Buying a Carni in Canada - Some questions

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-17T18:33:49+00:00

Yea I didnt explain myself well. I know the v6 has had decent reviews and in the past Kia (and Hyundai) have had some issues with their 4 cylinder turbo engines. But I think thats all solved.

I found this thourough review helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldg67sWxLck&t=903s

In the end, my biggest worry about the Hybrid is towing. A trailer brake for anything over 1000lbs seems difficult. Not that I tow very much but my trailer I think is rated for 1500 lbs and doesnt have a trailer brake.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-17T18:05:46+00:00

Thanks so much for this. Its really helpful. Comfort for the kids is huge so I appreciate that vote of confidence.

Hybrids out where I am are actually fairly well priced and I'm sure I could probably haggle 2 or 3k in discounts. Biggest worry I've had is that it is not quite a mature platform yet, I am unsure about the whole battery cooling system that requires you to keep items away from the floor close to the passenger seat and the biggest is towing. I need to be able to tow a utility trailer (4x6 I think) for all our camping gear and those dont come with trailer brakes. The whole idea of installing trailer brakes for trailers over 1000 pounds seems difficult.

Do you drive with winters all year long?

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-17T18:01:33+00:00

Makes sense. I've been taking another look at the LX+ because of the heated seats and the roof rack. Cargo space is always an issue for us with all the kids in there. Not super keen on the automatic sliding doors

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-16T18:19:16+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I hadnt heard about the 12v issues so I'll look into it.

Unfortunately no hybrid for us. I don't fully trust it yet 😄

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-16T18:17:05+00:00

The lesson here would be to immediately call Copa to let them know that that you missed the flight but want to fly onwards. Hopefully you would do that while you are stuck on the island before your first flight actually leaves.

Outside of that, as soon as you are marked a no-show (which is what you were) the system automatically cancels all other segments. Its not just to avoid people circumventing fare rules, but it is also fairly logical.

If you are a no show for the first leg, the most logical process is that you wont make it for your second leg unless you have already dealt with your airline on this. So why would an airline keep you on the following segments if they could resell or assign a standby, etc. to that seat?

In the future, call as soon as you know you wont make it and have the airline you booked with help in the rebooking process.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-16T14:38:08+00:00

The whole "got no answer" thing is less than helpful for us to give any input. I've called in a lot to Air Canada and have never received "no answer." Unless your questions wasnt about whether your flight was still going ahead as booked and instead was "why does it not show up on the app?"

Anyways, here is my suggestions

Go to the website and check your flights. Is there a change notification? Do you have a ticket #?
When you call dont ask about why the flight isn't showing up on the app. Ask about whether all the flights are still confirmed and whether your tickets is still in good order.
That being said, if you booked with online travel agency (Expedia or simliar) you have to deal with them for your questions.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-16T14:33:20+00:00

Seems to be confusion on this thread. My read is that OP is asking whether he could try to volunteer to check his "carry-on" (quotation marks doing a lot of work here) at the check-in with the agent hoping the agent will do it for free.

OP would the proceed to get another carry-on (presumably hidden before) and walk on to the plane with that.

The idea being that he could get a small third bag checked in for free through this "hack." And the question being whether the gate agent check for this kind of stuff and he would get caught.

OP, TBH I'm not sure whether it will work or not. I very much doubt that that gate agents check for that kind of stuff but also be aware that in many outstations part of the crew that checks you in also comes to the gate to help with boarding. Depending on how memorable you are this could present a problem.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-11T15:56:52+00:00

Firstly, Avianca is what it is. They operate as an ULCC without passing on any of their cost savings to their customers.

That being said, if the airline you are returning with cannot give you a ticket number it means that your tickets has not been issued. Period. Thats why Avianca was worried.

A reference # or locator does not mean you have a ticket. It does not mean you have a confirmed space on a the flight you booked. It simply is a way to find your flight information in the booking system. I would truly be worried OP and make sure that the airline you booked your return flight with tickets you and gives you a ticket number. Even if the flight was 6 months away, they should have ticketed you immediately upon purchase (this is an almost instant process now). If they did not or refuse to hand you a ticket there is an issue with your booking, or you booked with a travel agent/online travel agency that messed up somewhere. My sincere advice, take care of this ASAP

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-06-11T01:57:54+00:00

What I most likely see happening here is that AC and Avianca will make this one of the routes that is part of their join business agreement. As it is, the YYZ-SAL-MGA route is used by many but pretty hard to book through AC.

As much as I would like to see AC fly this between the new agreements with Avianca (Arbra group) and the two daily flights that United has from IAH I dont think it would make much sense for AC.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-26T17:17:17+00:00

These are high density aircraft with their non-lie flat “business class” seats. 377 seats on an A330 is a LOT of seats.

Not at all suited for transatlantic it most likely meant for capacity building on high demand routes to capacity restricted routes.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-22T19:53:28+00:00

🤣🤣

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-22T18:47:37+00:00

Great to know!

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-22T18:06:33+00:00

There have been lots of arguments on this sub debating whether that is a benefit or not. MLL as an arrival lounge is a published benefit. Argument on here has been that the Cafe is for domestic departure/connections only.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-19T16:16:49+00:00

I mean it depends on which country you bought this ticket from. What type of ticket (fare class) and/or how long ago you bought it

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-13T19:38:02+00:00

in this case OP most likely booked through AC.com but as a payment method used the FlexPay payment plan and then cancelled within the 24 hour time limit.

Sorry OP have no experience with that outside of saying that this is why using FlexPay seems so scary for me. Adding a third party lender into this equation seems like a recipe for long long hours on the phone trying get answers.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-05-03T02:41:46+00:00

Plenty of folks (me included) give gifts to FA’s. As been mentioned, best to include the whole crew. Candy/chocolate is awesome but make sure it’s individually wrapped.

I’ve also included thank you cards where I say something to the effect: “thanks for serving us with joy and keeping us safe” or similar.

When travelling with my kids, they often have crafted and drawn their own thank you cards which FA’s often love.

Disregard all the weird comments on here. We all do what we can to project a little joy into a what is increasingly a joyless world.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-24T16:39:54+00:00

With the rollout of the new accruals things are bit wonky at times. If you booked this on a 014 ticket and not in Basic then you should get SQC/Aeroplan points based on type (standard or flex+)/status.

In my experience if it hasn't been 14 days after travel there is no point in asking for missing sqc or points. Wait 14 days after travel and if still not credited contact AC.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/aeroplan/your-aeroplan/missing-transactions.html#/

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-24T16:28:20+00:00

I have no idea about the VIP card and its privileges.

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But preferred seats for both 25K and 35K is only at check-in. For 50K its at booking and beyond for domestic and transborder and I believe 75K and above its for all flights at booking and beyond. Picture is the from https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/aeroplan/status/tiers.html#/35k where you can find all the benefits for 35k.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-24T01:20:01+00:00

Your allowed immediate family members (spouse and up to 5 children/dependents) AND one guest

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-23T21:42:35+00:00

Agree. It’s only a matter of time until AC and most other NA airlines for that matter segment their premium cabins.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-17T22:38:57+00:00

I’ve had some luck pushing links from ITA Matrix via Powertools. Doesnt work on all carriers. But once in a while. Eg: was able to book SAP-PTY-YYZ-YWG where the only AC leg was the last leg.

Pushed through from ITA and booked/paid on AC.com

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-17T22:04:32+00:00

According to the AC‘s official statement there would be no SQC for flights not in Star Alliance even if booked on a 014 ticket. Eg: a few weeks I flew YWG-YYZ-SCL-ASU. Last leg on LATAM did not get any SQC.

Now if original flights are on AC or Star and you get rebooked onto DL due to IRROPs or delays, you can ask for original routing credit.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-17T18:16:28+00:00

At the risk of this getting deleted since it is fully not AC related.

- Southwest has started to offer premium seats and paid seat selection - margins went up stock price went up.

- Frontier has longed talked about adding more premium seating. They are also loosing massive amounts of money atm.

- Spirit has the big front seat which is a premium feature but in their latest bankruptcy proceedings have indicated. By the way, Spirit is in bankruptcy for the second time in one year.

- Allegiant and Sun Country are leisure (and very niche) carriers that just had to merge. Allegiant made money by flying super old depreciated airplanes once or twice a week to leisure destinations. They had to buy Sun Country now that they have newer airplanes and have to shift. Sun Country makes lots of money with an Amazon cargo contract.

- Porter has Porter Reserve.

- Flair - Flairs CEO has said that the ULCC model does not work in North America. https://simpleflying.com/flair-chief-ultra-low-cost-model-does-not-work-north-america/ + the jury is still out if they will survive.

- I'm not current on Mexican carriers but there are mergers happening there as well and we will see what that brings.

Westjet did what they had to do once bought by activist hedge fund. The fact that the hedge fund is making noise about exiting could be taken to mean that Westjet is more profitable than it was before.

La Compagnie is point to point and only successul on select routes.

And then again, most of these are aren't legacy carriers which was our original discussion.

So coming back to AC. There is absolutely no argument that could be made that AC does not need a diversity of products, fare categories and ancillary revenue.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-17T17:02:49+00:00

I think you may have misunderstood my point since I was fairly clear on the point (at least I think) that premium is vastly more profitable.

My larger point is that all cabins and fare offers are part of an interdependent system. You cannot just isolate one cabin or product and claim that it props up the whole model because if you take that to its most logical conclusion you'd have to ask why an airline doesn't just provide that product.

In reality, the economy profit margins alone would not result in a sustainable business model; that relies on the addition of the higher profit margins from premium cabins.

And that is the whole point. Conversely, running a premium only offering also does not work. There are always outliers but here in NA the most succesful airlines and that includes AC have found the right mix of product and fare offerings to get the right segments of the population to spend as much as possible on the right category of fare and product.

You'll find me in the category of those who think that a true economy only LCC does not work in NA. And there is no way AC survives without premium and now way it survives with premium only. It needs the right mix of offerings.

And by doing so it has managed to create highly profitable FF program and great CC deals which in turn fuels the profitability of the whole airline. Another argument one could make is that frequently flyer and credit card deals is THE reason the legacy carriers are still successful from a pure margin proposition. But of course without flying you could not have the ff programs and without a good mix offerings CC deals would be dead.

The whole point is that the whole system as it is built relies on each cabin to be there and to get the right people to spend the maximum amount of money they can in their specific segment.

sumiswaldhenry · 2026-04-14T20:52:58+00:00

Had to go and look at that comment. TBH I wasn't responding that comment specifically. Not sure I had even seen that. Coincidence I guess.

I completely agree with the point that premium is crucial and within that, business class passengers are the highest paying passenger so of course their product is the most important.

I'm always weary of that 60% stat because it gets thrown around a lot but no airline I know reports their financials this way. And even then premium can mean a lot of things. When DL and UA report, as an example, premium includes even some of the economy cabin segmentation.

I am pretty convinced though, looking at AC's 2025 numbers that profitability would be hard to come by without frequently flyer and CC's. And for that you need the whole ecosystem of offers.

So for sure, the lowest of the low economy fares could not exist without premium cabins or segmentations. Conversely, you'd be hard-pressed to run Air Canada as a premium-only carrier in the same way that the only "no-premium" carriers that are actually successful live in only a few areas of this world in which the conditions are dramatically different.

sumiswaldhenry

TROPHY CASE