Job security

I think I know the perfect career if you want to have 1 job for your entire life. Become a travel agent. Granted you won't get rich but just trying to navigate all the possible permutations of choices in helping people get from Point A to Point B and back to Point A again. It makes my head spin and I'm not even seriously considering a trip right now.

This all began with a complaint about airline prices on a flight from Victoria to Winnipeg for a wedding. Unfortunately, or fortunately for them, there is no competition in Canada. You can fly Air Canada or you can fly WestJet and they don't serve near as many cities as AC. Harmony just went out of business, Air Transat doesn't offer domestic flights anymore and there are only a handful on Skyservice.

Since I sort of work in the travel industry and I'd like to travel someday. Perhaps Lotto 6/49 will tell me I am worth $25 million at this time tomorrow then I'd be traveling somewhere in the next week. I thought I'd see what kind of prices I could find for the Martinsville fall NASCAR race weekend. I chose Thursday Oct 18 for departure and Tuesday Oct 23 for my return since midweek days usually offer cheaper ticket prices. I started with flights from Toronto to Greensboro, NC because they are the closest cities to deal with.

So here are the results of my research, such as it is.

Airlines flying out of Toronto to GSO. (All prices in Canadian dollars provided by the airline or in US dollars and then calculated at www.xe.net using the current, live mid-market exchange rate at the time.) Prices were also rounded off to the nearest dollar.


Air Canada $628
American $747
Continental $630
Delta $618
Northwest $630
United $627
US Airways $630

Next option was Toronto to Raleigh-Durham.

Air Canada offers a direct flight for $544
And with 1 stop; Midwest Express charges $541, US Airways $510 and Delta $550.

And lastly, Toronto to Charlotte. Both Air Canada and US Airways offer direct, non-stop flights. And not much to choose from here in terms of different prices.

Air Canada $550
US Airways $547
Delta $554

Now be prepared to be shocked when I change my city of departure and am willing to drive a little farther to reach an airport. I limited my research to US Airways and Delta because I know they serve each city. (Again, all prices are in Canadian dollars and please no wagering.)

Buffalo to Greensboro, NC
Delta $210
US Airways $287

Buffalo to Charlotte
DAL $268
USA $375

Buffalo to Raleigh
DAL $150
USA $148

Rochester to Charlotte
DAL $264
USA $366

Syracuse to Greensboro
DAL $186
USA $255

Syracuse to Charlotte
DAL $248
USA $334

Syracuse to Raleigh
DAL $217
USA $233

Watertown to Greensboro
DAL $185

Watertown to Charlotte
DAL $358

Watertown to Raleigh
DAL $270

Just look at the different prices, just for different flights to Greensboro all flying on the same days.

Cheapest from Toronto is:
Delta $618

Fly out of Buffalo that price drops to:
Delta $210, thats $418 cheaper for those keeping score.

From Syracuse, Delta will fly you to Greensboro for $186 round trip and even from tiny little Watertown, NY it's $185 or $433 cheaper than flying from Toronto.

And don't even get me started on those travel websites that promise BIG savings if you book your flight, hotel and rental car at the same time. You know the ones, like the talking garden decoration one. From Toronto, the cheapest package was around $980 and went up from there. From Buffalo, prices started around $775. Looking by myself I came up with a rough total of $640 Canadian.

And on a humourous note for those who know the story. The Greensboro Coliseum Travelodge was one of the options for those travel packages and from the customer comments, it seems the place is still as big of a dump as it was in 2004 when I had the "pleasure" of staying there.