^ true ... those 2 things are not mutually exclusive.

Can never forget the Asian girl who made a b-line to 68style to ask for wrong directions to cross the street lol

talking about old asian men...

WHERES MG1

Probably got a job at Bellingham Costco.

I hope MG1 is ok, anyone have his contact to do a check on him?

Hobz, keep talking, I'm loving the insight you bring to this topic and it's super interesting.

Has anyone been to a destination wedding in Mexico before?
It's going to be close to $5,500 CAD for flights, accommodations, and transfers for three nights at Secrets Cancun.

Just wondering what you guys would do for the gift. If the wedding was local we'd probably do $400 as the gift.

Does the fact we're paying close to $6k to attend their wedding have any effect on our gift? I'm just trying to see where other people are at with this.

I was reading that guests actually offset the cost of the wedding anyway, so the bride and groom aren't really paying for the guests as much as if they were to do a local reception.

I went to a destination wedding in Maui once and they specifically said no gifts as they knew that everyone was paying out of pocket.

I would hope anyone else would do the same.

Its crazy if you think about it. All the crap that we use every single day arrived via the ports. From big to small, rarely is anything air freighted as the overhead are just too high.

We are furniture shopping right now and looking at the prices at restoration hardware/paramount i see that a good 30%-50% of the overall cost is due to inflated shipping charges during the pandemic. The manufacturers had to pay these exorbitant shipping charges and of course they pass it on to the consumer.

Their stock inventory all carry this surcharge, but its not like if i were to order the same item today they will discount it. The prices are already reflect the elevated rates and it wont be for months / maybe years until they reflect the more nominal shipping rates of today (when all existing stock is cleared out).

Ive talked to shippers and manufactures that refused to spend money on R&D this year due to the overwhelming amount of covid inventory they still have in their warehouses. Anyone want any brooks shoes? they got shoes stuffed up the ying yang. Not sure when they will start liquidating their products but their sales rep told me its not looking good.

Just cross your fingers you even make it there lol

Canadian airline industry on the verge of collapse?

Been out galavanting the last 2 weeks with friends from Toronto, so their parents have a place up the Sunshine Coast. Their relatives who have every resource in the world coming to BC had first flight cancelled, then second flight cancelled, then returning home last week the air traffic control was so shit in TO that they had to land in Hamilton to refuel and then wait 3 hours to get back to Toronto

Fast forward a week my friends from to, two seperate couples come, again first flight completely cancelled, rebooked for the following day, because of this they missed a connection, no refund

The following week the sibling of the first guy and his wife and 2 kids have a Toronto to YVR flight cancelled and scheduled for 5pm the next day after originally being 6am Toronto time, they miss a float plane connection and lose $900 and have to pay another $700 to fly with a different airline up the coast

THEN returning to Toronto, the first guy has 2 flights cancelled, him and his wife split up between 2 flights, hers gets cancelled AGAIN and they scramble and get on a booking 12 hours after the original

Now yesterday my wife was suppose to fly to Philly for work, YVR - Newark - Philly

The night before she gets notification the Newark - Philly route is cancelled, ok so they will get to Newark and then find a different flight. She gets to YVR yesterday morning at 4 am, waits till 7am, YVR - Newark cancelled, entire trip cancelled.

Like.. everything is shit? Lol Jesus fuck

I don't know what's going on... I had a friend stuck at Munich airport for 2 days last week just trying to come back to YVR direct after her flight got cancelled.

My dad is heading to Italy today through Munich too... I warned him that something isn't right and he should be prepared for troubles.

not looking forward to hong kong in sept, or montreal in august. i got a feeling ill get hosed by Air Canada on one or both of these planned trips.

If the airline cancels on ya and you miss your float planes + hotels for 1-2 nights + car rentals. Does CC's cover all of this? In addition to the $400 - $1,000 you get from airline?

If you're booking bougie plays, I can see a missed flight causing $500-1,000/day worth of damage.

Aren't the large raises in furniture cost due to tariffs?

Definitely get travel insurance, preferably a decent one if possible if whatever CC used for the ticket booking doesn't already have one.

When I went to France last year, it was originally a one-stop flight from YVR to YUL and then to LYS (Lyon). It ended up being a Can-Euro-Tour of YVR-YYZ-FRA-AMS-LYS.

To top it off, my luggage was delayed at AMS, so it only arrived more than 24hrs later. My CC ended up reimbursing me like 1400 CAD (cloth I needed for meeting, and flight delay comps) in total between all the coverages.

I can sort of understand the chaos in Europe right now -- they're having a heat dome over a very large area, and a lot of things are getting fxxked up. But flights between TO and Vancouver? It the highest volume one in Canada, both in terms of frequency and capacity, and it shouldn't be the shxt show that Hondaracer has described.

LOL i got a quote last week to ship some stuff to me from europe

LCL $5k
stand by air freight $5k

oh for sure, when you slap 295% tariff on China and Vietnam its gonna impact prices. Thats why im looking at restoration hardware and paramount. Their products arent usually subjected to this tariff as they import more from europe/euroasia (which is imported from China...)

but the shipping costs is added on top of that.

There's a recent wedding thread on here somewhere, with the same question that went into depth, try searching

I went to Japan for a buddies wedding, plus an extra 9 days to do other shit

Yeah I burned 5k for the trip, and gifted him a 800$ portable AC instead of cash. (He said they got almost 40k back, from gifts, of their 40k wedding cost....)

Then again, he did ball out on us.... Kimono rentals, several fancy all paid for dinners, sumo tickets, team labs event......

I would say if depends if your close with the person or not.
If you an "extra" and only talk once or twice a year, then nope to the gift money. If your close, then the 500$ gift helps offset the "day of entertainment" that they provide to you

Again, find the thread, lots of opinion in there

All these flights I mentioned are with AC or operated by AC, so imo it’s a staffing issue which like most things isn’t going to be resolved overnight and a typical result of profits over service?

There’s not one reason a morning Toronto - YVR flight should get cancelled, it’s the busiest leg, on the busiest route, with an airline with what, 200 planes? And virtually every plane in their fleet can serve that route, so it’s total BS.

In terms of the above questions regarding reimbursement there may be something there but it’s going to be a huge headache to get any money even out of the top tier insurance imo. The couple with the kids the leg they do from Pearson to the south terminal float plane has to be aligned almost perfect, it’s a small float plane operation the guy is straight business he doesn’t care period about writing you any sort of itinerary etc. to forward to your CC. As well, the way AC is wording these cancellations they are blaming it on mechanical issues which I believe are not covered under some insurance instances? Which is totally BS obviously

So then after eating the float plane they fly pacific coastal to Powell River essentially to make it the most time saving scenario, that’s another $700 one way and I have a feeling any insurance company is going to hella grind you over this “bougie” or whatever unnecessary connection reimbursement when the whole thing arose from a “mechanical” issue


This really isn’t like some sort of thing where I’m sure the Reddit crowd would he like “omgggg stfu at least you’re travelling!!!” This is more like hey your internet bill just went up 40% in the last year and your service is worse and more intermittent than ever.

I first started hearing about this stuff with AC when gf's parents were coming back from Calgary... their flight got cancelled and then they had to stay overnight and come the next day. I just assumed they had booked on Flair or whatever but nope it was AC! I think bcrdukes was on the same flight.

They said they had no pilots available.

Then the following weekend, I heard that 200+ flights had been cancelled in Canada?? I know their pilots are doing some kind of rotating strike action or something? But this seems like a situation where the airline is at risk of folding.

im so glad i cashed out all my AC position

Literally the first thing I thought of when I heard the troubles... even before me own dad 4Head

Destination wedding ... I'd come up with an excuse that I couldn't go and gift them $500. Win win for all.

The airplane thing, one significant delay or cancelled flight cascades down the chain until eventually everything blows up, typically a plane gets something like an hour to 3 hours of turnaround time on the ground, and if it's a significant delay it's hard to recover until everything winds down for a few hours on a continent.

Delays can be on the airline, on the airport, on another airline altogether, or just an act of god.
The airline has a staff shortage - delay
The other airline can't leave their spot on time - delay
Airport doesn't have a tug available - delay
A mouse was coughing on the runway - delay

Granted airlines do lie through their teeth to try and avoid paying any compensation.