US Border Preclearance from Canada: I am planning a flight from Vancouver to New York, transferring in Toronto.

US Border Preclearance from Canada:

I am planning a flight from Vancouver to New York, transferring in Toronto. I assume the US Immigration preclearance will occur in Toronto, rather than Vancouver - is this correct? If so, is it necessary to collect baggage at Toronto and re-check it to fulfil US Immigration requirements?

I’m a bit worried about my proposed connection time of 1 hour 30min.

There is also the option of transferring via Dallas Fort-Worth, but about 2 hours longer journey time. Does anyone prefer Dallas over Toronto for connections?

Unless the flight number remains the same, the preclearance will occur in Toronto.

Its best to confirm with your airline(s) what their minimum connection times are for domestic to international at whichever Toronto airport you're connecting.

Air Canada recommends 1hr 10min as per their website.

You you tag your bag to New York and the bag will be checked through to the US preclearance in Toronto which means you do not collect it at the usual baggage carousel but inside the US preclearance hall.

Thanks Peter and Guy!

I can't do a direct comparison of DFW over Toronto, but given the experience I had last year - which has been confirmed by other contributors to Business Traveller magazine (the UK publication) - I would advise you to avoid DFW if at all possible.  One of said BT fellow-contributors missed his connecting flight at DFW despite a 2.5-hour layover.  When I went through, the queue to recheck luggage went back from the immigration hall, through to the other side of the baggage hall, and halfway down the side.  I also had a 2.5-hour layover, and had to run to get the connecting flight and barely made it.  It is one of the main AA hubs, so there is a huge amount of connecting traffic there, and so many people trying to recheck baggage that the queues can be horrendous.  Avoid.

It sounds like Toronto may be the lesser of two evils in this case. Thanks for letting me know your experiences with DFW, very helpful.