altyrocket

I have an award a booking MAN-LHR-SEA return in Club. I am now looking to change the outbound. I have found a new outbound, which is an early morning flight, but have some concerns that the connection time of 1.05 hours between the two legs may be tight. Firstly, is that a doable connection ?

Secondly, could I alter the MAN-LHR to the day before the LHR-SEA leg ? If this is doable what would happen to our bags ? Would the bags be at risk of not making the second leg ? Could we short check the bags ?

Any advice would be most welcomed, thanks in advance.

shefgab

I'm not an expert in this area, but if you're are able to book a 1h05m connection, then it is legal/doable. Connecting from MAN you won't go through security again, so that makes the connection better. Would I do it personally? No, as every MAN-LHR I have been on has been over an hour late.

I think with an overnight connection like that, you have the choice of getting your bags back in SEA or LHR, with the default being SEA. No idea about being able to change the ticket...I guess it's down to the specific fare rules of your ticket.

KARFA

t5-t5 MCT is 60 minutes so a 65 minute connection is doable and bookable. Coming off a domestic flight you will have a very easy connection at T5 as noted by shefgab.

For overnight connections at T5 the choice is yours on checked bags. They can either be stored overnight at T5 (there is a large underground checked bag store) or collected on arrival and rechecked next day. Just tell the agent at MAN what you want.

rossmacd

I always take the shortest possible connection, to reduce my time in airports, therefore I would stick with what you have. In the event that things go wrong, BA will have to get you to SEA somehow.

Flier74

It is doable, all going well, BUT be aware that flight times can still change. I had exact same connection booked in F in January and a few weeks later the SEA flight was brought forward by 10 minutes making this an illegal connection. So we had to be rebooked on later departures ex MAN and LHR.
Also bear in wind weather etc so 65 minutes could leave you a tad short and then get either rebooked on later SEA flight if seats are available or get rerouted.

Quarky Quark

Assuming your MAN outbound lands on time you're fine. Personally if I'm doing a TATL I'd rather spend an extra hour or two at the airport than take the risk of a tight connection and miss the outbound across the pond.

In your case, I'd do the overnight in London, check the bags all the way through to SEA and pack some clothes in my hand luggage for the overnight stay.

Happy travels! Colleagues of mine have been telling me how good SEA is, including San Juan islands and Snoqualmie Falls amongst other places.

Cymro

Which SEA rotation is it? There are only two a day, so the afternoon flight could mean an overnight unless you can get rebooked onto the LHR-ORD-SEA, which takes off only 30 minutes later.

I did LIN-LHR-SEA and missed a similar connection, and security wasn't the bottleneck. (I was about five minutes outside conformance).

If the inbound is on time then you'll be fine but it doesn't take much to go wrong and you're waiting in the lounge for five hours. That's manageable; an overnight would have really screwed up my plans. There are no sensible alternatives to waiting for the next non-stop if you miss the early flight, and only one option on the later one - and that only buys you 30 more minutes at the cost of extending your journey by five hours.

Personally I'd book a short connection again for the morning flight, as long as I could afford to wait until the afternoon one. I'd build in more contingency on the afternoon flight because of the potential impact on hotels, etc. on the other end. What I wouldn't do is arrange to arrive in time to make the morning flight and then deliberately book a longer connection.

If it was a route with more flights per day, I'd book 65 min without hesitation.

MPH1980

This is rather key.

A few weeks back I needed to get to YYZ by noon on a particular day, from France with a meeting that I couldn't shift that ended at 1pm the day before. My choices were out of CDG at 2:30 and give myself 2 hours to make the 4:50pm to YYZ, a 3:30 out of ORY that gave me an hour or, an alternative route - which in this case made more sense - of CDG @ 4:30 -> a JFK @ 6pm -> YYZ the following day.

If I'd tried the 2:30 out of CDG - it wouldn't have taken much to cause problems getting there.

If I'd tried the 3:30 out of ORY - a short delay would have done me for.

And in both cases - that's the last BA of the day to YYZ @ 4:50. Now there is an AC out of T2 @ 18:00 most days - but I wouldn't want to be reliant on BA rebooking me on that - it might be full or otherwise. More likely I'd have expected BA to put me on the YYZ flights the following day (meaning I'd miss my meeting @ 12pm).

By choosing JFK - I chose a route with a number of backups - and out of NYC - there are a number of shuttle type flights up to YYZ or YTO that I could get on in the event of IRROPS the following day.

Always have contingencies for short connections :-)

altyrocket

We are currently on the second rotation, but that is not available for our new dates, so we would be on the first rotation. We have decided to do the MAN-LHR the day before, and do an overnight. We will also check our bags through to SEA. We are visiting our son & his wife, so there are no real deadlines to meet.

Thanks again for the advice and insight, this forum & its contributors are brilliant.

Tobias-UK

That's probably a wise move, I'm a regular on the MAN-LHR route and whilst I've not had the same persistent delay experiences as shefgab, it is not unusual to arrive a little late - often due to waiting for an available gate (or the proverbial late inbound).

The first flight of the day however is almost always on time, it overnights at MAN so not so often late leaving and often at the gate within 15 mins of schedule. That said, where possible, I always try to leave at least 2 hours between flights when connecting via LHR especially if there is an international flight on the return.

altyrocket

Yep plenty to see and do in the Pacific NW. Fast ferry to Vancouver Island is excellent, by contrast the "slow train" from Seattle to Vancouver has a nice scenic route. Next on the list is a seaplane trip from Seattle to Victoria, Vancouver Island.

So to close this off, changes made by a very efficient agent, waiting for new e-ticket.Hotel booked. Jobs a good one, thanks again for the advice.