Originally Posted by
BearX220
If you actually knew the whole northeast transportation layout (you said elsewhere you only landed at EWR once) you'd know nobody drives to the NYC area from Washington or Boston to catch a longhaul flight. Terrible, taxing drives with expensive tolls, and the last thing you want to face after a 15-hour flight in from HKG or wherever.
I live near IAD, and having booked two award trips on CX, I'd agree. I could think about driving to EWR, but not JFK. But the clincher is the return -- 15-hour flight and 4+ hour drive? Uh huh. The funny thing is, when my wife and I have traveled, we've been gone for 4+ weeks at a time. At that point, it's cheaper to buy the airfare from IAD than it is to drive and park.
In fact, most who are in the know resist connecting through EWR or JFK because of the potential for delays (too many ops in summer, weather in winter; EWR is worse). If you're starting from Boston or Washington en route to a destination with no nonstop, you are wiser to fly to an overseas hub or a North American connection point like IAH, ORD or YYZ, and you'd be insane to drive to a New York area airport. You might take the train to EWR from Philly though.
I'm the idiot who doesn't. For our first trip on CX, we stayed in Manhattan for two nights, and on the way home, we took CX 888 with a 4-hour layover before catching B6 home. My theory with the B6 flight was that if we miss it, we'll just deal. This trip was in the middle of December/January. Staying in Manhattan for two nights was as much about the air logistics as it was about seeing the city.
For the next trip, we're leaving in late September, but taking the ORD-HKG flight out. Again, we'll hang out in Chicago for two nights before we leave. My wife loves the city, and well, it helps with the connections issue. However, on the way home, we'll have to come back through JFK. We'll have to overnight near JFK before coming back to DC the next day. If we used ORD instead, we'd have a forced overnight in HKG.