Planning a trip to Montreal

For several months now I've been making mental preparations for a trip to Montreal. Actual preparation started when I became aware of a Viarail promotion which was selling train tickets from Halifax to Montreal and back at half price. My plan then became to travel to Montreal during my February "reading week". The expiry date for the promotion was December 31st, 2006. My plan had been to book these tickets some time before the end of last year. On the last day of the year I realized that the discounted tickets were only marginally cheaper than the going Air Canada $124 plane ticket cost (after surcharges) and that the travel time was about 1/10th as much if going by plane.

As such I decided my trip would still be over the reading week, but would have to be by plane (the reading week decision is mostly independent). My problem with the $124 ticket to Montreal is that the distance between Montreal and Halifax is about 1250 km, whereas the distance between St. John's and Halifax is about 1500 km and that ticket goes for $94. You can probably come up with some reasons for that (if you have any substanciated reasons, let me know), but what really gets me is that it costs more to go to Montreal than it does to go to Toronto. On my last two trips on Air Canada the price has dropped after I booked (even though there were good reasons to assume prices would go up from there out), so on Sunday when I saw the price drop to $117 I figured I had better not rush into anything. However, today I find myself regretting waiting as the price is already back up to $124.

The current plan based upon when the cheap tickets are available on Air Canada is to go to Montreal early on Tuesday the 20th of February and to return to Halifax on the evening of Saturday the 24th. To make my trip any longer I either have to miss class or pay more. Considering that I have 11 days in a row without class, I figure I should be able to avoid missing class. It conceivable that I would shell out the extra $20 to change the dates though, especially if the price drops. I could also save $35 by selling my soul to Air Canada and declining Aeroplan miles, the option to check bags and by forfeiting any ability to change my flight plans.

So far my schedule in Montreal is pretty open. At McGill I would like to see the math building, library and graduate student's bar. I would like to see Cameron's preferred grocery stores and have some of his famous beans. Although I own a Canadiens hat, I'm not likely to do anything remotely hockey related.


Side note: At 12:00 AM it was 10 degrees Celsius at Halifax International Airport (HIA). I have a feeling this has something to do with the fact that it's warmer in my apartment than I remember it being ever before.