Plane ticket hacks

[R Mutt]

I thought I was being clever booking a single (my return leg home) from Costa Rica with Avios, as the option wasn't available for the round trip, except that, which would've been a grand, is now £1,600 just for the outbound. Otherwise cheaper with a stopover but I don't want to hang around for 10 hours somewhere I don't want to be. Some stopover in Paris or Amsterdam, so that's a nice place to go from, rather than somewhere I'd be scared to leave the airport.

It doesn't appear I will actually save anything now having used the Avios and companion voucher, but how can I at least make the most of a stopover or fly directly from somewhere I'd want to spend a day?

[Puggit]

I think you can cancel avios bookings for free?

[R Mutt]

I guess the added flexibility would explain the limited choice when it comes to reward flights. Will I get my companion voucher back though?

As it stands I'm still saving a few hundred quid with only 15,000 Avios and potentially getting a stopover in a European city I've not been to before even factoring in a night in a hotel on a longer stop.

Is there a way to find the cheapest places to go via or is it just a manual process of seeing where the stopovers are? Or should I just get the cheapest flight saving 500 quid and just sleep in the airport for a few hours?

[djc206]

You will get your voucher back yes.

You can use your avios and companion voucher with Iberia now, worth a look.

If you’re looking at going via somewhere look at “starting” your trip there. For example if you want to fly Heathrow to Paris to Costa Rica because it appears cheaper have a look to see if Paris to Costa Rica is cheaper and then book a separate flight to get to Paris. If I’ve explained it poorly google ex EU flights. There are some risks involved vs a single ticket but occasionally you can get an absolute bargain. East coast USA for example is often much cheaper starting in Dublin, Asian and Oceania destinations tend to be cheap from Scandinavia, African destinations often cheaper from Paris or Amsterdam, south and Central American destinations Madrid/Barcelona.

[r3g]

Avoid Amsterdam unless you like standing in a queue outside that stretches round the airport perimeter. There's like 1 member of staff working there on security to deal with hundreds of thousands people.

Edited by r3g on Thursday 19th January 22:07

[djc206]

r3g said:

Avoid Amsterdam unless you like standing in queue outside that stretches round the airport perimeter. There's like 1 member of staff working there on security to deal with hundreds of thousands people.

Still?

[r3g]

djc206 said:

r3g said:

Avoid Amsterdam unless you like standing in queue outside that stretches round the airport perimeter. There's like 1 member of staff working there on security to deal with hundreds of thousands people.

Still?

Yep, neighbours went recently to somewhere in the Caribbean, think it was Aruba or Curacao with a connection on KLM through Amsterdam and the queue was miles long and it was pissing down with rain. Complained to the staff and said nothing to do with them, complain to KLM. Complained to KLM, said nothing to do with them, complain to the airport. Nobody cares. I did warn them but, well, people think they know better. I made the mistake of using Amsterdam once last year and it was a fking nightmare.

[djc206]

r3g said:

Yep, neighbours went recently to somewhere in the Caribbean, think it was Aruba or Curacao with a connection on KLM through Amsterdam and the queue was miles long and it was pissing down with rain. Complained to the staff and said nothing to do with them, complain to KLM. Complained to KLM, said nothing to do with them, complain to the airport. Nobody cares. I did warn them but, well, people think they know better. I made the mistake of using Amsterdam once last year and it was a fking nightmare.

I’m not fan of schipol anyway but that’s pretty bad. Weird that they haven’t managed to sort it out after all this time. I’ll give it a swerve for a while longer thanks!

[R Mutt]

djc206 said:

You will get your voucher back yes.

You can use your avios and companion voucher with Iberia now, worth a look.

If you’re looking at going via somewhere look at “starting” your trip there. For example if you want to fly Heathrow to Paris to Costa Rica because it appears cheaper have a look to see if Paris to Costa Rica is cheaper and then book a separate flight to get to Paris. If I’ve explained it poorly google ex EU flights. There are some risks involved vs a single ticket but occasionally you can get an absolute bargain. East coast USA for example is often much cheaper starting in Dublin, Asian and Oceania destinations tend to be cheap from Scandinavia, African destinations often cheaper from Paris or Amsterdam, south and Central American destinations Madrid/Barcelona.

Many flights to Costa Rica go via Amsterdam or Paris or Madrid so I looked at starting there, only to find that they were either more expensive than the flight from London, had a different stopover somewhere in Central America, or go via London again.

skiplagged.com seems good in that it has options with stopovers or connecting flights not offered by the airlines but either I need to tweak the search to find the optimum 15 hours or some in a European city or that's not actually offered as there are sooner appropriate departing flights out of that airport

Good to know where not to go, but my friend told me to avoid CDG as it took her 90 mins to get to town, and AMS is much more convenient. You guys seem to disagree on both those counts and a quick look on Google Maps tells me I can be at the Louvre in 40 mins

[djc206]

R Mutt said:

Many flights to Costa Rica go via Amsterdam or Paris or Madrid so I looked at starting there, only to find that they were either more expensive than the flight from London, had a different stopover somewhere in Central America, or go via London again.

skiplagged.com seems good in that it has options with stopovers or connecting flights not offered by the airlines but either I need to tweak the search to find the optimum 15 hours or some in a European city or that's not actually offered as there are sooner appropriate departing flights out of that airport

Good to know where not to go, but my friend told me to avoid CDG as it took her 90 mins to get to town, and AMS is much more convenient. You guys seem to disagree on both those counts and a quick look on Google Maps tells me I can be at the Louvre in 40 mins

I wouldn’t say we disagree. I’ve not flown through AMS for a while so can’t comment on how their staffing issues, which I had apparently wrongly assumed would be fixed by now, persist. I’ve not tried to get from CDG to the city many times in my life but it’s never been particularly painful. There are widespread strikes in France at the moment though so that’s something to consider.


Anyhoo, good luck with your hunt!

[GT03ROB]

r3g said:

Yep, neighbours went recently to somewhere in the Caribbean, think it was Aruba or Curacao with a connection on KLM through Amsterdam and the queue was miles long and it was pissing down with rain. Complained to the staff and said nothing to do with them, complain to KLM. Complained to KLM, said nothing to do with them, complain to the airport. Nobody cares. I did warn them but, well, people think they know better. I made the mistake of using Amsterdam once last year and it was a fking nightmare.

Not sure why they were outside the airport as transit passengers!

[GT03ROB]

djc206 said:

r3g said:

Yep, neighbours went recently to somewhere in the Caribbean, think it was Aruba or Curacao with a connection on KLM through Amsterdam and the queue was miles long and it was pissing down with rain. Complained to the staff and said nothing to do with them, complain to KLM. Complained to KLM, said nothing to do with them, complain to the airport. Nobody cares. I did warn them but, well, people think they know better. I made the mistake of using Amsterdam once last year and it was a fking nightmare.

I’m not fan of schipol anyway but that’s pretty bad. Weird that they haven’t managed to sort it out after all this time. I’ll give it a swerve for a while longer thanks!

The queues have improved at Schipol, but in some respects it's still a mess. Transitting through just before Christmas & had to clear security as coming from an unclean country, so as usual bussed to the far end of the terminal, to walk all the way back. Got dumped off by the bus, walked up to security & all of the shutters down, nobody there. Couple of dutch police wandered by said "nothing to do with us". After about 10 mins somebody from the airport wanders by, & wonders what a plane load of people are doing there. Spend 10 mins on her walkie talkie & eventually arranges another bus to take us to another security point. Utter shambles.

[r3g]

GT03ROB said:

r3g said:

Yep, neighbours went recently to somewhere in the Caribbean, think it was Aruba or Curacao with a connection on KLM through Amsterdam and the queue was miles long and it was pissing down with rain. Complained to the staff and said nothing to do with them, complain to KLM. Complained to KLM, said nothing to do with them, complain to the airport. Nobody cares. I did warn them but, well, people think they know better. I made the mistake of using Amsterdam once last year and it was a fking nightmare.

Not sure why they were outside the airport as transit passengers!

Because there was a tech issue with the outbound flight from the UK which caused some issues with crew duty time being exceeded. The end result was an unplanned stay in Amsterdam til the next flight.

[HotJambalaya]

There's two things. If you havent flown the outbound yet if inbound award availability opens up you can call and add the return to your booking under your 241 voucher.

Secondly you can actually do an openjaw flight with a 241 voucher. You'd have to check the distances but cancun might work.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/09/20/booking-o...

[R Mutt]

HotJambalaya said:

There's two things. If you havent flown the outbound yet if inbound award availability opens up you can call and add the return to your booking under your 241 voucher.

Secondly you can actually do an openjaw flight with a 241 voucher. You'd have to check the distances but cancun might work.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/09/20/booking-o...

They just mentioned this on the phone, apparently everyone just books random flights as soon as they get released a year before, but not sure I want to be relying on a cancellation

I'm pretty peed off that I can save a grand by getting the same BA flight from Paris via London, compared to just flying from London. Obviously I'd actually have to do the whole thing. A night in Paris would be cool. Flies me back to Heathrow, back in my own bed, then Gatwick in the morning.

Not that peed off however as I've just booked it, but feels very strange. I might just get the Eurostar to Paris the same day. I should mitigate the risk from any delays through French industrial action (except the inconvenience). Given that once I'm in Paris, CDG-LHR-LGW-SJO is all one booking, so am I covered in terms of missed connections which would otherwise bugger things up if these were individually booked flights I won't be refunded for?

Edited by R Mutt on Friday 20th January 12:39