It’s still in its infancy, but if you’re a fan of mileage runs this site is for you: Mileage Brain. It’s often difficult to find mileage runs out of Canadian airports, so I think this will be pretty useful.

Even if you’re not a hardcore mileage runner,  it’s a good tool to find quick vacations and weekend trips.

Right now, it looks like the best mileage deals from Toronto are YYZ-LIH (Kauai, Hawaii) for one night at the end of Feburary, or YYZ-BKK (Bangkok) for a couple days. They’re not particularly good deals strictly as mileage runs, but sound like a fun way to spend a weekend!

Is anyone really surprised that Virgin America is ending their service to YYZ?

The Dallas news says:

Virgin America’s Toronto flights to and from San Francisco and Los Angeles weren’t doing so well since their launch last June 29.

Cush said Virgin America’s business plan is to stimulate more traffic in markets with lower fares, and Toronto seemed to be a classic over-priced, under-served market from the U.S. West Coast.

However, it seems that Californians don’t want to fly to Toronto in the winter, and Canadians would prefer to fly to Cuba, Mexico, Florida and other warm weather destinations.

Seems obvious.

I flew VX from YYZ to SFO last year and it was pretty nice. (The best part was the wifi.) But other airlines are often cheaper, and have much better schedules. VX has ONE flight a day to SFO and LAX. Air Canada has multiple flights a day to both, plus codeshares with United and flights through YVR and other airports.

In the end, Air Canada always wins. Sorry, Virgin.