Fonly

OK thanks all. Sounds like I will bottle it and get the earlier flight and wait at AMS as I dont want to mess up the start of a 3 wk trip around the Far East for the sake of an extra hour. My life wouldnt be worth livin'

Globaliser

Was this on the phone?

I wonder whether this is another demonstration of the difference between talking to someone in the call centre, and being at the airport. If you were physically at LHR waiting for your LHR-AMS to take you to start the AMS-LHR-XXX, and both the LHR-AMS and AMS-LHR were cancelled, the airport staff may have more discretion and willingness to do the sensible thing - particularly if rebooking onto any later AMS-LHR/LHR-AMS pair would put the LHR-XXX at risk.

GlasgowBlue

Going by the fantastic guide at the start of this thread I should be OK however being an ex-EU and positioning flight virgin I just wanted to check with those a bit more experienced in such matters:

I've booked an ex-EU out of FRA for next June.

08/06/16 FRA > LHR > HKG
15/06/16 HKG > LHR > FRA (arriving LHR on 16/06)

For the positioning flights I'm playing safe and spending the night of 7th June in Frankfurt. For the return journey we're on the 11:00 BA0904 LHR > FRA which arrives in FRA at 13:35. There's a flight back to LHR at 14:35. I assume this is the same aircraft turning around?

I'd rather be on the 14:35 back to LHR than wait until approx. 17:00 for the next flight. Going by this thread it looks easily doable. I just wanted to check that this is the case and are there any pitfalls I've over looked before booking?

corporate-wage-slave

Ordinarily you should be fine. However FRA is one of the trickier places to transfer or back to back. Can you rebook out of DUS, HAM or TXL? The problem with FRA is that it's a bit of a lottery as to whether you get a bus or airbridge, and the layout at FRA, with at gate security, is not as conducive to back to backs as other locations. Since it is the return leg you may just take the chance and charm your way out of any problems. Even booking the later flight doesn't much help due to the way things can easily go, so there's no benefit in booking that flight.

GlasgowBlue

Thanks for the pointers.

Even though the CE legs are J tickets there's a Ł300 change fee so I'd rather not go down that route. Got a bit excited and trigger happy with the mouse when I first noticed the ex-Germany deals to HKG earlier in the year without fully looking into any turn around issues at the choice of airports.

One of the other reasons for plumping for FRA at the time was direct flights from EDI (we'll be returning to EDI or GLA), albeit with LH. However I've now discounted this as it looks like a potential logistical nightmare!

Trevski220

In April I'm flying

LHR-DUB
DUB-LHR-LAS

I am due to arrive in Dublin at 11:45am and leave at 1pm and I have luggage, Flying CE both ways and First onto LAS, is this possible to do with luggage? I had originally intended to check my luggage first at LHR to Las and not take it to Dublin but have read a few times now that check in agents are refusing to do this?

Any thoughts would be welcome

Speedbird876

The safest thing to do is this:

(1) Before flying LHR-DUB-LHR, ask if they will check your luggage for the LHR-LAS flight. There have been reports of them refusing to do this before the first flight in the booking (ie DUB-LHR) has been flown. There's a chance they will accept the bag.

(2) If the bag is not accepted, put it in left luggage at the Excess Baggage Company in T5 Arrivals before going to DUB. Fly LHR-DUB-LHR. The go collect your bag and check it in then for LHR-LAS. There is a small chance you won't have time to do this but I think you arrive from DUB at 1420 and depart for LAS at 1650 so there is some contingency.

Don't take your bags to Dublin. Check-in closes one hour before departure (so 1200). You are giving yourself 15mins to arrive, do immigration, wait for baggage delivery, collect bags, and queue at check-in....

pomkiwi

Thinking about booking a LHR-AMS-LHR-JNB return in CW. I would be grateful any recent experiences trying to check luggage between LHR and JNB without taking it through AMS - either when first checking in or when passing back through LHR from AMS. Thanks.

BA235

I have done the latter twice this year and on many previous occasions. In each instance I overnighted in London before the long haul sector so that may have been a factor in my favour. My impression is that there are more problems with wanting to short-check a bag on the return sector, than in checking luggage between sectors on the outbound.

pomkiwi

Thanks. Coming back I would book the return to AMS from LGW which would allow me some potential felxibility! I guess one could also do this outbound but it makes the journey too complicated (and LGW is not very convenient for me).

Globaliser

The latter shouldn't ever be a problem.

At the beginning of the trip, would LCY be any less inconvenient for you than LGW? Might that make a difference?

GlasgowBlue

Further to my posts above I've booked EDI > LHR > FRA in CE as positioning flights using Avios and an Amex Companion Voucher. Maybe not the best ever use of Avios and the voucher but I felt for my circumstances, given the price of direct flights with LH, and the fact the voucher would've expired unused anyway it seemed good value. IMO a CE RFS is a good use of a Companion Voucher that's about to expire.

I also plumped for arriving in FRA the day before our ex-EU as it appears FRA isn't the easiest for a back-to-back turnaround and I wanted to completely minimise the risk of a misconnect. Same applies for the return journey. I've left a day between arriving in FRA and returning to EDI. It gives an opportunity for a couple of nights in Frankfurt and my love for German beer is only 2nd to my love of travelling so it's no hardship.

Our itenary is therefore:

EDI > LHR > FRA (CE) 7th June
FRA > LHR > EDI (CE) 17th June

FRA > LHR > HKG (First) 8th June (arriving 9th June)
HKG > LHR > FRA (CW) 15th June (arriving 16th June)

I was lucky enough that not long after booking a couple of reward seats became available in First for the outbound to HKG so I'm delighted I've been able to UuA to First on the A380. Excited doesn't come close!

I'm sure some are thinking "what a helluva convoluted way to get to Hong Kong" but I enjoy travelling, spending time in airport lounges and in premium cabins on planes, and I don't get much opportunity to do so, so I'm actually looking forward to that as much as the destination. (and the saving over a more straightforward ex-GLA or EDI is still astronomical).

Anyway, apologies for the rambling. My query is ragarding interlining our baggage. My questions are:

Is it possible to book our baggage straight through from EDI on 7th June to HKG so we won't have to collect it at FRA and do the reverse on our return journey?

If so, is it advisable to do so or is there a risk our baggage doesn't get matched up to our FRA > LHR flight on 8th June as it'll be sitting in some kind of storage area overnight in FRA?

A huge thanks to this forum for the advice and pointers received already. ^

adnando

Does anybody have any hotel recommendations for a night at LIN close to the airport?

Flight departs at 7:30 the next morning so if there's an airport shuttle all the better!

corporate-wage-slave

I've given up on this one. There is a not very good Holiday Inn nearby, it's only a mile from the terminal but there's a free shuttle service which is a bit tedious in execution, particularly since Italians don't travel light. There's a slightly better NH Hotel further down from the HI, but without a shuttle.

All things considered I would either use MXP (Sheraton built in, better airport), or book a hotel on the bus route to LIN, which runs every few minutes. The time difference between that and the HI is going to be 10 minutes or so.

adnando

Happy to just grab an uber if need be.

Have you tried the novotel at all?