See? That's why I posted, so you could get all your anger and frustrations out. I imagine you feel much better now. If there's still some pent-up anger in there, consider the following: I'm going to watch a bullfight when I'm in Madrid. Snus is the way to go for overseas flights, by the way.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:07
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PT6A posted:Snus is the way to go for overseas flights, by the way. You can take the man out of Alberta...
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Mar 17, 2015 18:15
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Lexicon posted:You can take the man out of Alberta... Snus originated in the social democratic wonderland of Sweden, in fact. I don't believe I've ever seen it in Canada. It was also loving phenomenal for long exams in university, I'll tell you what.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:24
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I'd kill for a pack of lucky strikes or chinese chunghuas. Not a chance of finding these, though.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:42
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Ceciltron posted:I'd kill for a pack of lucky strikes or chinese chunghuas. Not a chance of finding these, though. Lucky Strikes are wonderful and it's stupid that Canada doesn't get them, I had a habit of writing a once-yearly letter to Imperial telling them to get off their asses and bring them in, back when I smoked cigarettes. Also, it's stupid that you can't buy Gauloises outside of Quebec, as they are the second-best cigarette.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:46
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PT6A posted:Snus originated in the social democratic wonderland of Sweden, in fact. I don't believe I've ever seen it in Canada.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:21
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Tobacco is bad for me and causes cancer? Why, I never!
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Mar 17, 2015 20:23
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PT6A posted:Snus originated in the social democratic wonderland of Sweden, in fact. I don't believe I've ever seen it in Canada. I'm guessing that Canada has an import ban like every other country in existence.  cowofwar posted:Snus is amazing got getting oral cancer. Still better than cigarettes.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:33
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TD gave me a Visa with 4.35% interest on purchases and cash back. That's less than half the interest of my line of credit that they denied a rate reduction on. Gonna feel weird as gently caress when I use it.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:38
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Xoidanor posted:I'm guessing that Canada has an import ban like every other country in existence. I got it before. Usually, when Canada Post finds tobacco, they don't confiscate it, they just gently caress your rear end in a top hat with no lube through import duty.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:39
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Business class owns way more on the way back from a trip than on the way there. Especially if it's a trip where you actually do things and don't just lie on a beach the whole time.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:51
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Generally the upgrade from "ballast class" is like more than half the budget of my entire trip when I travel  It's just a day of hell you have to endure to save a month's worth of wages.
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Mar 17, 2015 20:59
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Baronjutter posted:Generally the upgrade from "ballast class" is like more than half the budget of my entire trip when I travel Points are your best friend if you don't want to spend the cash. Also flexibility in travelling. I went business class to New Zealand for like $2.5k return last year.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:04
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Math You posted:TD gave me a Visa with 4.35% interest on purchases and cash back. That's less than half the interest of my line of credit that they denied a rate reduction on. Use it to upgrade your flights
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Mar 17, 2015 21:04
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HookShot posted:Points are your best friend if you don't want to spend the cash. Aeroplan miles are lovely about that, though. First of all, every itinerary from YYC to Spain involved two stops when you wanted to book it on points. Secondly, selecting business class gave you business class tickets for domestic/intra-Europe flights, and economy over the Atlantic -- that's the exact loving opposite of what any sane person would ever want! Now I have an Avios number, so hopefully I can rack up some miles between BA and Iberia... and then never, ever use them in Canada
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Mar 17, 2015 21:07
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I just got a TD account and I hate my Coast Capital babby's first credit card with a horrible interest rate and absolutely no rewards of any sort. What's the best no-fee credit card these days? I never carry a balance so I don't even care about the interest rate, it can be 5000%, I just don't want to pay any sort of monthly fee and I'd love to collect points or buttmiles or rewardfarts or what ever marketing gimmick that translates into free money these days. Also the only time I get on a plane is to go to Europe, are airmiles basically useless to me?
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Mar 17, 2015 21:08
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Baronjutter posted:I just got a TD account and I hate my Coast Capital babby's first credit card with a horrible interest rate and absolutely no rewards of any sort. What's the best no-fee credit card these days? I never carry a balance so I don't even care about the interest rate, it can be 5000%, I just don't want to pay any sort of monthly fee and I'd love to collect points or buttmiles or rewardfarts or what ever marketing gimmick that translates into free money these days. Just remember: depending on the amount you spend on your card, it can actually be worthwhile to pay a yearly fee to up the points collection rate or the cashback rate. Figure out how much you'd have to pay to buy points directly, and then calculate based on that.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:12
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HookShot posted:Points are your best friend if you don't want to spend the cash. Bwahhahaa, points. I looked into it when travelling to Germany last year. After switching to Aventura, my parents had a pile of Aeroplan points saved up that they wanted to spend. Travelling to Basel using Aeroplan would've cost a bunch of points, obviously, plus two layovers and 800$ in fees and poo poo. That's not counting the 110$ charge of flying my road bike as extra oversize baggage. I ended up taking a direct flight using Air Transat, which cost 975$ plus 35$ for the bike. I realize that's just Aeroplan and Air Canada being utter poo poo, but goddamn did I ever want to see Air Canada go bankrupt then and there.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:19
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http://business.financialpost.com/2015/03/17/that-1-million-toronto-home-just-got-even-pricier/quote:Detached homes in Toronto have have continued their upward price trend halfway through March, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board. Are you ready? I can feel that pop, it's coming. 
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Mar 17, 2015 21:20
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Jan posted:Bwahhahaa, points. I looked into it when travelling to Germany last year. After switching to Aventura, my parents had a pile of Aeroplan points saved up that they wanted to spend. Travelling to Basel using Aeroplan would've cost a bunch of points, obviously, plus two layovers and 800$ in fees and poo poo. That's not counting the 110$ charge of flying my road bike as extra oversize baggage. Fees and taxes???!!!! WAAAAAANNNNHHHHHHH!!!! Why did they stop running that commercial, yet keep all the other lovely penguin commercials? That was the only good one.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:24
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Jan posted:Bwahhahaa, points. I looked into it when travelling to Germany last year. After switching to Aventura, my parents had a pile of Aeroplan points saved up that they wanted to spend. Travelling to Basel using Aeroplan would've cost a bunch of points, obviously, plus two layovers and 800$ in fees and poo poo. That's not counting the 110$ charge of flying my road bike as extra oversize baggage. Yeah, with Aeroplan you never actually fly AC, you have to go on one of the carriers that don't charge a fuel fee. Also never fly economy with points, not worth it.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:25
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HookShot posted:Yeah, with Aeroplan you never actually fly AC, you have to go on one of the carriers that don't charge a fuel fee. Also never fly economy with points, not worth it. Yeah, using Aeroplan miles to book United business-class was surprisingly not lovely*. It's too bad that Americans are pricks who don't have in-transit areas because they want to rifle through your belongings and deprive you of your god-given right to bring back Cuban cigars duty-free. * Until the plane broke and I got rebooked on Air Canada's finest flying pencil, from YYC-IAH. gently caress Bombardier and their lovely little jets.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:29
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PT6A posted:Fees and taxes???!!!! WAAAAAANNNNHHHHHHH!!!! Yeah, I get that there are fees for air travel, but why even have a point system if said fees end up piling up enough to buy a better flight through a different airline? I recall that Air Canada was the only option when I looked into it, so it simply wasn't a viable choice at the time.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:39
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Jan posted:Yeah, I get that there are fees for air travel, but why even have a point system if said fees end up piling up enough to buy a better flight through a different airline? I recall that Air Canada was the only option when I looked into it, so it simply wasn't a viable choice at the time. Yeah, it's total bullshit. Just because I can't tell: I wasn't making fun of you for being pissed off, but referencing the cute penguin-family commercial and trying to type an approximation of the penguin shrieking. Air Canada sucks terribly in so very many ways. I think they keep the flight attendants in locked cages or something, it's the only thing that can explain their horrible, horrible attitudes.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:46
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eXXon posted:Corporate income taxes are generally lower here, and I do not understand your point about PPP at all - causation would seem to go in the exact opposite direction. Are you arguing that Canadians have higher PPP and this higher prices? I don't think that's true at all. Corporate taxes are not lower in Canada. Maybe the headline rates but effective tax rate for most us corps is lower than here. Companies / markets are smaller here, thus the companies have less buying power and are mostly price takers, meaning they pay more for the underlying goods and thus need to charge more to make money.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:31
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PT6A posted:Snus originated in the social democratic wonderland of Sweden, in fact. I don't believe I've ever seen it in Canada. Yeah I know. You just painted a quintessentially Albertan picture: - has the money for exotic overseas travel - lacks the dignity to not chew baccy / snort snuff the whole way there 
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Mar 17, 2015 22:33
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Lexicon posted:Yeah I know. You just painted a quintessentially Albertan picture: Point taken. I'm actually pretty good about dealing with nicotine cravings in general, but airplane travel knocks it right the gently caress out of me. The first time I hear a baby scream, and I realize I'm stuck for 9 hours, every light in my brain just starts flashing and I need chemical relief.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:55
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PT6A posted:Point taken. I'm actually pretty good about dealing with nicotine cravings in general, but airplane travel knocks it right the gently caress out of me. The first time I hear a baby scream, and I realize I'm stuck for 9 hours, every light in my brain just starts flashing and I need chemical relief. Don't worry, you've got this poo poo figured out. Your trip sounds almost exactly how I would recommend going on holiday. Especially if you're a wine drinker. Are you planning on spending any time in Bilbao? There's a pretty sweet beach there, as well as at least one really worthwhile museum. By going to Spain, you're going to realise a significant boost in the quality:price ratio. If you're on a really serious On the topic of tobacco availability, it might just be an Alberta thing where you haven't seen Swedish snus, nor Gauloises available for purchase. I've seen Gauloises for sale on Granville Island, and bought Swedish snus in Kamloops.
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Mar 18, 2015 01:12
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B33rChiller posted:Don't worry, you've got this poo poo figured out. Your trip sounds almost exactly how I would recommend going on holiday. Especially if you're a wine drinker. Are you planning on spending any time in Bilbao? There's a pretty sweet beach there, as well as at least one really worthwhile museum. By going to Spain, you're going to realise a significant boost in the quality:price ratio. If you're on a really serious Wasn't planning on Bilbao specifically, but I'm probably going to do three or four short trips to other cities. Lisbon is 95% likely, San Sebastian is probably around 70%, Logroño at around 50%, but I could easily do Bilbao instead or in addition to. I'm not a huge beach person, mind you. On the cost-effectiveness: I was there last year, so I'm well aware of it, and I love it. Having a kitchen is going to help with that further, obviously, since I won't have to eat out every meal. PT6A fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 01:48
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Yeah, gently caress air travel. It's amazing how something that should be one of the most phenomenal and fantastic, holy-poo poo-it's-loving-magical experiences in modern society into a catastrophically lovely ordeal that I would describe as being like a cattle car except that it would probably be considered too inhumane to inflict on bovines. The last time I went overseas?  Well, Benadryl, anyway, but I still couldn't sleep. The way there was on a 777, which is a great aircraft, but UK immigration was awful. They had all kinds of attitude and stamped my passport with some sort of "no access to public money, you drat dirty foreigner" thing, which I took somewhat personally* as a number of my ancestors drat near got themselves killed fighting in England's wars (against people who would get to skip the line, no less), but anyway. The way back was a typical Air Canada 767 that managed to take a few hours longer to go from FCO to YUL than from YYC to LHR, and even managed to get delayed for like an hour on the tarmac and ughhhh. *only in the Internet tough guy sense. What actually happened is that I thanked the immigration lady and went about my business like a good little tourist. David Corbett fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 02:26
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David Corbett posted:Yeah, gently caress air travel. It's amazing how something that should be one of the most phenomenal and fantastic, holy-poo poo-it's-loving-magical experiences in modern society into a catastrophically lovely ordeal that I would describe as being like a cattle car except that it would probably be considered too inhumane to inflict on bovines. My last flight from Brisbane -> Auckland -> Vancouver the plane got delayed on the tarmac for four hours because Brisbane broke their computer system and so they had no record of how many people were on the plane and had to manually count everyone to make sure it matched the number of people that had checked in or whatever. It took them over six attempts before they managed to get the right number of people. Also once on Canada 3000 our plane basically ran out of fuel over the Atlantic and we had to make an emergency landing in Gander.
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Mar 18, 2015 03:03
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You loving poors don't deserve to fly in comfort. That's what you get for not pulling your weight in the economic juggernaut that is glorious Canada
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Mar 18, 2015 03:13
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Baronjutter posted:I just got a TD account and I hate my Coast Capital babby's first credit card with a horrible interest rate and absolutely no rewards of any sort. What's the best no-fee credit card these days? I never carry a balance so I don't even care about the interest rate, it can be 5000%, I just don't want to pay any sort of monthly fee and I'd love to collect points or buttmiles or rewardfarts or what ever marketing gimmick that translates into free money these days. I think the MBNA Smartcash is still the best no fee card. 1% cash back + 2% cashback on the first few hundred you spend each month on gas and groceries. The Amazon.ca visa is 1% cashback and charges barely any premium over the mid-market rate on foreign purchases. If you're going to leave the country at all in the next few years, there's no reason not to get it. The Capital One Travel card was the one to get until last month, it cost an effective $20 a year and gave 2% return if you navigated the redemption process successfully. Now it costs the full $120 per year, so unless you're spending 12 grand a year on your card it's not worth it over the 1% cards, and there's probably better (~1.5%?) options anyway. Really, you're better off churning through "fee waived for the first year" cards that give you a bunch of cash and points to sign up every 6 months or so. Kreez fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 03:18
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Ryanair is planning to launch $25 cross-atlantic flights in the next few years. 
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Mar 18, 2015 03:32
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I flew on Air Canada from Buenos Aires to Santiago and it was pretty nice for me. Although this one lady got harassed by every single flight attendant for not sitting in the correct seat on a 70% empty flight. 
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Mar 18, 2015 03:34
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The first and only time I flew Ryanair the plane sounded like it was going to break up in midair.
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Mar 18, 2015 03:35
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Rime posted:Ryanair is planning to launch $25 cross-atlantic flights in the next few years. At least they're honest. "Yeah, we're loving cheap and you're going to be uncomfortable, and you can gently caress off if you don't like it." It's only Air Canada that has achieved the perfect intersection of high cost and terrible service. They suck marginally less on overseas flights because there's actual competition from airlines that aren't WestJunk, but they still pack a vicious attitude. Lufthansa and Iberia domestic were both way more pleasant that any AC flight I've ever taken. Iberia had better wine available in economy on a 1 hour CRJ-operated domestic flight than Air Canada did on an overseas route. Are you loving kidding me? I got a hot lunch and a cold beer served in a glass bottle on Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Madrid, too -- again, a step above Air Canada's international service.
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Mar 18, 2015 03:45
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