Cymro

With 6h I'd be perfectly happy to take on the risk. But there are things I would do to mitigate the risk.

1. Look at other options if that particular flight is cancelled. (Other airlines, other starting points?)

2. Consider other airports with better options (e.g., if ARN with 5? flights a day on BA alone is £50 more than SOF which only has one with awkward times).

I've been caught out once - MXP was cancelled due to snow at Heathrow, so I had to fly to LIN earlier in the day and drive myself to MXP. Not a hardship and I had plenty of time built in. Given that I found out about 5 p.m. the day before I'd have been scrambling if my flight had been departing before about 11 a.m. though.

windowontheAside

Overnight only lowers the risk if it provides more options to get to the starting point. That's not always the case. The thing to look at is not whether you go same day or overnight, but rather how many backup options each option offers and then select the one that sits best with your wallet, calendar and appetite for risk.

jdsworld

If flying from Stockholm ARN, have you considered flying SAS from the UK? QR and SAS flights to the UK share a terminal at ARN (5) whereas with BA you're looking at a terminal change (BA uses T2). Could save you some time if you're caught.

IntVic

I had the situation when my positioning flight was cancelled (Croatia Airlines), I had to take a 6 hour taxi ride through the night to make another positioning flight. Alternative was an 11 hours taxi ride to get to get my BA flight in Zagreb. Stuff can go wrong and Mrs Intvic was not a happy bunny. Have alternate travel options if things go awry and enjoy the sense of relief when you start the long haul journey!

Daventry

ThatT1Feeling

Have you looked at the fares from CPH? On my last QR, I started from CPH as it was slightly cheaper than ARN, plus there were 3 BA flights that morning which would have got me to CPH on time, so I was comfortable to take the first BA flight out as I had 2 backups if the first flight was cancelled (although I admit I kept checking capacity on my backup flights just in case as one got quite full!)

Daventry

FlyerMU

Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen are great cities. Just schedule in a short break before your main trip..

In the past I've enjoyed 3 days in Helsinki and a couple in Stockholm before trips further afield. (The only complexity was packing clothing for 0c in Sweden and 30+c in Vietnam). Less worries about my whole holiday going pear-shaped, and a chance to explore some new places.

flatlander

Between the issues that are always present with any flying (including southern European air traffic control strikes), and the current industrial discontent in the UK aviation business, I would be quite inclined to fly out the night before for such a trip if I possibly could. On the way back, I'd be fine with a short-ish connection because you can always find some way to get back to London from Europe. A long haul trip may be impossible to salvage with available resources (fares far too high, no seats, etc).

lwildernorva

A topical topic for me as I've had experience twice in the last five years on exactly this day regarding positioning flights that didn't go the way I had planned. Long story short--not only do you want to get in the day before, you want to make sure what other options you have, including later flights and other transportation options.

The details. Five years ago for a six-week trip to Scotland, I set up a positioning flight out of my home airport to JFK for the afternoon before my BA flight to London scheduled for 8:05 a.m. the following day. No weather issues at my home airport when I arrived and checked my bags, but JFK and the entire NYC area were seeing severe thunderstorms. Flights were not being allowed to land as scheduled at JFK so my flight out of Norfolk was delayed. As the delay extended, severe weather started moving into the area around the airport. AA, the airline on which I was scheduled, first canceled my flight and rebooked me on a later flight, and then canceled the second flight, rebooking me on Delta. Delta then canceled that flight, leaving me to go to the rental counter to take a car to NYC. I drove all night, for the most part through the same system that was producing thunderstorms at the beginning and end of my trip. I arrived at JFK around 4:15 a.m., in plenty of time for my flight to Heathrow but frazzled and completely exhausted. Not a good way to start such a long trip.

Last year, I had the BA2 flight JFK-LCY, leaving around 6:30 p.m. My positioning flight was at 8:30 a.m. with two flights behind it as backups. You guessed it, all three nonstop flights scheduled to leave me plenty of time to catch my flight couldn't get to JFK, and even after the first one was canceled, I realized I had no viable backup plan if the next two flights were canceled as I no longer had enough time to make the drive as I had in 2014. I attempted to take a connection through Charlotte that would have arrived about 2 hours before my BA departure, but that option ended as I was sitting at the Charlotte airport when the CLT-JFK flight was canceled. I made a call to BA to see what options I had--not only could I not get rebooked on BA2 for later in the week, but even a WT flight for the next couple of days would have cost me close to $3000 since I was buying a one-way only while keeping my return. I came back home instead. A terrible way to end a trip.

Air travel is subject to too many vagaries nowadays, and these two experiences have taught me that I shouldn't presume that flights will operate on time, even when the weather isn't an issue. All positioning flights carry some amount of risk. Schedule positioning flights so as to reduce that risk to the bare minimum. Positioning the same day as your onward journey works--until it doesn't. And since we are generally positioning to take advantage of a good fare in a premium class, a failure to assess the exact risk and make reliable backup plans results in our missing out on a good experience as well as losing a fair amount of money.

Keystone

I did my only ex-EU trip with Mrs K 3 years ago - ABZ to Auckland in CW in late January, so basically halved the cost and made the journey tolerable. But I'm risk adverse when it comes to plane travel and in January there's lots of potential for cancellations and delays.
My route was ABZ>OSL with SAS on day 1. Stay o/night on day 1 and day 2, and then do OSL>LHR>SIN>SYD>AKL on day3 having enjoyed a full day in OSL (which I'd never been to) and done the backstage opera house tour (well worth it).I had backup plans B, C and D - later flights, following day flights and flights from EDI to OSL lined up. But I still breathed a sigh of relief when I got on the ex OSL flight (where unusually I was asked to produce my Amex credit card that I used to make the booking).
I'm planning to visit NZ next year but this time looking at a Qatar OSL>Doha>AKL flight starting with an ABZ > OSL trip. This time I'll probably go for an overnighter but with alternatives from EDI>OSL and same day ABZ>OSL as back up. I like halving multiple workable backup plans.

all ahead full

I have run multiple ex-EU's mainly from DUB, LIN, GVA, FRA, MUC and I give myself around 4 hours to cope with things going wrong, not that they have. The other option I ran with last year was from IST, and that was a night before, stay in a hotel, and then get the first flight back. My experience is that once you are at your correct starting point, you are all good, it's just making sure you get there in the first place.

Now on the slight concern with the next one, which starts in ARN, I am going the night before, to get the first flight back, the only problem being is the outbound is on the 26th July, and the inbound is on the 27th July, (to LHR and then onward to the states) both of which are HAL strike days, so if that breaks things, it could be a little concerning.....

irishguy28

Is it likely that, at the time of year you are travelling, either/both airports may be subjected to disruption (snow, for example?)

What I would do is have a backup Avios booking made for the night before. These can be cancelled up to 24 hours prior to departure. Just before the 24 hour window closes, you should have a pretty good idea if there is likely to be any weather-induced problems to your itinerary, and can make a decision whether to cancel the Avios back up (there is a slight fee here, just the RFS payment amount, but worth paying for the peace of mind), or whether it is now judicious to travel the night before, just in case.

I've learned from prior experience, though, that SAS/Norwegian are far more reliable on getting you to their homebases than KLM is from AMS in bad weather, so if departing from Scandinavia, I'd probably be booking a cheap one-way on SK (such things exist, at least from this market) I'd book a cheap cash ticket on either of those instead.

When booked in advance, you can always find a fully-refundable hotel room that is relatively cheap - just make sure it can be cancelled within the same window as your Avios backup flight, in case you judge you don't need to travel early.

Gig103

I also recommend going HBO if possible, because if you have to change plans, getting your bags back from the depths of LHR wouldn't be quick.

orbitmic