Aware there are probably numerous threads already on this, but I need some clarification on this process for my own information.

To help, I will be semi-specific about my situation. I reside in Northern Ireland so my local airports would be BHD or BFS, which due to being part of the UK I had always assumed fit the bill of being ‘ex EU’ i.e. outside of the EU (so to speak). Now it seems from what some are saying here for me to go ex EU I would have to depart from DUB so now I am properly confused – does ex EU simply mean that one of the departure or intermediate steps of the trip is from an EU country?

I had always assumed ex EU meant the departure was from anywhere other than the European Union which resulted in some form of cost saving (presumably due to taxes or something). I have sort of proved this theory - when I booked my last trip to HKG it was costing several hundred pounds more expensive to fly WT+ from DUB than if I was to depart from BHD. Conversely, my most recent booking is a return trip to SIN (admittedly in CW), which again was a couple of hundred pounds difference to fly from BHD in WT+, however, a CW ticket was approx. £1000 less expensive when departing from DUB – which just adds to my confusion even more! Why would it cost me more to fly WT+ from DUB whilst CW is significantly less expensive than the comparable CW ticket from BHD?

Can someone explain this to me?



Thanks,

R.