robr

I have 240,000 miles and 4 people and not a ton of $$$. I am slowly discovering roadblocks all along the way when it comes to using these miles to travel from Boston to London and back.
First, I discovered I can't book with BA as they charge insane $$ for the privilege of using your miles.
There were no other flights to get us home from London on the dates we need to travel (I even called AAdvantage and they tried all sorts of crazy routes)
Then I decided hmm... I can fly out of Glasgow, lets take a train up and stay there a few days. Train costs, $350, then I discovered the UK departure tax. Another almost $700.
So I started looking at Paris. That would be perfect. 2 hours by train. But...... it was too many miles to get back to the US (65k per person instead of 30k in July.

That leaves Dublin. I can take a train, to a ferry to Dublin for really cheap. Flights have low taxes and we'd love to go there, but the wife doesn't want to take the entire day to train and ferry to Dublin and has said just to cancel the trip.

Do I have any other options to look at to keep to 30K a person on the return flight and avoid the UK departure taxes?

Thanks for any strategies.

jridge

If you eliminate BA and all UK departures due to tax, then your remaining options are to travel from a non-UK European airport or buy a paid ticket on the likes of Norwegian, Icelandair, etc. In the former category, DUB, BRU, CDG, AMS, ...

Check the availability both to BOS, to the international arrival point (e.g. for AMS, check specifically for AMS-DFW), and check for northeast airports fairly easily accessible from BOS.

robr

I wasn't sure if there was a way to route me say from Glasgow through DUB or CDG or AMS or someplace close to the UK that would reduce the tax to a much lower rate. I certainly couldn't figure out a way to do it with AA's web tool. Obviously I don't want to pay for the return flight, that would cost more than just paying the taxes. It's not that I can't afford it, but I just refuse to cash in 240,000 miles and then still pay $600+. (or in the case of BA, they wanted $2400!!!!!)

arollins

The key to avoid London departure tax is to start the trip in another non-UK airport. Dublin is a good example. You might try to do an open jaw booking, The first part will be BOS-LHR and return will be DUB-BOS. This will mean that you need to book a one way LHR-DUB. Skip the whole train, ferry, etc. BA its about $100 one way, or you can book through low cost carrier such as Ryan Air which is about $50 or so. Keep in mind that with low cost carriers you also need to add all their add-on fees. You could plan to do a one day mini trip to Dublin. Keep in mind that to avoid paying the LHR departure tax, you are also incurring expenses as well such as the positioning flight, time and or hotel as well, unless you plan to visit another city and add it as part of your trip. If this is all an inconvenience, might as well bite the bullet and pay the fee.

AlwaysSunnyInORD

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eponymous_coward

Try Inverness (INV).

Mwenenzi

No such thing as "London departure tax". There is the UK Air Passenger Duty that applies for all departures from UK airports, except for departures from a few small airports. (i.e not used for USA flights, so no use for most people). APD is based on class of travel and distance.

tom911

I rather enjoy the train/ferry daytime option, departing London around 9a.m. and getting into Dublin around 5p.m. At 41GBP/$USD57, a pretty decent value, too. I've done several trips into the UK and returned from Dublin to avoid UK taxes. I would have done the same thing this month if I hadn't run across a $532 fare SFO to/from LHR.

A good site to explore rail/ferry to Dublin: https://www.seat61.com/Ireland.htm

CloudCoder

Icelandair has some really cheap one-way fares. (Usually, one-way TATL tickets cost as much as RT. But recently, Icelandair breaks the mold.) So it might be worthwhile to find out whether you can use miles to fly one way in style, then just "rough it" on a LCC the other direction. If you choose this option, I'd encourage you to buy a cheap ticket USA-UK and use miles UK-USA. Reason: eastbound is mostly sleepy-sleepy while westbound is usually wakey-wakey.

3Cforme

Children under age 16 no longer pay UK APD when traveling in coach.

For people looking to do a multi-country tour, the answer is easy: land in the U.K. and depart from BRU, DUB, AMS...

It's all been discussed here. The wiki is informative. UK APD / Air Passenger Duty charged for UK departures (Master Thread)

cyberjet

Be sure to check returns from Nice NCE ... If the European capitals are unavailable for TATL award tix, often the smaller regional airports on the continent are open to connect via Heathrow. I just did this in December on short notice (funeral), but summer travel may be a bit more challenging. Fortunately, you have lead time. With Award tickets, you can usually obtain one ways for ~1/2 of the round trip, unlike paid round trip tickets.

frb98mf

INV, JER and BHD are your best bets for ex-UK with no APD. JER is very cheap to get to usually, I've just bought a £30 one way on flyBE from LCY. DUB also has no APD, US customs/border pre-clearance, and usually some superb fares. It's also worth looking at BRU and CDG as you can get to them in 2h on Eurostar, which is very inexpensive if booked enough in advance - £29 one way quite often.