Ukdevil

Hi all. Noob here. I am looking to do a couple of tier point runs to try and get to Gold status while the earning requirements are still 25% lower.

I have a few constraints in that I can only do a day trip so have to start and end my trip in London on the same day so trying to find a route that will maximise my tier points accumulation in a day.

possivle routes I was thinking of was doing a LON - SOF on a Friday back to back (is that possible as there is less than an hour turnaround and BA won’t let me book a same day return unless I book 2 singles?) which will get me back to Lon at 4pm after which I could do a few lon-jersey or Lon-Glasgow/Edinburgh runs to top up the day and get to roughly 280 points with a return to Sofia and 2 x return trips to jersey/Scotland.

a few questions for you all:
1) is the above sensible and plausible given the turnaround times at LHR and SOF? I have read that jersey is pretty small and easily doable for a back to back and have been to Glasgow many times to know the departure and arrivals are mixed together (and hence doable for a back to back)
2) any other tips on potential destinations?
3) What is the easiest way to find cheap prices for the above itinerary. Is that using the matrix?

Flyertalker001342

I'm certainly no expert on this topic, however there is a whole thread devoted to it that you may have missed: Back To Back Flights

m8_rotate

You are hugely constrained with a day trip option. However, I use the BA cheapest flight finder section. In Club Europe, flights that are normally the cheapest for a day trip are Dublin, Luxembourg. There are lots of flights to Dublin and Jersey. So I would search for the cheapest flight to Dublin then Jersey and match up the dates on the day trip constraint. Then use the multi-city option on BA Booking. The cost should be equal or less. Alternatively, you could price the same way through the Matrix, then call BA. The trick is to get as many flight options in one day, on a highly flexible and busy route. Flying out and back on the same Aircraft is not worth the risk. The above method gives you more options. The same principle can be used for any high-density daily route. I hope this helps.

Ukdevil

thanks for this. Helps a lot but I cannot find any advice on how long I should leave between flights when changing at LHR. In your example, how long should I leave between a jersey and Dublin flight to change and get to gate? Terminal 5 on its own is huge and segregates arrivals and departures so is an hour enough?

KARFA

For JER and DUB you don't go through immigration on arrival but do go landside and back through security. You can book as little as 60 minutes between and that should be enough usually. Perhaps book for 90 minutes if you want to be a bit more comfortable.

If you are doing any domestic arrivals (EDI, NCL, MAN, NCL, ABZ, INV, BHD) and connecting on it is even better since you just do a bp check, so 60 minutes would be fine too.

Ilovethebeachclub

How long do people leave between connections doing a TP run?
I'm looking at SOF - MAD- JFK-DFW-LAX and return but some of the connections are quite tight.
I'd travel hand luggage only but would prefer to not be stressing the whole time.

ISTFlyer

Just to let you know that transferring in DFW would mean less Tier Point's so either take the JFK-LAX direct service or change DFW with Boston, San Francisco, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Miami, etc... as you would get more Tier Points when flying a 2000+ mi segment within the USA.

For the connection question, I personally leave at least 1h30min connection for the first connections of the itinerary ( 2h30min when US immigration is the case ) and don't care about the connection time of the last transfer as it's very unlikely to get rerouted on a shorter itinerary at that stage.

dougzz

Similar to ISTFlyer's comment. What really matters is being in SOF for the start, there's no protection from the initial positioning to the start of the TP run. I like achievable connections on the way out, on the way back I'm much more who cares, the issues will be resolved by AA so not my problem as such. The connection time is airport dependant too, so that's another factor. If tight connections stress you then maybe multiple flight itineraries are not for you, or deliberately build longer connections, but that can make for some very long days.

Ilovethebeachclub

Thanks both - I'm happy to spend time in the lounges & so might try to build in some longer connections. I'd travel to SOF the night before too to be on the safe side.
I'm currently playing with the MINCONNECT function on the ITA Matrix so will see what I can come up with!

zen100

Look at padconnect as well, which adds extra time to the MCT at that airport. With minconnect, it applies a minimum to all connections in that segment - the MCTs may vary considerably for each connection.

Ukdevil

thanks for this. Makes sense to leave 60 mins if I have to go landside. given the quicker turnaround for domestic arrivals at LHR, what is the advantage of doing JER or DUB vs EDI or GLA. I know the flight time is longer for the latter but as the turnaround time at LHR would be shorter, it probably works out the same in elapsed time.

What am I missing? Is it just that jersey and Dublin are generally cheaper than the domestic destinations despite giving the same tier points?

does anyone know of someone that has done a similar routing - so doing a back to back to Sofia from London and then topping off with a few domestic back to backs ?

xenole

I've hopefully got a back-to-back SOF next month.

As with a few here, have done HEL. Very painless just getting off the plane and waiting at the gate area for the same place back. If it arrives a little early, you can even pop to the Finnair lounge for lunch first.
Other places too, but as with everything, there could be some risk with BA being told park their plane at the remotest stand and bus you in.
No idea if Covid has affected some of these situations.

Got a 30 min connection in a couple of weeks, but that's at PHX, so shouldn't be an issue at the particular airport.

Only connection, as part of a cheap run over to HNL, I've ever had that failed was after staying overnight at DUB for a DUB-LCY-JFK flight. Weather meant we couldn't leave Dublin and a few of us missed the US flight (+ what they rebooked some of us on at least 2-3 times)
Something that can affect JER at times of the year.
Once at MIA, they'd started boarding when I landed, but a bit of rushing with hand luggage got me there, albeit a bit sweaty - usual case of them deciding to stick you at the furthest points apart in different terminals.

Covid aside, have a look at the back-to-back thread. Plenty of experiences in there regarding which airports are easy through to "you'd be insane to try".

Confus

While HEL is indeed a fantastic airport for connections, BA no longer serves it, so you’re unlikely to have the same aircraft in both directions (assuming you’re on AY).

The B2B thread is exactly where to look… but note that some of the entries are potentially outdated, given the double whammy of Covid and Brexit. When things settle down a bit it might potentially be worth starting a new thread from scratch with up-to-date experiences.

I certainly wouldn’t be trying JER at the moment, at least as long as the unavoidable testing on arrival is in place.

KARFA

JER is fine and you could avoid the testing as you were not exiting landside. It is the same as it was pre covid so stay in the gate area and go to the lounge.

In fact since the start of November there is no longer any testing on arrival if you are fully jabbed.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

Not sure if you have been to PHX before but I would just keep an eye out for the arrival and departure gates as although they are in the same terminal, there are 4 fingers to them with the moving travelators linking the fingers along the bottom;

https://www.skyharbor.com/docs/defau...sn=a33b9388_90

Worst would be a High B to High A transfer.

A half hour should be fine assuming an ontime arrival but you may not have a lot of time to linger.

Regards

TBS