CO or LH?
 

I'm organizing a trip to Europe that returns BCN-DEN. The two options I'm looking at are:

BCN-FRA-DEN on LH

or

BCN-EWR-DEN on CO/UA

Does anyone have any experience on either TATL flight to share? I don't really think CO Y is very comfortable, but I've heard the same thing on LH as well. Any info is appreciated!

LH has free drinks in Y. CO you have to pay.

If you're going to do it in Y, maybe you can do UA in E+ if you add another connection (e.g., DEN-IAD/ORD-FRA/MUC-BCN).

Never, ever make a homebound connection in the U.S.
 

Hi, GoPUBoilers. Basically you are also asking about which connection point, FRA or EWR, is more convenient.

If you return home via FRA, your luggage will be sent all the way to DEN.

If you return home via EWR, your luggage will make it only as far as EWR, where you will have to retrieve it and pass through customs, etc. Moreover, you will also have to hustle at EWR to re-check your luggage and run for the connection flight (which you might not make if the connection is tight).

Let us know which route you select, and how it turns out for you. Happy travels!

CO BCN/EWR is on a 767, which does not have AVOD - just the old-style movie loops. EWR/DEN will be on a 737, so 4+ hours of limited or no entertainment system.

LH FRA/DEN is on an A340-600, which does have AVOD.

AVOD + free drinks on LH = easy decision!


I miss Joe Tiller a bit. How about you?

Same here - take LH. US immigrations and customs are incalculable. And BCN-FRA is shorter than EWR-DEN. I prefer international cabins.

Ive' done both of these flights...
 

and I prefer going through EWR on CO. The reason? Connecting through FRA was a nightmare, due to bad weather, and the transfers between terminals via buses, and out to the tarmac, which took a lot of time. I had an hour and 45 min to transfer, and made it to the gate in FRA just as they were about to close the jetway door..:eek:

CO through Newark was easier, even though I had to go through customs, recheck bags, security, etc. I had the same amount of connection time, 1 hr 45 minutes, and had 15 minutes to spare. But, there was no weather related issues..

SDCruiser

So EWR takes 1:30 on a good day, and FRA takes 1:45 on a bad day, and you'd choose EWR over FRA?

If EWR had a bad day, you might've barely made it or missed; and had FRA had a good day, you would've had time to spare.

I'd take LH (too bad they stopped flying to DEN from MUC) as well for all stated reasons!

IMHE the worst part of EWR is not customs or immigration, but the lines upstairs for security. Many of the international flights come in at similar times and the queues just back up terribly. Combine that with the contract line watchers who yell at you all the time, it is not exactly "running" for your connection. That comes afterward. Very stressful and frustrating.

I almost always prefer to connect in Europe vs connecting in the US. FRA isn't my favorite airport, but I'd take it over EWR any day.

Also, with regards to this, bear in mind that connecting in Europe makes bringing back duty free easier. You won't save much money, but the selection can be outstanding and worth lugging a bottle or two of something nice back home.

As to comfort, neither one will win any prizes, but I definitely think that LH TATL Y > CO Domestic Y. I'd rather increase my time in the widebody if it saves me time in a CO 737.

That being said, I would not hesitate to take CO if it were even marginally cheaper or if the LH fare only gave partial mileage credit.

Perhaps it is only me, but unless you were doing it for the miles /lesshours/points/fare--why would you want to go backwards (BCN----FRA etc) unles there was some positive to it. It seems a 'no brainer' to me that you would want BCN-EWR rather than flying from BCN back to FRA and then over BCN again to get to your destination ????

Your general idea is correct, he would fly a little to the east and then to the west.

But to be picky, I have never seen a flight to the US leaving FRA that went south (by the way of BCN or any place in Spain) to go to the US. They rather fly all the way north first and then make the crossing. So it's not THAT far out of the way

The impact of flying backwards in this case is really negligible - about 270miles based on great circles - probably not even 30 minutes on a west-bound TATL, out of what is probably 16 - 18 hours of total travel (in fact, FRA is CLOSER to DEN than BCN is). Overall travel time for the two routes is probably within a few minutes of each other.

In-flight comfort will be the key difference; connection hassles the next key difference. LH wins out on both of these based on the previous posts.

Even if an FRA connection were more of a hassle than an EWR connection, I'd still go with LH because the vast majority of the time is spent on the plane, not at the connecting airport. The advantage of AVOD alone would do it. Free drinks on LH is a bonus on top of the AVOD advantage.

Mauld, sorry but you did get the geography wrong there. Remember that while most of us (including me) have 'mental maps' in which the USA are due west of Europe, and airline route maps can be misleading this way, great circle routes go quite differently and never over iberia.

For example, FRA-EWR flies pretty much over London depending on exact routing of the day. In fact, FRA and BCN are essentially equidistant from EWR, thus a plane flying from FRA to BCN would not be flying toward EWR at all, but in the wrong direction by a full 90 degrees.

Quick doodling at great circle mapper reveals that from a mileage point of view, the two routings are near equivalent. Most of the miles BCN-FRA are compensated by the fact that EWR does not actually lie between BCN and DEN (the planes come in from the northeast).

(edited to add: this overlapped with previous poster, we obviously agree)

Regarding the OP's original question:

I agree with previous posters that other things equal, the FRA routing is marginally more attractive for reasons stated.

I emphasize 'marginally' though. Even minor idiosyncratic considerations could tilt the balance. For example, depending on fare bucket and where you want to deposit the miles, double check EQM rules. As an extreme example not applying to you, I am CO silver and nothing on UA or LH so would deposit with CO. Between online premium seat reservation, elite boarding, and full EQM for TATL discount economy (which I usually book, and I did see the big bomb on the LH to CO accrual chart), for me personally it would be a no-brainer in favor of EWR. (Plus, I like the TATL 752's actually: quick boarding and deplaning, no big wave of passengers at immigration.)