LeisureFirst

I wish to get to MSY at the end of August. If I book on ba.com it wants to route me via DFW. However, expertflyer is showing an apparently more convenient routing via MIA. This has the advantage of a choice of two LHR departure times including a 9.35am one which I would favour; travelling on a 744 rather than a 4-class 777 (I will be in CW); and a slightly shorter but still adequate layover time (3hr20min vs. 4h15min).

Is there anything I'm missing? Any reason to connect at DFW rather than MIA? I don't think I've ever passed through DFW before; and although I have used MIA quite a few times without any major problems it has been about five years since the last trip.

LeisureFirst

Well, I booked it now anyway. Had to call BAEC for the first time in ages as my booking required an MFU of the BA sectors (but not the AA sector) of an open-jaw ticket - a bit too much for ba.com to cope with.

I must say I got an exceptionally knowledgeable and helpful agent on the other end. He knew all sorts of helpful information like the fact that upgrade availability to MIA is generally poor; that I would be able to MFU the LHR-MIA leg these days even though the continuation MIA-MSY on AA was non-MFUable, but that one didn't used to be able to do this. On some facts I was one step ahead of him (I'd already checked MFU-availability to MIA for the flight I wanted, for example) but it was a pleasure to talk to someone who was so knowledgeable and such a change. (I think he was surprised at how much I knew too).

Anyone care to remind me where the forms are which enable one to register appreciation of an especially helpful member of BA staff?

Why the LHR-MIA-MSY routing doesn't show up on ba.com, I don't quite understand. It costs exactly the same as LHR-DFW-MSY and is two hours shorter. Maybe it is because the DFW-MSY is a BA codeshare and the MIA-MSY isn't? But is there a reason that I should care about that when buying my ticket? - and is there an option on ba.com which would make these extra options show up? It is all being put through as a BA through-fare - they haven't done a BA fare to MIA and tacked on an AA fare from MIA-MSY.

spanishflea

MIA is fine to connect through as is DFW as is pretty much any airport except for LAX TBIT really.

zedhead

I took a look at the last Friday in August. It seems AA443 dep 22:25 is your only Oneworld option after getting off BA at MIA.

Oops I'm wrong again.

AA 2198
Airline: AMERICAN AIRLINES
Date: 29.08.2008
Departure: 17:00 from MIA ( )
Arrival: 17:55 at MSY ( )
Aircraft type: 738
Duration of travel: 01:55 hours

MIKESILV

There are some here ( I am not one of them) which might not quite agree with you regarding MIA
but I think your only concern might be the daily afternoon thunderstorms In August in MIA (or all Florida that matter) which tend to affect the later flights.

mike

bernardd

It's a bit late now, but I would have also looked at a connection from IAH on CO. Once you move away from OneWorld you can almost certainly make connections through ATL, IAD, etc. though BA doesn't support these via ba.com which is a total pain.

It's not exactly clear, but it sounds like you opted for MIA over DFW based on the 747 instead of 777? FWIW the other side of the coin is immigration in DFW, and indeed the whole terminal are generally far more pleasant than MIA.

LeisureFirst

That was a secondary consideration. The main one is the timing of the flights. The MIA routing gets me into MSY at 1755 (as zedhead quotes above). The DFW routing leaves London about two hours later and arrives in MSY at 2120. So, all being well, I get an extra full evening in New Orleans - and dinner in New Orleans is better than almost anywhere, let alone DFW airport.

Actually it isn't. I had to book over the phone and they pointed out that due to distance-selling rules I can cancel without penalty before 2pm this afternoon. Also, the ticket is changeable for £50, although given that it isn't the most straightforward ticket I don't want to do that lightly. It took half an hour to issue the ticket (they called me back after, amongst other things, they deduced the miles for the upgrades "manually") so I'm not too keen to cancel and just ask for another one.

An American friend with whom I was dining last night (and long-time AA "Elite" before switching to BA when he moved here) told me that even he - a US citiizen - once had to wait two hours for immigration at MIA. On the other hand, he thought arrivals on AA were much worse than with other airlines since AA tend to transport the whole of Latin America into the United States at MIA. Also he said he had been travelling over the New Year, that I would "probably" be ok - the Thursday prior to Labor Day not being especially busy - and given the timings he would have made exactly the same decision as me.

So how bad in arrival at MIA on BA207 (at 1.40pm)?

As for your specific suggestion, I must admit I didn't consider it. I can get the BA trip in CW for £1026 (plus the usual 25k miles) and I like CW, especially for coming home (which will be from JFK). It turns out that a straightforward return to MSY on CO via IAH in BusinessFirst or whatever it is called (LeisureFirst maybe?) is a very reasonable £1200, but as soon as it becomes an open-jaw ticket the price rockets to about £2300. But I'm not feeling very flush in the recession, and saving £1200 is a good thing.

spanishflea

I cleared immigration in Miami four times last year and two of those trips were Latin American flights. On each occasion I never waited in line longer than 1 minute, there are a huge number of immigration booths that spread the load very effiiciently.

However the same rules apply to MIA as any other airport, if you get off the plan slowly and find yourself behind 300 people, it will take longer than if you walked fast and got to the front of the queue. Equally so if you arrived five minutes after a succession of flights from Europe and Latin America then the queue is going to be longer than if you arrived in isolation. Miami is no worse than any other airport in the world for this. However in my not entirely limited experience, on balance, MIA copes with immigration a lot better than any airport in the UK and a lot better than most in the USA.

If you have never done the entire Miami Airport experience before then you will be in for a shock. Most people hate it but I love it. There is nothing in the world quite like it!

Do a search and you will find many many multi page threads about people's love-hate relationship with the place.

LeisureFirst

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I am looking forward to it now.

I have used MIA, but my last international arrival there was about ten years ago, and my last arrival there of any kind was over five years ago. I did once connect there (MSY-MIA-LHR as it happens); that would have been in 1993 and I was a student then. I had never been to Latin America then, and never seen so many Latin Americans; I recall I rather liked it, but also found it a bit different, although at that age I had seen far fewer airports and they were all a bit strange to me.

I am in 62K but walk sufficiently fast I will overtake most of the CW and F pax, even if exiting from door 1. If the plane is seriously late, I will ask to be seated downstairs before landing for a quick exit, but with a 3hr 20min connection time, I don't expect to have to do this.

bernardd

Actually I wasn't suggesting CO the whole way. What I do to get to AUS is use BA IAH-LHR-IAH and buy a seperate CO AUS-IAH-AUS. Both AUS and MSY from IAH are in the 1 - 1 1/2 hour range and $100-200 round trip if you buy 3 weeks in advance. There's a small risk of a mis-connect but CO offers same day changes for $25-35(?) so you can call them and pay a small fee once you know you're going to be late, while simply writing off part of the ticket isn't a disaster.

FWIW one of the reasons I do this is the DFW-LHR flight leaves WAY too early for me to get any reasonable sleep, whereas IAH is a double daily with the late flight around 8pm, and, from November, switching to a 747. So far I've found it relatively easy to MFU on this route provided I'm flexible with timing. The other alternatives I have are connections in ORD or somewhere on the East coast but they commit me to 3+ hours in the back of an MD80 or 737 so I'm willing to put up with the manageable risk on the IAH routing, though I wish BA would make it easier to buy one ticket - the need to buy from BA to MFU kills the idea of a travel agent.