Reward flight ex-EU return

[Chris R]

Floated the idea of starting a CW long haul redemption from say Dublin/Amsterdam and to my surprise the wife didn’t want to divorce me.

We usually fly EDI/GLA via LHR. The wife wasn’t put off jumping on a cheap Ryanair flight to Dublin the night before and staying in an airport hotel to save over £1k in taxes and fees.

However, what options do we have on the way home? Can I just not check the baggage all the way through to Dublin and just book a separate flight back up to EDI/GLA after the long haul leg?

[ChrisC]

Out stations generally won’t short check.

Solutions would include booking the flight to DUB from LCY or LGW so you have to get them at LHR.

Another would be to actually book the last leg to GLA/EDI anyway and see what than does to the price.

[Rob]

Yes, obvious thing to do is book a non-Heathrow flight for the last leg which forces them to return your bag.

[NorthernLass]

You’d have to do that as two separate bookings, or by phoning, return bookings can only be straight returns to the same starting point.

[BJ]

What am I missing here, the return flight does not need to be to the same city as departure unless we are talking avoidance of fees from USA? There are open jaw and double open jaw options for reward flights booked by phone or a combination of phone and online, and multi-city for revenue flights. Why not depart INV instead of DUB, and return to EDI/GLA?

[NorthernLass]

I think there was something going on with DUB which made it even cheaper to start from than INV, possibly because it’s not a UK departure point. So, e.g. DUB-LHR-LAX was amazing value, as long as you were in London for less than 24 hours. A USA destination would obviously cause problems on the return if done as separate bookings, but you could return from Mexico or the Caribbean to avoid this (and as part of a different trip!).

[BJ]

Thanks @Anna, not been around much so I’ve obviously missed the goodies from Dublin. Happy with our lot though, INV works for us and we booked last year before they started hiking fees.

[NorthernLass]

It’s definitely an option for us – we live nearer to Dublin as the crow (or Ryanair) flies than to London or Edinburgh!

[achoogirl]

I’m doing this later this week. Just book the return leg for where you want to end up. It’s called an open jaw. I’m doing DUB – LHR – JFK EWR – LHR. Savings are really quite extraordinary

[Colin MacKinnon]

We’ve done Inverness to save APD on a reward to USA. Parked car at Edinburgh Airport, took tram to Edinburgh Gateway and then train to Inverness. (Train cheaper from Haymarket to INV, even though it stopped at Gateway!) Spent night in Inverness and then taxi to airport. Airport a surprising distance from such a small town! Rhys has reviewed the hotel at the airport.

A few nice restaurants and bars in Inverness and a wee post-prandial stroll along the Ness. Flight back was via LHR to EDI.

We took an INV flight which landed 23 hours before our USA departure and had a night out in London too!

If BA cancel your Inverness flight, they will let you flying from EDI/GLA to LHR instead at no extra cost.

Dublin is a bigger, busier airport – and has had its Heathrow-style issues recently! There are no walkable, cheap hotels at the airport. The one on-airport hotel, if I recall, changes for that!

If staying in Dublin, I might be worried about getting up for an early flight to LHR.

We always like staying the night somewhere to make sure we get the flight the next day that starts the main journey.

Here’s another suggestion: Jersey. Or, as you says, AMS or Paris. Or Madrid. All have direct flights from EDI/GLA – and you can have a fun night out before starting the main journey. But using avios, get your return to Scotland, it will only cost £10 or £20 more for the fees.

The only time you have to drop the last leg is a cash fare from DUB/CDG/AMS etc. Then just make sure the final flight is from Gatwick or City, so you have to collect your bags at LHR.

On cash tickets check things like AMS-LHR-USA-LHR-xxxx where xxxx is a different city to the first (but has flights from LCY & LGW.

And, of course, on cash tickets check AMS etc-LHR-USA-LHR-EDI/GLA

[JDB]

Ex-EU produces big savings on cash tickets because the BA fares/surcharges are much lower, but for Avios redemptions, while you take off c. £180 APD, the surcharges are often not very different and the original question was about redemption tickets.

[achoogirl]

JDB wrote:

Ex-EU produces big savings on cash tickets because the BA fares/surcharges are much lower, but for Avios redemptions, while you take off c. £180 APD, the surcharges are often not very different and the original question was about redemption tickets.

Mine is a redemption ticket and I did read the question. Rather than pay over £840 taxes and charges I paid under £300. My flight to Dublin is £95 – so as I said saving is worth it for me and it is an open jaw.

[JDB]

achoogirl wrote:

JDB wrote:

Ex-EU produces big savings on cash tickets because the BA fares/surcharges are much lower, but for Avios redemptions, while you take off c. £180 APD, the surcharges are often not very different and the original question was about redemption tickets.

Mine is a redemption ticket and I did read the question. Rather than pay over £840 taxes and charges I paid under £300. My flight to Dublin is £95 – so as I said saving is worth it for me and it is an open jaw.

If you only paid less than £300 cash, how many Avios did you pay as it looks as though you may have part paid Avios rather than cash for some of the charges? I’m interested as I can’t seem to get that answer. From Dublin or Shannon the cash fares to the US are interesting and you get pre clearance so improves the journey time. The outbound DUB-LHR-NYC adds a huge amount of journey time, forgetting LON-DUB and allowing enough connection time.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Angelamc11]

Return reward flights to Mexico in first leaving from Dublin, with open jaw cost £350 each in taxes.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[JDB]

Angelamc11 wrote:

Return reward flights to Mexico in first leaving from Dublin, with open jaw cost £350 each in taxes.

And how many Avios? I have tried that, but get 232,500 232 Avios + £ 395.77 (that’s returning to Dublin as well) vs 162,500 Avios from London in F peak/off peak

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[polly]

We have QR TKTS IN j on QR from DUB. I totally forgot to route us back via LCY or LGW.. can’t believe that, after all the time l suggested folks on here did that. Anyway, was thinking will stay with sibs down the road for family visits each end of the trip. So. Makes it worthwhile. Our tkts were £300 pp plus 150k avios pp not bad to HKT next February. Of course, cancel in a flash should an ex eu J QR sale pop up..

[achoogirl]

JDB wrote:

achoogirl wrote:

JDB wrote:

Ex-EU produces big savings on cash tickets because the BA fares/surcharges are much lower, but for Avios redemptions, while you take off c. £180 APD, the surcharges are often not very different and the original question was about redemption tickets.

Mine is a redemption ticket and I did read the question. Rather than pay over £840 taxes and charges I paid under £300. My flight to Dublin is £95 – so as I said saving is worth it for me and it is an open jaw.

If you only paid less than £300 cash, how many Avios did you pay as it looks as though you may have part paid Avios rather than cash for some of the charges? I’m interested as I can’t seem to get that answer. From Dublin or Shannon the cash fares to the US are interesting and you get pre clearance so improves the journey time. The outbound DUB-LHR-NYC adds a huge amount of journey time, forgetting LON-DUB and allowing enough connection time.

115k Avios Business Off Peak.

[Angelamc11]

JDB wrote:

Angelamc11 wrote:

Return reward flights to Mexico in first leaving from Dublin, with open jaw cost £350 each in taxes.

And how many Avios? I have tried that, but get 232,500 232 Avios + £ 395.77 (that’s returning to Dublin as well) vs 162,500 Avios from London in F peak/off peak

Avios was around 180k and I used a companion voucher.

[JDB]

@achoolgirl so if I understand it correctly, NYC club return from London off peak is 100k Avios, so you paid 15k Avios extra from Dublin, plus the ticket to get to Dublin £95 (in Eco) and £300 taxes, so the saving is c. £300 against which you virtually double your outbound journey time and as @Jacob confirmed as you are going via London, you can’t use pre-clearance in Dublin.

[JDB]

@Angelamc11 thank you for the reply. That sounds a great deal; may try for next year as this year’s MEX F trip already booked for November. Fortunately booked before the two TFC increases.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[dougzz99]

JDB wrote:

Angelamc11 wrote:

Return reward flights to Mexico in first leaving from Dublin, with open jaw cost £350 each in taxes.

And how many Avios? I have tried that, but get 232,500 232 Avios + £ 395.77 (that’s returning to Dublin as well) vs 162,500 Avios from London in F peak/off peak

I think this is some aspect of the new Amex 241 voucher where the Dublin flights price up oddly. Definitely been reported by several that the savings are significant.

[John]

JDB wrote:

Ex-EU produces big savings on cash tickets because the BA fares/surcharges are much lower, but for Avios redemptions, while you take off c. £180 APD, the surcharges are often not very different and the original question was about redemption tickets.

That used to be the case but starting redemptions in DUB (and ending in the UK) now reduces the BA co-charges.

You don’t need to return to the origin city/country on revenue flights either. By playing about with the final destination you can often reduce the fare and charges even further. For example before covid I often started in LUX and ended in MUC or VIE, as it could be €40 or so cheaper than going back to LUX, and simply ending in LHR wasn’t that much more either (maybe €250 to €300) while starting from the UK would be thousands more.

Of course a destination with LHR and LGW/LCY flights works best if available, where it wasn’t I would sometimes just pay the €250 to end in LHR as the overall price was acceptable, rather than having to mess about with luggage retrieval. Other times I would go to the destination for a few days.

[NorthernLass]

But IT limitations mean you can’t book any kind of open jaw redemption online in one go. You have the options of booking by phone (either the whole journey or asking BA to add the inbound) or for 241 flights, booking the inbound separately then asking for the 50% avios back (not recommended for ex-USA departures, of course).

[BJ]

@JDB, regarding the extra time it takes, I think it is all about getting the mindset and approach right. I’ve never been a fan of adding connections, positioning flights and many extra hours to my journey just so I can save in low hundreds or fly supposedly better airlines. However, if you can tailor it to provide real added value such as Colin explained with break in London, visiting friends as we do in INV or family as Polly does in DUB, or take a short break in city before departure then it all starts to feel much better. By departing INV, we don’t really save on the trip, rather I just perceive it as a night or two in the city and a visit with friends for ‘free’.

[NorthernLass]

Absolutely – a city break in Dublin has been on my list for years (it’s nearer than London and cheaper to get to a lot of the time, I can’t believe I’ve never done it!), so it would absolutely be viable for me to jump on a £20 Ryanair flight (ok, £40 with hold baggage, but still), have a couple of days in DUB then fly off somewhere long haul. Quite a few of our long haul trips involve overnight at LHR anyway, so it’s not even that much more travelling.

Then XXX-LHR-MAN on the return for convenience.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .