lensovet

So I suspect I will have trouble getting the 24k miles this year due to no work trips in my future. I will be in Russia in September. Was hoping to do a quick one-day run at get my 4 A3/OA segments, but cannot find anything at reasonable prices. Saw some things from IST, but that obviously presents the problem of getting to IST in the first place.

Any advice? Willing to fly from other airports but in general the goal here is to have a quick trip with 4 segments.

irishguy28

Why waste time, money, and effort, travelling to IST when what you need to do is travel to Greece?

Aegean flies from both LED and DME to ATH and SKG (and others, direct, seasonally), and in September you can fly to ATH from €200 return from LED, and from €165 from DME.

Select any other Greek destination to get the extra segments and see how it impacts the price.

Booking via OTAs may knock off even more from the price.

Do your research and see if any of the other seasonal services are running, and whether there are cheap seats available near the end of the season. However, expecting to get back to Russia on the same day after 4 segments is going to be a big ask, I think [But given that your original plan seems to have been to position to/from IST before even starting your A3 run, then you clearly don't actually intend to do everything in just one day!!!].

lensovet

Believe I tried many many options on matrix before posting this. The flights are simply not there. LED doesn’t even have daily flights. DME is better, but single-day turns are still challenging. That’s why I am asking for ideas here in case I missed something.

FlyerTalker688786

Well my best advice for you is to take a 2-3 days holiday. Fly Moscow-Athens- (SKG, HER, TLV, BEY, MXP, BCN...)-Athens-Moscow. Pricey? Yes but it gets job done. And wait after Easter to book the ticket, as currently the sale is on summer travel.If you can't take a holiday and spend around €300, I think better to just let it go. Alternatively fly Moscow -ARN/CPH-BKK on premier economy/economy of SAS to get yourself qualified.

Tokyoite

MeltingAlf

Totally doable.

https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0&gl#search;iti=DME_ATH_2018-09-11*ATH_IST,SAW_2018-09-11;tt=m;sel=DMEATH0A3883,ATHIST0A3990;eo=e
https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0&gl#search;iti=IST,SAW_ATH_2018-09-11*ATH_DME_2018-09-11;tt=m;sel=ISTATH0A3991,ATHDME0A3882;eo=e

A3 883 0340 0700 DME-ATH
A3 990 0825 0945 ATH-IST
A3 991 1035 1205 IST-ATH (turnaround)
A3 882 2330 0250 (+1) ATH-DME

or something like this, but in MUC instead, with less time on the ground in ATH after the third leg.

https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0&gl#search;iti=DME_ATH_2018-09-18*ATH_MUC,ZMU_2018-09-18;tt=m;sel=DMEATH0A3883,ATHMUC0A3802;eo=e
https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0&gl#search;iti=MUC,ZMU_ATH_2018-09-18*ATH_DME_2018-09-18;tt=m;sel=MUCATH0A3803,ATHDME0A3882;eo=e

Personally I'll try to play around with it and replace IST with a Schengen destination just to be safe (haven't went through IST myself before, so no idea), even with additional cost, since clearing ATH and crossing to B-gates shouldn't take so much time and should be rather safe. DME has the benefit of utterly late flights outbound (which LHR doesn't), so you don't spend too much time on the ground loitering. In fact, I'd say you can even fit quite a substantial day in Athens after the third leg, so it could be a (really short) day trip in Greece for you as well.

Do note that sometimes Aegean's website is incapable of showing you the flights in multi-city (they'll try to bring you to the seat selection page and fail), so that's one thing you need to look out for when you're booking for both legs.

EDIT: I've tried booking and it seems that Aegean doesn't allow you to multi-city somewhere else in Europe if you originate from Moscow. However it does allow you to do a return on the same day for Moscow for quite a decent enough fare. Unfortunately that means two separate PNRs - which shouldn't be a problem with Aegean if you do inform them. You can also book the Istanbul legs as a return with enough buffer in IST so that shouldn't be a big problem. Except obviously it might be a bit dangerous since you don't have the same plane turning around!

lensovet

Looks like my problem is mainly my extremely limited time to do this. Also, flying out of the northeast (LED/HEL/TLL) is basically useless, as there are very few flights and they all cost an arm and a leg if you exclude *A codeshares.

However DME is indeed doable and I mainly have a problem myself with my own availability. Certainly if I was based there, this would be trivial. For example right now I'm seeing

A3 883,7140 DME-ATH-AXD, depart 3.40a, arrive 9a
A3 7147,882 AXD-ATH-DME, depart 9.35p, arrive 2.50a

On 9/17, RT fare is $277 right now. Priceline confirms it and allows you to book it. The only problem is I'm not in DME on 9/17 lol.

As a side note, what's with the ridiculous schedules at Russia-based airports? Both LED and DME have these nutty 3 am departures and equally nutty 2 am arrivals. Is this the government's lame attempts to keep out competitors from foreign carriers?

:D!

A3 has a flight with better timings on other days of the week.

It isn't nutty to depart at 3am when you arrive at 2am. The plane does a roundtrip from Greece from 9pm to 7am when it perhaps would be otherwise unused, or be used on more profitable / popular routes during the day. And flights at odd hours need to be priced cheaply to incentivise people to take them...

On the plus side, traffic in Moscow is a bit less crazy at night too

lensovet

all departures from LED are between 3 and 4 am. the same is true for DME, though they have an additional one in the afternoon on saturday and thursday + sunday have only an afternoon departure…

not sure i care about traffic, have always taken the train without any issue.

irishguy28

Surely the red eye is what you require if you want to do everything in one day?

You've overlooked that the LED-SKG flight departs at 18:15, but that's only twice a week, and that there are more frequent daytime DME-SKG flights too (at least in the current schedule - maybe not til November). However, there is nothing to stop you from returning from ATH, for example.

However, maybe A3 isn't the programme for you if you can't make it work for you.

GBobon

FYI, IST is a great airport to do a quick turnaround.