snaxmuppet

I have noticed that it is often the case that long-haul flights can be much cheaper if the starting point is somewhere in the EU other than London. I see people talking about cheap ex-EU flights all the time.

My question is just how do you find these cheap flights?

I am familiar with Itamatrix and use it myself to find cheaper days/times to fly but if I were to just randomly search for cheaper options for my next long-haul trip I would spend days or weeks searching with all the options available. So just how do you find those cheap ex-EU flights?

For example... I am planning a trip from London to Singapore for next spring. Clearly I could just fly LHR - SIN but if there were cheaper options that allowed me to fly to another EU city (perhaps with my avios?) and then fly from there to SIN then I would be very interested but I really don't know where to start... it seems like hunting a needle in a haystack!

CloudGazer

This article should be handy http://www.headforpoints.com/2017/03...s-from-europe/

There have been some recent changes to the ITA Matrix interface which may not have been reflected in this article however...

jerry a. laska

Also see this thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ing-guide.html

jday

You can get some good deals to SIN from ARN.

dougzz

@snaxmuppet. I keep an eye on the TP run and Premium Fare threads, lots of good deals reported there.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...er-thread.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...7-edition.html
You can then create your own version of them, once you know the best starting point and which destinations are available.

snaxmuppet

Thanks everyone. A good starting point for me.

snaxmuppet

Doing some Matrix searches I see that some of the cheap fares start at a EU location and fly via LHR then fly LHR - SIN yet the cost of just starting at LHR is higher. That seems silly... what is happening there? To get these cheaper flights I'd have to fly LHR to the EU city only to fly back again! Seems potty!

Edit: It seems all of the cheaper fares are via LHR... not surprising given it is BA but I am curious how they do the flights so much cheaper starting out in the EU given that there are extra sectors involved.

jday

Pretty sure it's all APD. If you have to fly BA then yes you will have to go via LHR. From ARN you can go via DOH with QR, they usually have some good deals. Depends who you want to go with.

mikeday1983

I found DUS-LHR-SIN the cheapest option Ex-EU, AMS-LHR-BKK is another option, probably still cheaper than LHR-SIN when you include a cheap hop from BKK-SIN

windowontheAside

Don't assume that cost determines price. It doesn't work that way with airfares.

Apart from the already noted APD cost of starting at LHR compared wtih ex-EU, ex-EU fares have to be priced competitively to attract the local markets.

To give an example (numbers, routes made up to illustrate the point):
If it cost £1000 to fly LHR-SIN, and £100 to do AMS-LHR, then you might think AMS-LHR-SIN would be around £1100. But then no-one from AMS would ever book that ticket, when they could fly AMS-SIN direct on another airline for £1000. So BA price AMS-LHR-SIN at £850 to attract those AMS based travellers, knowing that some will put up with the extra time, risk and inconvenience to save a few quid. The number of UK travellers who would further increase the time/stops by adding a positioning flight to AMS is tiny, despite what you read here. Most people outside FT would think that doing LHR-AMS-LHR immediately ahead of LHR-SIN is utterly bonkers, even if saving a few hundred pounds and it's hard to argue that.

snaxmuppet

Can't argue with that... if my saving isn't into 4 figures then I shan't bother myself to be honest.

:D!

The maximum APD is £150 per person, and to avoid this altogether you need to leave the UK via Eurostar / ferry or start from the Scottish Highlands / Jersey. If not, then avoiding APD can only account for up to £137 of "savings".

If it were purely APD, then I think just paying the APD would be better than wasting 6 hours on a back to back to Amsterdam (etc.) unless you *truly* wanted to go there on the exact dates before and after your long haul. (Otherwise, it just becomes a subsidised European trip - as you will probably still spend more than just paying the APD.)


But it is not purely APD, because the "savings" are usually many hundreds and occasionally go into the thousands of pounds.

I put savings into quotation marks because for me they are not savings at all. Much like you wouldn't redeem Avios if they only reduced the cost of a flight you were going to buy by 0.3p per Avios, I wouldn't redeem my £ for premium class flights out of London at the prices BA wants.

That is to say, the lower end of ex-EU prices are the only prices I find worthwhile to pay for BA CW, and I simply don't care what price BA was charging for the long-haul on its own, as I would not have paid it.

mhaines94108

There are certain airports that are consistently cheap. BUD and OTP are two. ARN seems to be another. Fortunately for me, my two closest major airports are BUD and OTP.

kingstontoon

There's a general rule which I got from a friend: "It's cheaper to fly through the hub than to the hub". This is almost always the case.

I haven't started a long haul trip from the UK for nearly a decade now, and my friends are increasingly following me. I'll usually try for an open jaw EU-XXX-LON but if EU-XXX-EU is even cheaper I'll do that. I always check my positioning flights before booking the long haul though, as there's no point saving £200 only to spend close to that getting to MAD, DUB or GOT. All my travel is for fun and I'm relatively time rich so if the cost of flying out to DUB after work on Ryanair from LGW (usually £10-15), a few beers in the city and a cheap hotel saves me £100 overall then I'll do that. I'm never going to say no to a night out in a random city on the way somewhere else, and that £100 is better off in my pocket.

I still have some friends who roll their eyes at the "faffing about" and spend £500 more just to fly "direct from London", but these are the same ones who complain they can only afford one trip a year when I do 5-10!

It helps if you enjoy travelling and see the journey as part of the overall experience, mind you.

Ancient Observer

This ex-EU stuff has been going on for years. I lived in Brussels in 96-99, and all the fares used by the Co I was with were based on clever stuff that our travel agent invented/found out about. Some of the UK staff did lhr-bru-lhr- XXX if they could afford the time. It saved them hundreds.
One wheeze that I never understood was the agent/my pa pre-buying tickets that I might/might not use, (at our dicounted price). I had to seek advice from the pa about which ticket I should actually use.