Airline Review: United Airlines Flight from San Francisco to Vancouver

 San Francisco to Vancouver (Alaska Pre Cruise) . 2012 . September 14

This post is part of our Alaska Pre and Post Cruise Report and follow-up of our popular Alaska cruise series. Do check out our Alaska Cruise story too if this is your first time here! :)

It was a packed but enjoyable day at San Francisco where we visited the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace, had a good cuppa of coffee @ Blue Bottle Coffee followed by a fruity lunch @ Hollywood Cafe, watched the sea lions at Pier 39 and visited Alcatraz Island.

After a well rested night's sleep at Red Roof Inn San Francisco Airport, it was time to check out and take the complimentary 24 hr shuttle from the hotel to catch yet another early flight from San Francisco to Vancouver this time.

There are 3 airlines that fly from San Francisco to Vancouver. (United Airlines, Air Canada and West Jet). In fact, United Airlines do code share with Air Canada on this route.

We chose United Airlines due to the lower price and better timing at the time of booking. It was a 815am flight to Vancouver, which meant that we could wake up a bit later as compared to the 610am Southwest Airline flight that we took the previous day. Flight time was 2 hours and 14 minutes and we would reach Vancouver airport around 10.30am in the morning.

Air Ticket Booking

For this flight, we had booked the air tickets way in advance (almost 5 months!) in April and we managed to secure a relative cheap price of SGD$192.30 per person (inclusive of taxes). Unlike the Southwest flight that we took the previous day, baggage was however not free. The 1st bag costs USD$25 while the 2nd bag costs USD$35.

United Airlines Baggage Information (Retrieved from United Airlines website on 16 June 2013)

Check-in & Boarding Gate

Check in was relatively fast and soon we were on our way to the Boarding Gate. Flight Information Boards along the way help guide travellers to their repective gates.

Our flight UA 946 to Vancouver was at Gate 75. It was code shared with Air Canada flight 5109.

Boarding Waiting Area at Gate 75. Guess we were still pretty early and had some time for breakfast.

Having tried the famous Blue Bottle Coffee at Ferry Building, we grab the oppotunity to try another one of San Francisco's famous coffee joints, Peet's Coffee & Tea at the airport. Although the coffee was not too bad, we still like the coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee more. Guess it's all down to personal tastes though.

Flight Information at the Boarding Gate.  We were pretty impressed by the amount of information provided. Distance from San Francisco to Vancouver is 1287 km. Even the aircraft model and registration number was provided!

Available seats on the flight. Looks like its quite a full flight.

The lucky ones who got upgraded to Business Class. *Envy*

Cabin Amenities and Food

Seat Pitch for the flight was relatively ok. Having been on several low cost carrier's flights previously, we were already quite used to cramped seating areas. :)

There is no personal LCD screen for each seat, but only overhead monitors. This was similar to the Silkair flight we took to Surabaya. For a relatively short flight, we could easily keep ourselves entertained with our own IPADs.

There were no food served for the short flight, but we were offered a complimentary drink. Having taken coffee before the flight, we opted for two soft drinks.

Love the elegant design of the Coke can. It does reminds us of the Blue Bottle Coffee Logo...

In Flight Magazine and Shopping - Hemispheres Magazine and Skymall

Similar to Southwest that we took the previous day, United Airlines were also using Skymall as their appointed In-Flight Shopping provider. We were more interested to know how to spend three perfect days in Istanbul though. :)

We took some photos as the aircraft approaches Vancouver.

Time flies fast for the short flight...soon we were touching down at Vancouver Airport...

Welcome to Vancouver! Greetings from the Big Bird!

Making our way to the Immigration and collecting our checked in luggages at the United Airlines Belt at Vancouver Airport.

Some general shots taken at Vancouver Airport.

Belt information at Vancouver Airport. Our luggages were are Belt 34.

Final Verdict:  Overall, we had a comfortable flight on board United Airlines. Check-In was relatively smooth and the seat pitch was comfortable. We love the information boards provided at the boarding gate. Overall, we definitely will consider taking another United Airlines flight when we travelled to USA again the next time!

This post is part of our Alaska Pre and Post Cruise Report and follow-up of our popular Alaska cruise series. Do check out our Alaska Cruise story too if this is your first time here! :)

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. To receive notifications on updates, subscribe to our blog via RSS feed and email.

Like us on Facebook @ Discover. Book . Travel and follow us on Twitter @Discoverbooktra!

Do check out our Flickr photos & Youtube videos too!