How it works

Airlines use demand-based pricing known as yield management to maximize profits – this can result in irrational pricing where the amount charged for a flight does not correlate with mileage.

As a result, there are pricing scenarios where flying to your destination costs more than flying to your destination plus somewhere else. Don’t believe us? Take a look at this:

In this case above, not only booking a flight from Vancouver to Toronto to New York (3,914km) costs less than flying from Vancouver to Toronto (3,343km), but you also get a fare upgrade which gives you 4x the Aeroplan points and lower change fees, should you need to change your flight.  As long as you don’t check in any bags, you simply leave the airport when you arrive in Toronto, miss the last flight segment and win.

How do I pull off a shortcut?

Wouldn’t you like to know!  For a single direction, there can be up to 100 alternate routing options that can produce shortcut opportunities.  For example, consider Vancouver to Toronto – any one of the destinations below can potentially yield a better fare:

To conduct a comprehensive scan, you’d need to search through all those options.  Luckily, we’ve made it easy for you - just use the search function near the top!