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I don’t normally “do” beach / relaxing kinds of holidays but my husband and I are thinking about it this year. Probably early May (I’ve been looking 9th for 5 nights). It thought it would be nice to try booking with BA in Club to take advantage of the double tier points offer.
Anyway, we’re flying from Scotland (EDI or GLA is fine) and everywhere I look seems to involve an airport change, typically flying into LCY or LHR and then connecting to LGW for the European flight.
Is there a way to find BA’s European beach-y destinations that fly from LHR? That’s probably a really basic question, sorry. 🙈
I tried using the BA Holiday Finder specifically choose Heathrow as the departure point and found some nice options in Paphos… go to book and the flight is from Gatwick. 😒
Given this “BA Holiday with domestic connection” seems to be popular with the tier point runners I must be missing something daft here.
Alternative question: How awful is to connect from LHR or LCY to Gatwick? It sounds like something nobody in their right mind would want to do… but maybe it’s less of a pain that I imagine?
From looking at trips to Cyprus last year, I remember seeing that BA fly every day in peak times from Gatwick to Paphos, but also had a Saturday flight from Heathrow , meaning if you wanted to a do return from Heathrow you had to go for 7 days
Sounds too much hassle for my liking. How about LIS direct from EDI or OPO direct from GLA on Easyjet?, Barcelona, Valencia or Alicante? All are great and reached direct from EDI or GLA. Use skyscanner to search direct flights only option with destination ‘everywhere’ on your specific dates from both EDI and GLA. This will give you ideas, prices and schedules to compare.
Sorry, forgot to add that if BA and TP is a must then my tip is Naples for Sorrento, Capri or Basilicata if you are ok with a little onwards travel.
Early May is potentially quite chilly in much of Europe. The air will have warmed up, but the water will be very fresh. You want to go a long way south of you plan to spend much time in the sea.
You can get flights to Athens and Tenerife from Heathrow which work with your connecting flights from EDI. Both earn extra tier points compared with most of Europe, too. From Athens you can easily get a ferry to somewhere beautiful – but, even there, warmth isn’t guaranteed.
BTW BA has recently adjusted the LHR timetable so that some flights don’t start until 18th May.
I was looking at Tenerife, but again no availability from LHR as far as I can tell. Maybe I’m just slightly too early for the LHR timetable then. That’s frustrating. I have limited time off left but I do have a company-wide “wellness day” on the 10th May that makes it easier to plan around that weekend (+ moving some bank holiday days around).
Temps don’t worry me. I’m unlikely to be heading into the sea. Just some strolls, relaxing with a book / games, and generally doing as little as possible. Normally my idea of hell, honestly, but it’s been a busy old time the last few years so… why not give it a shot!
Seems like I’m badly times for the tier point madness and just booking a LCC flight direct from Scotland is likely the answer. Ah well!
Honestly, just use EasyJet from Edinburgh. Fly to loads of places, yeah you don’t get a nice TP boost, but broadly if you have EasyJet Plus (worth it if you fly more than a couple of times on EZY – free hand luggage, free fast track and free seat selection) you can give yourself basically a club world experience without the faff.
Some of the flights have been so cheap out of term time that buying the middle seat is still cheaper than even the leg down to LHR on BA if you really want a club world type experience, ha!
It must be much easier to connect between LHR and LGW now that the Lizzie line is open? One change at Faringdon? There’s also a direct coach. Google says 1hr 21m by coach, 1hr 40m by train.
As a curveball, how about Dubrovnik? I say curveball as there are not really sandy beaches on the Adriatic, but there are some wonderful spots to relax, and an interesting city to boot. Most importantly, you can fly from LHR.
The south of Spain should be nice and warm in May – it was in the low 20s last week! You can fly from LHR to AGP or GIB (with T3 lounges) and from there you have countless options depending on your tastes!
I don’t do many domestic connections on short-haul these days, but they are still a good option if you want the TPs and the baggage allowance. We used the latter to bring back a haul of Spanish F & B last week, lol.
Another option might be ATH, from where you can get to beach resorts, and also will give you 320 TPs for a return trip in CE on its own. We went in May some years ago and it was 35C!
There is a daily GLA to LGW flight – had a quick look and there’s a 7:50 flight from Glasgow on the 9th which might be a connecting option?
Flying back might not be as easy as the return flight departs Gatwick at 10:15.
AFAIK there is a LHR departure to TFS. When you’re making a BA Holiday booking, you will eventually get to a page where you have the option to select different flights. So if you are initially shown a LGW departure, you may well be offered a LHR one as an alternative (usually more expensive though). But TFS is another one which would give 320 (double) TPs – it’s just quite a long flight for a short trip.
There are definitely TFS flights from LHR, but maybe only certain days of the week – I’m booked on one 12.55 departure in December!
Easy to change default flights offered on a holiday booking – either select alternatives when offered, or use Custom booking for more flexibility on connections. You may need to stay overnight at LHR on return though to get back to ScotlandYes – I think BAH is set up to give you the cheapest option but there’s plenty of flexibility. You often need to put in your domestic and onward flights separately to see more or better options. I’ve got a bit of a convoluted itinerary in September which includes OPO-LGW-GLA and had to input each of the 7 sectors separately to get the departures I wanted! Should get 560 TPs from it though (hopefully!)
I’ve had good weather in Mallorca in May, albeit at the end of the month to coincide with half term rather than earlier on. Maybe only a couple of flights a day to PMI from LHR in early May but frequency increases at some point during the month. We like Port de Soller which is 40 mins in a taxi from the airport.
Tenerife is Friday/Saturday . Larnaca could be good. You might be able to get the flights to match up to do GLA-LGW-Malaga and returning Malaga-LHR-GLA
Have a look at Valencia – amazing city with great public transport/transfer options, incredible value, beautiful and interesting old town, stunning modern developments and a huge, gorgeous beach.
I personally wouldn’t want to connect from LCY/LHR to LGW. Not so much the hassle (a couple of train changes and maybe 1-1.5 hours), but then you’ve got to add in the time to enter/exit airports, add in some time in case of delays, etc. (and that’s assuming hand luggage). Probably better to fly via MAD or similar – have done that to TFS with only a 1 hour stop.
Off season luxury in Turkish riviera can be a bit affordable.
Off season luxury in Turkish riviera can be a bit affordable.
There are LHR to Bodrum flights on Saturdays.
The issue with flying via MAD is that you only earn 20TP on the MAD – TFS leg on IB in business although a plus point is access to the nice IB lounge in MAD.
The issue with flying via MAD is that you only earn 20TP on the MAD – TFS leg on IB in business although a plus point is access to the nice IB lounge in MAD.
BTW Domestic IB flights leave from T4 and not T4S where the nicer lounge is.
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