Lower loonie could make vacations cost more money
Posted January 22, 2014 8:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The lower Canadian dollar could make your next vacation a little more expensive.
An upcoming surcharge being instituted by a number of Canadian airlines and vacation providers means flights will now cost more.
Sunwing was the first to announce the $35 fee but it’s not the last.
Air Transat and Sunquest will also implement a surcharge in the beginning of February.
Claire Newell with Jubilee Transit says keep your eyes open for a holdout company. “Sometimes we’ve seen companies do that where they say ‘we’re not charging a fee’ and they’ll market it for a couple weeks and then all of a sudden they’ll tack that surcharge on.”
Newell says the practice of raising fees for a lagging loonie is nothing new. “Any time the dollar really slips against the US currency we see this. Typically travel is bought in US dollars. So they’re paying the suppliers in US dollars so they have to pass those along those increased charges to the consumer.”
Newell says those companies will likely drop the fees once the price of the dollar rises.
You can still save by booking before February.
