giorginho

LOL, 900€ in light, I wish I did well enough to afford that .
I paid 548,60€ for 2 people's Tickets in Business Class on that itinerary (including a discount thanks to a personalized promo).


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futuramadramallama

Ah yes, 900 euros in Light was just an example of course.

On the other hand, 225 euros for a DE-GR-DE in Business doesn't seem too bad. Good work.

BA6948

Not the same route but the same issue. Trying to book Brussels-Sitia via the app. Sitia wouldn’t show as an option from Brussels but is available when I select Paris. Don’t know why?!

irishguy28

From Brussels, there is no overnight flight that arrives in Athens past midnight, and so it is not possible to make a same-day connection to the flight to JSH which typically run less frequently than daily and usually in the early morning; even on the summer days when it departs in the afternoon, it has already departed before the Brussels flight has arrived in ATH.

From Paris, there is a red-eye flight which "connects" on the same day (albeit with a 5h 25m connection in the middle of the night) with the single flight of the day to Sitia which departs at 06:50. (There are some other more exotic routings offered by the timetable...see below!)

From Brussels, you can never arrive in ATH on a day on which you can catch a flight to JSH. From Paris, because there is a very late flight which arrives past midnight, you can arrive and make a same-day connection to JSH.

If you want to connect to a destination for which no same-day connection is possible - such as BRU-ATH-JSH - you have to let the website know you are happy to spend at least one night at ATH by requesting a multi-city booking; BRU-ATH on Day X; ATH-JSH on Day Y.

Yreal

Ah yes, EU-ATH-EU for like 50 bucks. Good times. Lowest I ever did was AMS-HER-CDG for 18, kinda what got this whole madnes started for me. Went AMS-ATH-BRU and train back a bunch of time on saterday night. Perfect 23.5 hour layover to have a fun weekend.

Anyway, this is still perfectly possible but not as lucrative anymore because millage earning has been nerfed for light fares. That irrelevant if its just about the sectors though,

Pop over to matrix ita, add your departures and as destinations either the longest flights a3 has (HEL, EDI, DUB, CMN...) or ones that are cheapest (ZAG, DBV, VIE, WAW). Routing code on C:A3+, calender view. Take what you just found and run it through skyscanner or something as a multi city booking and voila : 112 eur for 7 hours on a A3 plane from BHX.

https://www.skyscanner.nl/transport/...nts=0&ref=home

Yreal

A3 doesnt allow overnight connections

futuramadramallama

Ah, is one of the A3 fare rules that connections must be same day? (Vs. a set time limit, or next available onwards-flight?)

50 EUR RT? 18 EUR RT? That's incredible, assuming that's including taxes and fees. Even as a Light fare that would be pretty good, just for the trip much less the segments. Was this a long time ago?

irishguy28

No, it wouldn't be because of a fare rule; in general any connection of under 24 hours should be allowed by the fare rules. But it seems to be a general feature of most airline websites that they don't (ever? mostly?) show itineraries where you have to spend the night somewhere en-route for short-haul journeys. My guess is that if the website suggests it, and the passenger books without realising, then they get a lot of stick and grief from the passenger ("You didn't warn me I wasn't going to arrive until the next day! I missed my job interview! You didn't provide a hotel! Did you really expect me to just sleep on the floor at the airport? Why would I want to book a ticket and spend 10 hours overnight at the airport? Etc etc etc). As such, you tend not to see any such suggestions until you tell the website that you actually want to spend the night at the hub.

On A3's website, I have only seen such routings proposed by the award booking tool - I personally have never seen their booking tool suggest an itinerary with an overnight stop (arriving before midnight in ATH, departing the next day) for a cash ticket on their own metal.

futuramadramallama

Oh I see. I've actually seen overnight "short haul" connections on quite a few airline booking engines (not OTAs). Speaking of European carriers, BA even. But maybe that's because it was booked via AA.
Anyways, I see what you're saying: at the end of the day, A3's booking engine tends to not show overnight layovers (if ever).

giorginho

"Never" is simply not true. Booked this myself just a couple of weeks ago:

Naturally booked on Aegean's own website as a very "normal" one-way, you can easily test it to see if it works yourself.
I would imagine this type of overnight connection being bookable for other similar itineraries too.

irishguy28

“Bound 1” and “Bound 2” means you made a multi-city booking request. The website suggests no connection for HAJ-CFU on 8 October - see below; instead, you asked for HAJ-ATH on 8 October and ATH-CFU on 9 October.

As already stated upthread, asking to travel one route on Day X (“Bound 1”) and a separate route on Day Y (“Bound 2”) is the way to “force” connections requiring an overnight stop which a simple one-way/return search won’t offer.

(For some reason, the CFU-HAJ route is directing me to something called "AEGEAN Beyond, powered by Dohop". They also suggest nothing is available on Sun 8 Oct )

giorginho

irishguy28 man you have some serious trust issues! My 2nd screenshot was from the direct, one-way booking, which is also how I booked my own ticket! Do I seriously need to screen-record a video for you to believe it?
Did you happen to notice I booked CFU-HAJ and not the other way around? The HAJ-CFU route is available on mondays and fridays, which are the only 2 days of the week that the ATH-HAJ route is served, so it makes perfect sense it isn't available on other dates (!). However, since that combination is available same-day, there's no over-night. However on the CFU-HAJ route, which you have to look for on Sundays and Thursdays, in order to arrive to ATH before the Mondays/Fridays ATH-HAJ flights depart (!) is available as a one-way with overnight at ATH.

As I said, you don't even need to trust me blindly, just see for yourself (but see and read carefully, please).


eugnk

I also frequently buy overnight connections on the Aegean website as usual one-ways between Tel Aviv and Europe via ATH.

OTAs / Google flights typically have more connection alternatives available with longer layovers.

Forcing under 24 hours connection via multi-city on the Aegean website does not always produce a one way fare, in my experience.

futuramadramallama

I haven't heard of this "Aegean Beyond by Dohop" yet, and I don't think it's been discussed on this board. Somewhat interesting! And probably deserves its own thread.

Wikipedia says: Dohop's webpage about their "Connection Service" product seems to be describing it as a hybrid of phone-support and possibly travel-insurance for separate tickets (I welcome other interpretations). Sounds like they facilitate connections between non-interlining/codesharing partners (and even different modes of transportation) by selling a combined ticket and offering other services to smooth over the experience (at least that's the idea). Aegean Beyond is presumably the brand name of Aegean's version of this product.

But one particular question and answer in the FAQ for Aegean Beyond tells the FTers all we need to know...

Flyer1F1

In general you can find the flight rules of the tickets in ITA matrix, but you know how to decode them.

Relevant rules for MAN->ATH


THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL BETWEEN ATH AND
MAN ON
ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING
ANY A3 FLIGHT OPERATED BY A3
ON DIRECT FLIGHTS.



STOPOVERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT - 1 IN EACH
DIRECTION IN BRU AT EUR 100.00 EACH.