gypsyjaney

Doh ! thanks for that!

Virazuno

Hello folks,

Does anyone have experience of these fares/classes opening up closer to departure? Looking for BIO this weekend and no dice so far.

Ldnn1

Yes, the can open up very close. Is BIO included though? I've never seen/looked for it.

florens

In case that someone is based in Switzerland and wishes to go shopping or so for the day, these fares are often available on BSL/GVA/ZRH-LHR.
I booked a few of these, often just a few days out, but sometimes I see them also a few weeks out.

The first flights arrive around 8am London time and leave at around 8pm again.

They book into the G bucket, so 10TP return

BApilotinsider

These are now looking even better value for anyone who is close to a tube line open 24 hours...

Skipcool3

Providing you are happy with bob and the risk of strikes

layz

If you're using the night tube you don't have to worry about spending money on a non-refundable hotel room at either end of the trip so if there's a strike you just do something else in London.

Biggest annoyance for me is they've been enhanced to 5TP each way (when they were launched the minimum was 10) so the only reason I'd do these is for the destination.

snuffi

Sorry, I forgot for a moment this is FT!

florens

But they've been at 5TP for a while now, no? They book into the G bucket.

layz

Yeah, I was just thinking of the 'good old days' when these fares were launched (2014).

They would have been dropped to 5TP when the minimum TP enhancement was made, another enhancement is that you're less likely to get offered a POUG compared to the early days of these fares.

glennnn

I appreciate this thread is a little old now, but does anybody have any tips for finding these fares?

I'm just searching a string of different cities in fare class G? I'm assuming it's as simple as that and if there is availability they will show up?

bisonrav

Fairly easy to search for day trips. Use google flights, set the return date to the outbound date (or a candidate outbound date) and a candidate trip (say London to Madrid). Then you can poke around the map and see what's available, or step along the calendar on the outbound date to see when there are good fares.


https://www.google.co.uk/flights/#se...5;r=2017-11-15


I know Iberia are doing a £65 day return Gatwick/Madrid by the way if you just fancy a day out.

AdBoy

Some excellent value returns still about.

bisonrav

It's slightly OT, but doing this and following a few trains of thought a few days ago, I found an overnight LHR->MAD on the A340 starting Saturday evening, and was able to insert MAD->BCN->MAD->LHR for a total £250 with the remaining flights on the Sunday, all business class for 120TP. There was quite a bit of availability, but as I think it's a promo fare from Iberia a few of the dates I looked at disappeared before my eyes. I'm doing it in April now. But there was availability in Feb and March, to find the A340 you have to do "aircraft t:346" in the Matrix search for the first segment.


You have to be careful as there's some sort of expo going on and some of the hotel prices are rocketing. I nearly found out the hard way but grabbed a BA deal for the airport Hilton at Madrid for £80 (the NH which is usually 50 odd is up in the high hundreds now for my dates).


It's not a fantastic TP run, but I wanted to try Iberia full business class seating and it's a nice cheap way of doing that.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, just to carry along bisonrav's comments a little, you probably best search for the "usual suspects", such as DUB via ba.com and see if you are getting a low rate. G isn't normally sold as a standalone ticket, it's a bucket used by BA Holidays and other oddities, but on Awaydays it does get picked up by BA.com. You have to be a bit careful on other search media since they may not pick up the same fares, since using G for Awaydays is a special fare.

Here is an example:



It comes up at £79.90, however this isn't the cheapest DUB flight since if you book with enough notice you can get a longer dated ticket for £75 anyway, and so in some cases it's not just a G fare you are looking for.

So the best way to find these fares? Find Our Cheapest Fares on BA.com, go Europe, then set the stay length to "Day Trip". I can see Bordeaux on £56 on some weekends, bit of an early start, but sufficient time for a great lunch in la Belle Endormie.

And by all means be a bit more specific if you wish, and I'm sure we can find you something interesting!