Toronto, SARS, and Changing Tickets

January 7th, 2009 Posted in noodtarareid.com | edit

In 6 weeks, I'll be flying with my family on award tickets from SEA on AC through Toronto to DUB. First I thought UA/AC bankruptcies would be the biggest problem on my itin, now the whole SARS thing is worrying me.

Part of me wants to simply say, wait it out, it'll burn itself out in 6 weeks, but SARS scares me (my wife is a nurse, so I do have some perspective), and today's WHO advisory certainly is not calming my fears.

Are there options for changing tickets due to not wanting to spend time in Toronto, even in the airport? Is this a legit reason to try to change routing? Even though they are award tickets?

An perspective is appreciated

My son is travelling home from Asia next week and wanted to avoid Chinese airports.Aeroplan rerouted him from BKK to Tokyo and gave him super help in changing his route. Compliments given when due and this was due.

When is the media going to smarten up and realize that SARS is nothing more than hype
and paranoia.

More people get sick or die from any of the causes that I list below than get sick or die from SARS.

Flu, car accidents, airplane accidents, industrial accidents, suicide, murder, most types of cancer(including cancers from second hand smoke), and the list goes on.

There are over 4 million people living in the greater Toronto area. Confirmed cases are about 200. What's that for %?

There is no denying there is an issue; but there is also no denying that there is massive media overkill. By and large, SARS has been confined to several hospitals; the one community outbreak, to a religious community, proved to not be a case at all, in that no one came down with SARS.

Toronto/Cdn politicians are, at this moment, apoplectic about the latest WHO statement. For the other side of the story visit www.thestar.ca, (http://www.thestar.ca,) or www.ctvnews.com (http://www.ctvnews.com) ... where you will get a different perspective than the massive scare tactics in the US/world media right now.

I almost wish that a major American city would have a SARS outbreak right now, since that would be the only way to help our friends south of the border as to the reality of what is going.

I'm not trying to downplay the significant of SARS: on the other hand, I went to my dentist this AM, after thinking about it, and witnessing the precautions in place in that setting, easily convincing me that the medical officials throughout this city have things under control.

I went through this experience today. We (family of four) were scheduled to overnight in Toronto on Sunday. This was entirely due to the fact that no award space was available for us to go through to our destination (MCO) that night. With two asthmatic kids and a wife who is a health professional the WHO advisory was a concern.

The end result was that Aeroplan allowed us to change to a flight Sunday night. They opened up seats for us even though there weren't four reward seats available. Kudos to a great agent who didn't just read the rules but challenged them and ended up with an Elite flyer that now has a happier family.

And here it is -

Effective immediately, customers holding discounted tickets for travel
to/from Asia and customers holding discounted tickets for travel from any
point worldwide to Toronto purchased on or before April 24, 2003 for travel on
or before May 14, 2003 may make a change their travel dates without penalty,
with all travel completed by December 31,2003. Customers who have commenced
travel to Toronto from any point worldwide on discounted tickets and now wish
to return earlier than planned to their point of origin may also re-book at no
penalty. Regular travel restrictions on discounted tickets continue to apply
for travel to/from all other destinations.

I would have to agree that you shouldn't really worry about just transiting through. I would be more worried about your bags making it.

I fly into, and work in, Toronto every three to four weeks. This hasn't slowed me down at all.

Here is a link from the CDC in Atlanta about SARS in general.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars/

This one is for traveling through Toronto specifically

http://www.cdc.gov/travel/other/sars_can.htm

Enjoy your trip.

The latest death toll from SARS in Toronto is 16, over the past 6 weeks.

I'd venture to guess that double that number of people have been murdered in Seattle, or any other American city in that same time frame. My point, I honestly think you're safer in Toronto with SARS, than walking your own streets.

I'll take my chances in Toronto, any day of the week, with SARS, or anything else.

I agree with other posts, it's a media storm of pure overkill...I'm tired of it.

As a friend from Toronto said to me:
"More Guys in Canada have been shot by there wives for infidelity".

I agree. There is no problem transiting through the airport.

If you are worried about the air on aircraft:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030423/nyw121_1.html

Bear in mind that the filtering varies greatly by the manufacture dates of the aircrafts. Older = not as good. Newer = better filtering.

Originally posted by purser @AC:
I wouldn't worry about SARS while transiting Toronto. I would hazard a guess that you would have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning in the terminal building, then catching SARS!

Good to hear, I'll be on AC 877 FRA-YYZ and continuing to Orlando this Friday, so I understand common sense is that I should be pretty safe during my transit in YYZ. Anybody else of FT people on that flight?

On a side note, when to Shoppers Drug Mart, hand sanitizer is on sale right now and selling very briskly http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I wouldn't worry about SARS while transiting Toronto. I would hazard a guess that you would have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning in the terminal building, then catching SARS!

AC should be issuing a statement on travels to YYZ soon.

Not that it makes that much of a difference, but is this an AC or UA award ?

#If you have any other info about this subject , Please add it free.#

noodtarareid

Toronto, SARS, and Changing Tickets

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