When a British Airways ex-Europe trip goes wrong

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• sandgrounder says:

  31 May31 May 05:26

  Rather than an ex-Europe trip going wrong, this is more a TP run that went wrong. Why not leave the bag at LHR, home or work?

  • Calchas says:

    1 Jun1 June 15:11

    Yes, what was the need to take the checked bag on the final sector?
    Also, why not use the same plane there and back—that way if the outbound is delayed so will the return.

• sandgrounder says:

  31 May31 May 06:03

  ‘I arrived at Heathrow in the morning’ went to work and ‘headed back to City Airport in the evening to catch the same BA4466 again.’ BUT it says ‘I wanted to fly the last leg from Heathrow to Dublin instead of dropping it’. I am confused!

  Leaving the bags heathrow if you were flying back to dublin from there makes sense, but this narrative suggests an airport change? Confused!

  • Aeronaut says:

    31 May31 May 10:29

    Mark (the gent in the narrative) went to work during the day having arrived at Heathrow in the morning. He works near London City Airport hence he took the evening flight to Dublin from there.

• JQ says:

  31 May31 May 06:31

  I’m also confused about why there was a checked bag.

  I’ve never skipped a final leg with ex-AMS, but I always arrive into LHR long-haul and fly out from LCY so I can bring my bags home first (and go to work if I need to)

  • Aeronaut says:

    31 May31 May 10:35

    I guess it’s not always convenient, feasible or sensible for people to leave their luggage at their workplace overnight.

    A friend worked somewhere where his manager, for no apparent good reason, didn’t like him leaving a pair of shoes in the office (the boss remained ignorant of the spare shirt he kept there, just in case).

• DrTom says:

  31 May31 May 06:31

  Another solution for anyone who ever gets stuck in Dublin at night would be a SailRail fair (combined ferry and rail ticket). This doesn’t need advance booking and covers the journey from Dublin to Holyhead (by ferry) and then onward rail links.

  There is a Stena Line departure at 02:15, cost £44 to London on the day. You’d have to allow for the cost to transfer to the ferry port as well, but still likely to much cheaper than an unplanned stay in Dublin.

  • JQ says:

    31 May31 May 06:36

    … but this only gets you to London at 0941 (assuming that the 6 minutes available to connect from ferry to train is by design, otherwise make that 1039)

• Rob al says:

  31 May31 May 06:39

  Most ba flights I take to or from LCY depart late but seem to get to the gate on time at the other end. I guess they add significant padding to the schedule to accommodate the likely delays around London airspace.

• David Passmore says:

  31 May31 May 07:07

  For the sake of buying a reward flight saver for your positioning flight(s) and around 50 quid for an overnight hotel, why put yourself through so much stress? Depart home the day before and enjoy a night in your departure destination.

  If anything can go wrong – it invariably will at some point – this is one cost effective way of circumventing any delays or other problems.

  • Alan says:

    31 May31 May 07:12

    I must say that’s always been my strategy although when flying from the regions you often don’t have many other choices anyway! Fun having a evening in Brussels or Amsterdam before the trip though and if building hotel status you’ve got another night collected!

  • CV3V says:

    31 May31 May 08:25

    Agree with this strategy, it may seem as if shortening your trip at your destination but best to consider it as a multi city holiday instead. For a trip earlier this year i stopped over one night in AMS on outward leg and at HKG (so i could travel in CX F) on return leg. It was all quite enjoyable as i was in Business/First class. Trying to explain my method to family or colleagues however just drew looks of confusion.

    • Polly says:

      31 May31 May 08:39

      My family in dub were the same until I sat them down with a calculator and a bottle of wine !Now they see the reasoning behind flying to HNL from dub in J via LHR, for a bit more cash and lots more comfort, as opposed to flying EI from dub in Y. Plus earning silver in one go…it takes a while to convert theses non believers though!

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    1 Jun1 June 08:54

    My thoughts exactly. There’s both a Hilton and Ibis (Don’t use this as it’s airside and a real PITA) at AMS. Stay overnight….

• ee says:

  31 May31 May 07:08

  We have a 2 hour 15 min turnaround with bags in DUB at the end of our HNL trip. It was that or over 6 hours! We arrive from Heathrow at 13:05 and depart back to LHR at 15:20. This is on a Saturday. I do feel somewhat nervous about the connection but hope we could get put on the later flight. Will check out SailRail as a back up!

  • Polly says:

    31 May31 May 08:23

    I would buy a cheapo Ryan air ticket for a later flight just in case! That turnaround should work, but better to have 3 hrs plus, plenty to do in dub for a few hours, lockers for bags etc. we are having a longer layover in CPH for our Asia flight in oct, but may just stay on an extra night there on return

    • ee says:

      31 May31 May 08:57

      Yes, may do that. Other option is RFS on the 7pm flight.

      This was the first ex EU run I had booked, and have learnt the lesson for our QR bangkok trip which is ex AMS and returns CPH. We’ll be overnighting in AMS before the outbound and then a mini break in CPH on the way back. It’ll be December so the Christmas markets should be up and running!

  • Mark says:

    31 May31 May 10:04

    Is that BA836/837? If so they are usually the same aircraft, meaning that if the outbound is significantly delayed so will the return.

    You should be fine on the basis there will be no immigration and customs to clear, especially if you can avoid checking bags.

    • Mark says:

      31 May31 May 10:17

      Will be customs thinking about it (no immigration entering Ireland from the UK) – another reason to leave any bags at Heathrow if you can.

      • Roger says:

        31 May31 May 11:55

        Have you transferred BA/BA recently at DUB?

        My last two trips had Immigration. OK, you may not need to produce a passport (but it’s simpler) and I could see no way of bypassing the check.

        No Customs, though, just ‘security’ and jumping the queue if necessary.

    • ee says:

      31 May31 May 11:36

      Its BA830 into DUB (arrive 13:05) and BA837 back to LHR (depart 15:20). We actually have a 5 hour layover @ LHR before the DUB flight, so we should be able to suss out any generic delays ahead of time and maybe negoitate with BA about taking an earlier flight to DUB.

      If I was booking this again, I’d do it differently so am going to keep fingers crossed that BA830 is no more than 1 hour late and then we should be fine (we’re at the front in CE so should be in the first few to passport control…) I’ll also have some back-up plans if we do miss the BA837 and BA fail to accomodate us!

• Riku says:

  31 May31 May 07:27

  I’m also totally confused about what happened. The story should be in chronological order.

  >>The flights to the US and back went smoothly. Because I wanted the tier points, I wanted to fly the last leg from Heathrow to Dublin instead of dropping it.
  I arrived at Heathrow in the morning. I went to work during the day and headed back to City Airport in the evening to catch the same BA4466 again< dublin delays? but he flew heathrow -> dublin on the way back? and what was the point of going to heathrow in the morning when the flight is from city in the evening?
  “same BA4466”? same as what? are there now two trips on BA4466 city -> dublin? and the heathrow -> dublin he wanted to take as well. so three flights in this trip from london to dublin??

  • Alex says:

    31 May31 May 07:41

    He means he arrived at Heathrow (on a plane, from the US, in the morning).

    Checking a bag on the final leg was a pretty silly decision though.

  • Jonathan says:

    31 May31 May 08:28

    Agree it is difficult to read. I think his return flights were the following:

    US airport -> LHR -> day at work -> LCY -> DUB

    Separare missed flight:
    DUB -> LHR

    • Aeronaut says:

      31 May31 May 10:41

      It made perfect sense to me! But it does appear to have confused a fair few others.

    • Riku says:

      31 May31 May 13:31

      But where is the heathrow -> dublin part of the trip he writes about?

      He writes: “I wanted to fly the last leg from Heathrow to Dublin instead of dropping it”

      Where is it in this routing: US airport -> LHR -> day at work -> LCY -> DUB

      • Rob says:

        31 May31 May 14:01

        I think that is an editing mistake by me. I added a few lines here and there when I though Mark had written something which wasn’t totally clear.

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