Saskatchewan's boom means more direct flights from Delta and United

As Canada's booming province, Saskatchewan is seeing the positive affects that are associated with being prosperous, namely more direct flights to more cities. This past week three new routes were announced.

First out of the gate is Delta. which will offer direct non-stop summer seasonal service between Saskatoon and Salt Lake City. The once daily service will be offered from Jun 18 - Nov 29 on a CRJ-200 with the following flight times:
YXE-SLC Dep 13:30 Arr 15:55
SLC-YXE Dep 10:00 Arr 12:30

Next United has announced 2 new routes to the province. First off is once daily CRJ-700 service between Saskatoon and Chicago that starts on June 4 and twice daily CRJ-200 service between Regina and Denver that starts on July 1. The Regina to Denver flights will depart YQR at 6:38 and 14:18 while the Saskatoon flights leaves for Chicago at 12:45.

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Emirates to use A380 on Toronto - Dubai Route

Beginning June 1, 2009 Emirates will use the Airbus A380 Super Jumbo to fly the 3 times weekly Toronto to Dubai route. The carrier cites strong demand on the route for the aircraft change.

As a result, the New York JFK-Dubai route loses the A380 service and reverts to twice daily Boeing 777 flights.

Some rumours are floating around stating that one reason behind the change is for Emirates to prove to the Canadian government that they should change or remove restrictions on how many flights are allowed between Canada and the U.A.E.. Whether this is true or not there are pros and cons to both sides. While it always good to have more direct flights out of Canada, airlines like Air Canada stand to lose connecting traffic to points beyond Dubai as many people flying on Emirates are not ending their travels in Dubai, they are continuing on to other locations in Asia, Australia and Africa. Emirates has even expressed interest in serving other Canadian cities like Vancouver and Calgary should the regulations be relaxed.

It will be interesting to see how all of this pans out over the coming months.

Porter Airlines adds Thunder Bay to its route network

Porter Airlines, based at Toronto's Island Airport will begin flights to Thunder Bay on June 26, 2009. They will offer three flights per day on the weekdays and two daily flights on Saturday and Sunday.

The flights are timed are for connections to other Porter destinations like Ottawa, Montreal, New York and Chicago.

Full details on Porter's website

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Earn up to 50,000 Bonus Executive Club miles on BA Flights from North America

British Airways has launched their North American Spring Executive Club promotion and it is quite a bountiful one! It available on all of BA's mainline flights from Canada, the U.S., Bermuda and Caribbean

If you fly in the World Traveller or World Traveller Plus you will earn 25,000 bonus miles per round trip (Eligible classes Y,B,H,W,E or T)

If you fly in Club World or First Class you will earn 50,000 bonus miles per round trip. (Eligible classes (F,A,J, C, D, R or I). That 50,000 is all you need to redeem for a economy class round trip ticket between North America and Western Europe.

The promo requires registration (free) and runs until June 30. By the way there is no limit to number of times you can earn the bonus miles, so if you have a lot of BA flights coming up be sure to register for this one.

For all details and registration click here to go to the offer on BA's website

United adds second Quebec City-Chicago Flight

As of June 4, 2009 United will operate 2 flights daily between Quebec City and Chicago. Rather then having one flight a day on a slightly large E-170, the two daily flights will operated with CRJ-200's

Schedule as follows:
UA5962 ORD1258 - 1625YQB CRJ D
UA6223 ORD1815 - 2142YQB CRJ D

UA5915 YQB0815 - 0952ORD CRJ D
UA6441 YQB1656 - 1835ORD CRJ D

Source: Airline Route Updates

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RBC Avion Visa's to see increased redemption rate for Long Haul North American flights

In somewhat of a surprise move with one of Canada's most popular travel rewards credit cards, RBC is increasing Long North American redemption levels on its Avion cards from 30,000 to 35,000 points. This change will take place on May 1, 2009.

Why is it surprising? While it is not unusual for airlines to increase mileage requirements for reward flights, it is not so with credit card issuers. In the past year many of Canada's travel rewards credit cards have actually made their products and/or the reward rate of return more enticing to try and lure or keep their customers. Diners Club Club Rewards and Capital One's Mile Plus MasterCard are some that come to mind.

Will the change make RBC lose customers? Probably not, while many may not be happy with the change, the card still holds a pretty good redemption value for Long Haul North American tickets that are valued around $750 and why change if you have racked up lots of points with the card.

You can see the current redemption values of this card (30,000 points) against other travel points cards in our Travel Anywhere Credit Card Comparison. As you can see the Avion does not fare too well on lower value tickets under $500, but currently it is a top 3 card above the $500 level. With the new redemption rate it fares even worse under $500 and falls to the fourth best in the $500 category.

Now some other factors can come into play, if you have the Infinite Avion Visa you do earn 25% more points for booking travel with the card. So if you exclusively use the card for travel purchases the redemption rates are a bit better, but most people will not just use this card for travel purchases.

Is this a smart move by RBC? In our opinion of course not. We never like it when redemption levels are increased by a reward program but that may change if other credit card companies follow suit.

Thanks to Zorn on CanFlyer for revealing this.

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