HSR1234

HSR1234

KARFA

eugegall

For the Amsterdam rotation we won't have any checked bags.

We are only going to check bags when we get to Heathrow, heading for South Africa.

You've all got me worried now!!!

UKtravelbear

Remember that you cannot do a Back to Back (arrive and depart on the same plane) if you have checked bags as there is no time for you to clear passport control, collect your bags (quite slow at AMS) then recheck them before the 60 minute check-in cut off BA has at AMS.

I'm not sure how you calculated it would cost £500 to spend a night in Amsterdam. The Citizen M hotel at the airport can be had for not much more than a £100 - £120 a room (that's what I paid for a Monday night last July) and is more than adequate for a one night stay and is very walkable from the terminal - couple of hundred yards and you can take trolleys there.
If you wanted to go in the the city the return train fair is approx £10 per person.

SK AAR

Hotel rates in AMS are ridiculously expensive. I'm looking at a weekend stay in Sept and I'm shocked to find the airport hotels and a simple Hampton Inn at > 300 Euro/nt. Most hotels are sold out already.

eugegall

I might try and pay to move my earlier flight from 2pm to first thing in the morning to allow a much larger gap. If my BA flight is delayed or cancelled then I will have a few other airlines I can look to for a one way ticket.

Thought on this strategy if BA won't allow me to switch to the back to back? Or cost related

:D!

This is true, but I've always managed to use points for my overnights prior to ex-AMS flights making them a reasonable price.

Also depending on the flight times, you could venture out to a cheaper hotel in Leiden or Utrecht and trains in NL are affordable (I say this just having witnessed a foreign family at Manchester Piccadilly paying £600 in cash for immediate travel to Euston - furthermore they had just arrived from the airport so not sure why they didn't get the tickets there!)

eugegall

I've moved my London to Amsterdam flight to 8:20am. 6 hours earlier than previously booked. This should be enough incase of any issues.

Ldnn1

Wow, you really made some hard work of this booking eugegall!

I hope all goes smoothly on your trip. Although I suppose the ideal for you now is for your LON-AMS to be delayed for technical reasons for a smidgen over 3 hours - enough to earn you 250euros for your efforts, but not enough to miss your flight back.

NWIFlyer

Forgive me, but if you were able to move the flight, was there some reason why you didn’t switch to the foolproof back to back option? Yes, you’re probably reducing risk considerably by increasing the time difference, but you’ll never remove it completely with the method you’re using.

In return for slightly less risk, you are probably now just storing up a very boring few hours at Schiphol ... whereas actually you could have had the best of both worlds, however counter-intuitive that short gap seems.

eugegall

Hello.

Yes there are a few reasons why we've done what we we've done.

After a lot of time on the phone to BA. If we moved to the 17:50, which would have been the back to back. The system would have classed it as a plus 24 hours stopover and the price for this flight was £1200 extra for both of us.

Mrs Eugene said that if we're changing our flights then she wants me to buy her lunch in Amsterdam for the 6 or so hours we have there.

I couldn't move the positioning flight to back to back with the new Amsterdam/Heathrow flight because that was also £400 each extra.

So whilst it looks like a mess, after weighing up everything up, I am happy with the time gap in-between and in my mind fairly safe to make our first leg.

No problem and thank you to everyone for your help.

eugegall

Haha yes that would be ideal. Albeit would make me worry more than the 500 euros is worth.