Pearson Airport Hotels: Shuttle or Private Car

Which hotels near Pearson Airport have a shuttle?

"Hotels near Pearson with shuttle" is one of the most searched phrases about the airport, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a list of brand names. The airport hotels fall into three clusters, the shuttle works well in some situations and badly in others, and the private transfer is a ten-minute booking that many travellers do not realise exists.

The three hotel clusters, and how far each is from the terminals

The GTAA's hotel and transportation page lists the shuttle pick-up points at each terminal. The Sheraton Gateway is the only hotel you can walk to; the airport itself publishes the Terminal Link train that connects Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 and the hotel in a few minutes, free, around the clock.

When the hotel shuttle is the right answer

For a solo traveller with hand luggage landing at 2 pm with a room at a Dixon Road hotel, the shuttle is fine: walk to the stop, wait ten or fifteen minutes, ride five. It is free, and nothing about that trip needs a chauffeur.

When it is not

The shuttle stops being the right answer in the same situations the UP Express does. You have landed at midnight from Europe with a family and six bags and the shuttle is on a thirty-minute loop, or on request from a phone at a stop you have to find. It is snowing at the stop. The hotel has no shuttle after 11 pm, or none at all because it is in the Corporate Centre. You are two couples with luggage and the shuttle that finally arrives has room for one couple. Or, most often, you simply want the trip to be over: a chauffeur is at the terminal door — inside the hall with your name on a board if you add meet and greet — the bags go in, and you are at the hotel door twelve minutes later, for a fixed fare that is a small fraction of the overnight rate. The pickup service is described here.

The layover use: hotel tonight, terminal tomorrow

A large share of these bookings are connections. You arrive at Terminal 3 from Cancun at 10 pm, your Air Canada flight to Halifax leaves Terminal 1 at 7 am, and the airline has rebooked you with a night in between. The chauffeur takes you to the hotel tonight; the hotel shuttle or a booked morning transfer returns you to the right terminal in time for the two-hour domestic cut-off. If you want the morning covered too, add the return at booking and both are confirmed together — the morning chauffeur is at the hotel door at the time the flight demands, and drops you at the departures door of the correct terminal. The terminal finder tells you which one.

The reverse: a dawn departure from Barrie, Kitchener or London

Travellers from further out — Barrie, Kitchener-Waterloo, London — sometimes prefer to sleep at an airport hotel the night before a 6 am flight rather than take a 3 am pickup. We run that: the transfer to the strip the evening before, and the hotel shuttle or a five-minute transfer in the morning. For most people the 3 am pickup in a warm car is easier than a hotel; for families with small children the hotel can be the calmer plan, and the arithmetic depends on the room rate.

Mississauga beyond the strip

Mississauga is Canada's seventh-largest city and the airport is inside it; the terminals are in the north-east corner. Square One and the city centre are fifteen minutes south on Highway 427 and the 401 or Hurontario; Port Credit on the lake, twenty-five; the Streetsville and Meadowvale business parks, fifteen to twenty. Every address is quoted by the engine as its own, and the same chauffeur standard applies at ten kilometres as at two hundred. The Ontario cities list covers the whole GTA.

Corporate accounts and the airport meeting

The Airport Corporate Centre and the hotels along Dixon Road host a great many one-day meetings for people who fly in at 8 am and out at 6 pm. A corporate account books the arrival transfer, the return and — if the meeting moves to a downtown office — the hourly chauffeur in between, all on one invoice with the traveller, the flight and the fare. Assistants book by reference; travellers are met by name.

Vehicles for the short run

The Executive Sedan for one or two travellers; the Luxury SUV for a family with a week's luggage at midnight; the Executive Sprinter for a crew or a tour group moving from the terminal to a hotel block on Dixon Road. Every class is on the fleet page. Because the run is short, the difference in fare between classes is small, and the engine only offers what fits your party.

What the fixed fare covers

The reservation engine quotes a fixed fare for the exact hotel: the chauffeur, the vehicle, taxes, curbside pickup at the terminal, and sixty minutes of waiting from touchdown on international arrivals (thirty on domestic). There are no tolls on this route. Gratuity is at your discretion. The flat-rate page explains the fixed fare — on a ten-minute run the point is not the price but the certainty that someone is inside the hall when you clear customs at midnight.

Get a fixed fare for Pearson to your hotel

Landing at Terminal 1 or Terminal 3

Air Canada and Star Alliance flights land at Terminal 1; WestJet, Porter's Pearson flights, Air Transat, Sunwing and most other international carriers at Terminal 3. The chauffeur's meeting point differs — beside the pre-arranged desk near Door A at T1, in the arrivals hall by baggage claim at T3 — so the booking asks for the flight number and we work it out. The Pearson guide walks both halls door by door, including where the shuttle stops are if you decide the shuttle is the right answer after all.

The Dixon Road strip in detail

Dixon Road runs east from Highway 427 along the south side of the airport, and the hotels sit on both sides of it between the 427 and Carlingview Drive, with a second group on Carlingview and Attwell Drive behind them. From Terminal 1 the chauffeur exits the airport loop onto the 427 south for one interchange and is on Dixon Road in five minutes; from Terminal 3 it is much the same. The Delta and the Marriott are the largest and both have porte-cochères; the Hilton and the Crowne Plaza are on the north side; the Four Points, the Holiday Inn, the DoubleTree and the Best Western Plus are along the strip and on Carlingview. All are quoted by the engine as their own addresses and the chauffeur knows each entrance. The City of Mississauga treats the strip as part of the Northeast employment district, which is why it is also home to the airline offices and the cargo companies that generate a good share of our corporate bookings.

Airport Corporate Centre and the meeting hotels

South of the strip, along Eglinton Avenue, Matheson Boulevard, Skymark Avenue and Explorer Drive, the Airport Corporate Centre holds the head offices and the hotels built for them — the Hilton Garden Inn, the Sandman Signature, the Hampton, the Residence Inn and the conference hotels on Skymark. Most have shuttles, some do not, and several stop them at 11 pm. They are ten to fifteen minutes from the terminals by car and the pickup is the same: inside the arrivals hall, name board, bags, door. For a traveller with a 9 am meeting at a Matheson office after an overnight flight, a corporate account books the arrival transfer, the return and the hourly chauffeur in between on one invoice.

Landing at Terminal 1 or Terminal 3, and the shuttle stops

If you do take the hotel shuttle, the stops are outside the arrivals level at both terminals and the GTAA lists them; the Terminal 3 stops are near the door at the east end of the arrivals curb and the Terminal 1 stops on the ground level of the parking garage side. Shuttles must be requested by phone from several hotels, and the courtesy phones are in the arrivals hall. If you take the chauffeur, none of that applies: the meeting point is beside the pre-arranged desk near Door A at Terminal 1 or in the arrivals hall by baggage claim at Terminal 3, and the Pearson guide shows both.

What the confirmation contains

Every booking returns an email with the hotel name and address, the time, the flight number we are tracking, the vehicle class and the fare; on the day it is followed by the chauffeur's name and the vehicle plate. Changes are a reply to that email or a call, at any hour. If the airline rebooks you and the layover hotel changes, one message changes the drop; the fare for another hotel on the same strip is the same.