When a British Airways ex-Europe trip goes to plan

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• callum says:

  31 May31 May 13:22

  The normal train is actually £7.50 each way. You were looking at their equally pointless equivilent to the Heathrow Express.

  • Lady London says:

    31 May31 May 17:21

    Day ticket from the travel information desk landside works out to about £9. that includes the return regular train journey to the city and unlimited bus and train within the city for the day.

• Leo says:

  31 May31 May 13:37

  “Our luggage could not be booked through with either flight”

  Was does that mean?

  • callum says:

    31 May31 May 14:07

    That their first airline wouldn’t provide a baggage tag to send the bag automatically to the next airline – they have to collect it then check it in again.

• Lionel says:

  31 May31 May 13:50

  Frankly I think you can divide these tales into those told by the reckless/ foolish/ inexperienced and those from the rich.

  Nothing critical/ personal intended @ any posters, of course! 🙂

  The rich: they are easiest to deal with. They might be personally rich or just flying at company expense, so leaving it tight and missing a connecting flight doesn’t really matter. Leave a slim margin of error to possibly collect luggage and certainly to make the connection if the first flight is delayed? Quite exciting really – and possibly some interesting anecdotal material that the warriors of the air can relate to colleagues later.

  The reckless/ foolish/ inexperienced: often it seems that money really matters quite a lot to these raconteurs, so why would you build in a quite foreseeable likelihood that delays to flight #1 and not enough time to make flight #2 (the luxury long haul bit!) is going to mean you lose the lot by missing it? Airline #2 simply isn’t responsible for your lack of planning. I prefer the attitude that says that yes the traveller will take a cheapo flight #1, overnight and see the city in the middle or at least build in PLENTY of wobble time which can pleasantly be spent in a lounge etc. Or buy travel insurance. Or build in insurance in other ways (eg the cheapo alternative flight as suggested by Polly).

  • Rob says:

    31 May31 May 13:59

    I think there is an element of truth in this. When your worst case scenario is that you incur a cost which, to you, is modest in the whole scheme of things then you clearly act differently.

• signol says:

  31 May31 May 14:45

  With my help, my sister has booked an ex-Europe trip to the US for the F1 in Austin. On one ticket CPH-HEL-JFK-LHR, on Finnair and BA, and Easyjet LGW-CPH. VS redemptions NYC-AUS and vv. She’s booked a hotel in Copenhagen to help prevent delays.

• Richmond says:

  31 May31 May 16:24

  I’m definitely staying for the night in Antwerp before my ex-Antwerp train/flight to Canada. I read about delays to BRU and I don’t want to risk missing my flights. I did ex-Dublin to HNL in March and stayed in Dublin night before. Hotel was 100 euro plus nice dinner locally. Also did ex-Frankfurt flight to HKG and made sure I have a lot of time between flights.

• Jezza says:

  31 May31 May 20:38

  I’ve done a few ex-AMS to Rio, Delhi and Beijing normally with back-to-back c40 minute inbound and outbound connections at AMS. Literally off the plane and straight back on without the need for immigration or security. Even if your flight is delayed on the way out, you can’t have a problem on the way back – because it is the same plane!!!

  Great savings but a bit of a pain on the return journey especially after a long flight; and only ever done this with hand luggage only….

  …except now I have booked LHR-DUB-LHR-YYZ-LGA-EWR-LHR-DUB-LHR for the family holiday (I paid about £250pp more for Club compared to Economy + the Avois to/from DUB). A question though…

  …does anyone know if I can get them to tag my bags at Newark just to LHR so I don’t have to collect and re-check them in DUB (I wasn’t planning to bail but just to save some hassle).

  • Rob says:

    31 May31 May 20:50

    I had a big fight in Bangkok once about this. They relented in the end and checked the bags to London only – probably helped by the fact that my onward flight was the next day and I told them I needed the bag for the evening. I certainly got the impression they were not meant to do it. The obvious thing to do is book the last flight from City or Gatwick if possible so you have to get your bag back.

  • LondonFoodie says:

    1 Jun1 June 00:58

    Jezza – I did a LOT of reading on the topic on FlyerTalk and around, as I was booking tickets to Las Vegas on one of the previous promotions. I ended up going LHR-CPH-LHR-JFK-LAS-JFK-LCY/LHR-CPH.

    The reason for that last airport change was exactly the bag problem.

    From what I can tell, BA have smartened up and generally speaking would not agree to send your bag to a different stop than the one you are supposed to go to (and yes, I managed to beg my way once in Buenos Aires – but it wasn’t easy).

    The solution is to either book the return with an airport change, such that your last leg is out of LGW/LCY (works well for AMS and DUB), OR choose a routing such that you have to spend a night in LHR, in which case you will be “forced” to pick up your bags.

    Otherwise hand-luggage may be your best option for ex-Europe and no-showing the last leg of the trip.

• Ian says:

  1 Jun1 June 14:42

  If I have a BA flight landing at 7pm in LHR, then the last leg of the trip leaving at 5pm the next day which I do not want to take, will they check the bags through to London with no problems?

  • LondonFoodie says:

    1 Jun1 June 16:57

    Ian – If you have an overnight stay you can get your bags at LHR and then “miss your flight” the next day.

    I don’t know whether you can send them through to your final destination even if you wanted to, due to the overnight stay, but I will let the experts comment on that.

  • polly says:

    1 Jun1 June 19:22

    Yes Ian. Best way is your plan they don’t hold bags overnight so you are home and dry. Don’t try it too often as Rob warns. Best of all is to depart from another airport next day as then you must have bags off in London.

    • Mick says:

      1 Jun1 June 21:49

      Just booked an ex-dub CW £1194 compared to £3100 leaving from Glasgow 27 Dec to 8 Jan

      DUB – LHR – SEA – GEG (first)- PHX – LHR (seat in the bubble)

      GLA – DUB (Ryanair ) AND LHR – GLA (BA) start and end of trip where 4000 Avios plus £100 in baggage fees etc .

      Staying at the Carlton Penthouse Suite at the airport on Boxing Day as it gives us 1 day and 3 other flights to catch before DUB-LHR Deal was 2 course meal wine breakfast served in room in the morning for £90 each.
      Total £1384

      All in all excellent deal compared to Ex GLA …… With a saving of over £3400 it’s a no brainier !

• Eleanor says:

  2 Jun2 June 14:50

  We also did the ex Oslo to Australia thanks to Raffles! Cancelled an already booked 241 trip as it was such a good deal (and retained silver). Perfectly smooth sailing all the way….

  We booked: OSL – LHR – HKG – MEL – AKL (train Auckland to Christchurch) CHC – SYD – SIN – LHR – OSL : all for £4,600 CW for myself and hubby.

  Booked an economy BA LHR to OSL ‘positioning’ flight, allowing ourselves 2.5 hours for the turn around to get back to LHR on the next BA flight of the day. Lo and behold the LHR to OSL landed 30 minutes early, giving us time to clear all formalities, collect our checked bags, visit the BA reservations desk and ask to change our OSL to LHR to the earlier flight (i.e. to the same plane we just arrived on). We got back on the plane and settled into our now Club Europe seats much to the amusement of the cabin crew!

  A nice relaxing visit to the Elemis Spa at T5 and whiled away about 5 hours (would have been 2.5 hours if we’d taken the planned OSL – LHR flight) before the same evening departure to HKG. Having left home at 8am and after a little day trip to OSL, we were on our way to HKG at 9pm same day.

  On the return from SYD, we weren’t much looking forward to having to do the LHR-OSL-LHR bit – rather fancied just hot footing it home on arrival at 5.30am and forgetting about OSL….but that’s the price you pay for a great deal we thought.

  However I decided to try my luck at SYD check-in, and explained we’d had a change of plans and needed to be in London the day of arrival. So asked could she kindly just check our bags to London not Oslo. After being asked if we were sure, and double checking that we wouldn’t change our mind and want to travel on to Oslo after all (no we said), she kindly tagged our bags just to LHR! No hassles at all, couldn’t believe our luck! So we didn’t do the LHR – OSL and back to LHR day trip, which was a bonus.

  So thanks Raffles – another ex Oslo trip that went to plan (in fact, even better than planned!)

  • Polly says:

    2 Jun2 June 15:22

    Very brave of you to risk same day positioning flights. We just wouldn’t dare! We have now got a nice hotel in CPH courtesy of PRG card offer, for one night each side of HKT flights, so looking forward to that. But yes it’s tempting when arriving in CPH after long haul to go straight to LHR, but the odd time QR go tech, we might be stranded and not make the flight home.

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