Originally Posted by
twa777
Also, since as noted the APD and passenger service charge are only added to the flight departing from the UK, if your schedule is flexible, you could spend the equivalent $300 instead on a mini-stopover in another European city and have your return flight to the US from there. Of course, that's once we're past COVID-19 and the world has returned to normal.
I've done that before to get a free day in Amsterdam, taking the Eurostar from London (which I found to be quite a relaxing trip).
+1 for this. Every time I go to the UK to visit family I spend a couple of days somewhere in Europe for that exact reason. There are two of us and the savings make the Europe stop over “free”. Very cheap one way fares to almost anywhere in Europe are available from most major UK cities and the fare back to the US from Europe versus London is almost always the same or less even without factoring in the APD savings.