Originally Posted by
TraconSFO
Yea its the latter. I get into LHR on a Sunday, leave for ZRH on the Monday.
6am flight Monday changing to a 5pm Monday flight is gonna cost me +$4500
Not sure how UAL or Swiss is impacted by a later $120 flight.
What's happening is that you're adding a stopover at LHR. The $6132 price is a D fare from SFO to TLV and a Z fare on the return. The fare allows stopovers, but only one in each direction, and only at a specified list of cities (including ZRH, but not LON).
There are two realistic alternatives. The first is to try to arrive later on Sunday night into LHR, but that seems to have inventory issues. If you can find a flight where you'd stay in LHR for less than 24 hours, though, that'd do the trick. The second is to split it up, either as suggested by
threeoh or, if you want to save some money, fly SFO-MUC instead of SFO-ZRH. That gets you down to a Z fare in both directions for $4703.14 for the first ticket and about €200 for BA nonstops in economy for the second.
Originally Posted by
AtomicLush
Have you tried multi-segments and just don't include the LHR-ZRH segment altogether? Then book the connecting flight separately?
SFO-LHR United
LHR-ZRH Swiss
ZRH-TLV Swiss
TLV-SFO United
I tried that. That would work if LHR were a stopover point on the SFO-TLV discount fare. Unfortunately, it's not, so the fare goes way up when you try this, as it has to go up to a J fare.