I haven't seen the VIA platforms in years.. Cheaper to fly.
Nope.
Not these days.
VIA Tuesday Sales make it really cheap.
---
---
All in, all baggage fees (lugging 2 bags, regular size and carryon), terminal fees, improvement fees, HST, that's the charge that shows up on my VISA!!!!!!!
(Book on Tuesdays, for a later trip of any day in the week)
9 out of 10 times, I manage to catch all-in fares much lower than airplane.
And this is just a midwinter sale, not even a Tuesday sale that occurs 52 times a year.
So for those always getting higher fares than airfares -- you're not searching properly. These fares are ludriciously common as long as you book several weeks in advance (and avoid holidays). And if you're unlucky to be booking less-than-far-enough-in-advance (e.g. 13 days in advance instead of 35 days in advance) then often a Saturday early morning departure can be much cheaper than a Friday night departure -- so browse the adjacent days easily via the tabs at the top (as seen in screenshot).
9 out of 10 times I pay less $60 (HST/bags included!!) for one-way Ottawa-Toronto, and often less than $50. Occasionally, even less than $40. And $19+HST for Ottawa-Montreal in the best-ever sale I caught ($22 all in -- very similar price as a GOtrain trip between Toronto and Niagara Falls). All fees, taxes, baggage fees, HST included!
These aren't two-seat-per-coach prices, they actually seem to open a huge number of economy seats at these prices during Tuesday fare sales as well as offpeak sales. Ludriciously common in my experience when executing fare searches during a Tuesday (day of week to do the fare searching -- does not have to be actual departure day of week) for a trip one-to-two months in advance...
My experience is that as long as you're searching (during a Tuesday) at four weeks or more in advance, it's effortless to find the low prices. The prices linger all day long and week on week, the cheap seats slowly disappearing, as the last-minute bookers scoop up the remaining dozens of cheap seats. Cheap VIA seats are ludriciously easy to book if you're booking well in advance during a Tuesday fare sale (far more, the more weeks in advance you book). You do have difficulty when trying to book holidays (Thanksgiving, Xmas, etc), but I've also found ways around it such as booking much further in advance, and being creative such as checking fares on days before/after -- I've also travelled early Christmas morning or travelling the early Monday morning after a Thanksgiving weekend -- and still paid less than $70 all-in, sometimes under $50, tax included for travelling one-way the holiday weekend, or under $100-$140 roundtrip holiday and under $80 roundtrip in the best offpeak sales, all-in, HST and baggage included. Certainly I booked way more than 4 weeks in advance. But just try to get airfares even remotely that low during the holidays!
Train fares are easily (once you get familiar with the train-specific searching quirks, then less than 5 minutes of fare searching) much cheaper than air fares, for trips within the TOM triangle, provided one learns to search train fares even one-third as well as other people typically search airfares.
Besides, air often cost over $1000 when booking last minute or premium seats / first class / refundable seats so people have learned to search for discount air. But many people haven't learned to properly search train fares!
We can love those $99 Porter air trips to Ottawa, but with the extra fees, it's easily over $100 more than a properly-booked-in-advance train during a good VIA sale (those VIA sales happens far more often than air fare sales nowadays). Double that for a roundtrip. I find that a properly booked-in-advance VIA Tuesday sale roundtrips Toronto-Ottawa is usually about $150-$200 cheaper than Porter 50%-60% sale fares. Besides, VIA Tuesday sales happen far more often than Porter 50%-off sales... Certainly you might occasionally find a better Porter deal for a specific day than VIA (especially if one haven't been timing the VIA sales the way one habitually time the Porter sales).....until you repeat your VIA train search the following Tuesday, and then one has the buyer remorse if you were trying to save the dollar. The prices do not bottom-out at the same time, for those people impulse-searching VIA during a Porter fare sale. But VIA fares do bottom out far more often. WAY more so, and way more repeatedly. Many get stuck in this sale timing habit optimized for airfares, and totally miss the even-more-frequent low train fares. (Hey, I love Porter too, and fly them to Ottawa, but if you're trying to get the best savings, you must watch BOTH sales that occur at different timings -- and VIA's sales are far more often than Porter's -- when you count the 52 Tuesday sales a year that VIA has, above and beyond other sales.)
Those who say air is cheaper than train, aren't searching properly.
Train fare search methodology is a bit different than airfare search methodology, but actually is much simpler (takes less time to find good fares) once you learn the tricks -- easiest rule for VIA beginners is "V
isit the VIA website on a Tuesday several weeks in advance of your desired trip" and secondarily, "
browse the adjacent calendar days"
So, NO -- flying is NOT cheaper than train -- for sale-versus-sale
