Bits: British Airways bans hover boards, Virgin Atlantic sale launched

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• Diydegsy says:

  9 Dec9 December 09:30

  Hi I’m looking to buy tickets for 2 adults and 3 children to Orlando next August any suggestions on best time to buy or who to fly with for best deals, much appreciated?

  • shadowfixer says:

    9 Dec9 December 10:03

    I have family out in FL and usually travel to MCO 2x a year – book early and be flexible. Apart from the VS GLA to MCO flights mentioned above the only other direct scheduled are LGW (VS and BA) to MCO or MAN to MCO (Seasonal BA & VS) iirc. There are other flights that operate into Orlando Sanford but these are mostly chartered, and not much cheaper – Thompson flights have a decent reputation from what i understand.

    I tend to use google.co.uk/flights to understand the best cheapest options – not flying direct is a pain because when you land in the US at tour first port of call you need to clear customs immigration and then re check your bags & normally back through US security lines – which can be a nightmare – we have missed connecting flights because of this, but for a family of 5 (which we are) the difference in price could be £1000 – between flying directindirect so it depends how you cut your cloth…

    SF

  • Sussex Bantam says:

    9 Dec9 December 12:06

    We are doing the same thing and found some better value by flying to Tampa rather than MCO. Might be worth a look too depending on where you are travelling to afterwards.

  • Wally says:

    10 Dec10 December 11:08

    I found some fantastic deals for next August booking in September/October by doing it as follows. For example on 27th October you could book:

    DUB->MAN (1/6/16) (Aer Lingus I think) (this could be almost any date in advance)
    MAN->MCO (11/8/16) (Virgin)
    MCO->MAN (25/8/16) (Virgin)
    MAN->DUB (26/8/16) (Aer Lingus I think)

    For £2036 (economy) for a family of 4. This was found with eBookers using the multi-city option on Skyscanner. Of course you would have to add on a cheap flight to Dublin to give you a short May half term break and would either have to (a) hope you could get the agent not to book your luggage through to Dublin on the return; (b) change the MAN->DUB flight to the following day to give an overnight gap (meaning they definitely wouldn’t book the luggage through to DUB) – this was nearly an extra £500 when I priced it up; or (c) do not book the final leg in the first place – again this’ll be a bit more expensive (but still WAY cheaper than booking the direct MAN->MCO return flight and you get a short break in Dublin!).

    I suspect these fares will no longer be available for next August but I hope this helps in some way.

    • Wally says:

      10 Dec10 December 11:27

      I’ve just priced up this itinerary and (for a family of 2 adults, 2 children under 12 in economy) it prices as:

      £2046 as is
      £2000 by changing the final leg to a day later (27/8/16)
      £2379 by dropping the final leg entirely

      This compares with £3495 if you just book the return flights MAN->MCO.

      Again this is using the Multi-City option on Skyscanner.

      • Craig says:

        12 Dec12 December 16:52

        Hi,

        I’m new to this. Do you just book the flight from Dublin to Manchester but just get on at Manchester? Or do you need to travel to Dublin to get the flight?

        Thanks,

        Craig

        • Rob says:

          12 Dec12 December 17:30

          You MUST take the Dublin leg. MUST. Your ticket is cancelled the second that boarding closes in Dublin.

        • Craig says:

          13 Dec13 December 01:13

          Thanks HfP.

• Chris says:

  9 Dec9 December 09:41

  Off topic I know but I thought I would add it to the bits post for today

  Jury’s Inn are releasing 2016 rooms at £20.16 per night at 10am this morning. The promo code SALE2016 needs to be added when searching.

  Hopefully it is of use to someone.

  • AndyGWP says:

    9 Dec9 December 12:18

    Thanks 🙂

    (note that “This promotion code is only valid for stays from 1st January 2016 to 31st May 2016.”)

• sd83 says:

  9 Dec9 December 10:33

  Very OT, but how do I calculate how much value I am getting out of my avios.
  For example. A BA ticket to EDI is costing me £110 however I can knock off £50 by redeeming 7500 avios… is that worth it?
  There are no RFS on the dates and times I require so resorting to cash.
  Thanks in advance

  • Genghis says:

    9 Dec9 December 11:04

    Knocking £50 off the price for 7,500 means you are getting (5000p/7500) = 0.66p per Avios of value – not a great redemption but if you have avios to burn, could be worth it for you.

  • DW201 says:

    9 Dec9 December 11:07

    I’m confused at what you are after?

    In your example above you are getting £50 off for 7500 avios so 5000 (pence)/7500 = 0.66ppa (pence per avios). Rubbish if you are buying them at 1p, decent if you have got them free from work/promos.

    You can get much higher values for avios (ie 12ppa) when redeeming for super expensive tix but personally I wouldn’t dream of spending 10k on a flight ticket so no matter how many avios I have this doesn’t make sense for me…

    RFS is pretty much the only way I use Avios. Saved me thousands on various stag do’s/weekends away around Europe where I would have 100% spent the cash.

• Karl says:

  9 Dec9 December 11:28

  OT, does anyone know if the M&S Food at Heathrow T5 does the 2 for £10 thing?

• Ian says:

  9 Dec9 December 12:10

  i thought the BA sale started tomorrow?

  • Rob says:

    9 Dec9 December 18:12

    Nope! (Or a late change if it does!)

• Rob Brown says:

  9 Dec9 December 12:47

  This is crazy, What are you supposed to do if you need to get your hoverboard over seas? Only a time traveller from the past wouldn’t know that you can’t use hoverboards over water!

  • harry says:

    9 Dec9 December 18:11

    BA is right in this instance.

    They’ve been wrong about mobile phones & laptops & tablets for the last 20 years, but in this instance they are correct to ban the hover boards – fire hazard.

• Mark says:

  9 Dec9 December 14:36

  “Virgin Atlantic sale launched”
  What’s the asking price? I’m sure someone has an airline on their Xmas list!

  • DW201 says:

    9 Dec9 December 16:44

    pool our loyalty points and make an offer?

• nick says:

  9 Dec9 December 14:39

  Completely OT, but I’ve just seen that on my booking email for my DUB—>LHR—>SFO flights that it says “Very important information: If you do not check your bags through to your final destination you may incure [sic] additional costs”.

  I don’t plan to miss the final leg and I’ve already paid for my flight back from Dublin to London to get me home, but the turnaround at LHR between landing from SFO and departing for DUB is just 30 mins so I imagine it is highly possible that I’ll miss the “last leg” to DUB. If that’s the case I would hope that BA would let me have my luggage rather than booking me on to a later flight to Dublin, but I don’t want to incure (!) costs if I successfully run that argument! Is this “very important information” warning a new thing?

  • Kathy says:

    9 Dec9 December 17:00

    I’ve just looked up my ex-CPH – JFK flight, and found the message:

    ‘If you do not check your bags through to your final destination, you may incur multiple and/or additional baggage charges.’

    I’m not sure if it’s new or if I just hadn’t noticed it before.

  • Gavin says:

    9 Dec9 December 17:28

    Must check my Dub-SFO booking for new year

    I’m HBO though so will skip off to catch the railair back to Reading regardless. I wouldn’t normally skip an ex EU but got a big work commitment next day

    Obvious solution is to book your flight back to Dublin / elsewhere from LGW or LCY so you can retrieve bags

  • Jason says:

    9 Dec9 December 19:07

    This statement has been included for over a year and no reports of it being enforced.

    30 minutes is an invalid connection time and impossible to book. If there has been a schedule change you’ll be rebooked.

    • Joe says:

      9 Dec9 December 19:53

      I think they’ve changed the time of the flight from LHR to DUB – I’m expecting it to be rebooked in the next day or so.

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