johan rebel

That was pretty much the case all through the pandemic. As an example, I got a very nice price at a 481-room 5 star hotel, which I found myself sharing with 27 other guests. That was pretty much par for the course (I think 8 in a 366-room hotel was the lowest). Apart from occasional (airport) hotel one-night stands, I normally avoid massive establishments like the plague. But the past few years they were havens of peace and quiet, and very affordable.

Johan

Bogwoppit

This is my dream now KLM cancelled my short layover and replaced it with an 8 hour one. Priority access changes everything when it comes to taking a jaunt into town.

ezefllying

I am traveling BER-OSL on Oct. 8 or 9, Saturday or Sunday, and have strongly been considering an overnight stopover in either Amsterdam, which I like, or Riga, which I've never visited. KLM has a good one-way BER-AMS-OSL fare with an overnight layover, arriving into Amsterdam around 4 PM Saturday and departing for Oslo at 7 AM on Sunday, the 9th. I have been strongly leaning toward that, but these posts suggest I may be taking a real risk by trying to pass through Schiphol security on Sunday morning at a halfway-sane hour.

For what it's worth, I'll have Sky Priority (Delta Platinum) and hand-baggage only. Still, I really don't want to show up at Schiphol before 6 AM. In years past, I don't think that would have been a problem for an intra-Schengen flight. But now I'm worried I'd need to show at 5:30 or earlier.

If I do miss my AMS-OSL flight, will KLM let me standby on a later one? I'll be on a Standard Y ticket, nothing special.

If not, I may well take the similarly cheap overnight in Riga.

malmostoso

If it's all on one ticket KL will rebook you, but there is no guarantee that it would be on the following flight or even on the same day. In general in Europe there is no "stand by" like in the US.

For a 7AM flight you'd have had to be at the airport at 6 anyway even in the good old days so it's a bad plan right from the start.

Xandrios

For a 7AM departure having Skypriority I would, personally, want to be at the airport at 5AM or earlier. Reports here have ranged between 30 to 90 minutes from train to having completed security (Having Sky priority), so - personally - two hours would be the absolute minimum for me. And if I have something crucial planned on the other end of the flight I'd probably consider even that too much risk.

Daxy

Would anyone happen to know if Air Transat Club tickets (Premium Economy, they don't have Business Class) allow for Priority Security at AMS? I know PE at KLM does give this hence the check. Thanks!

johan rebel

For what it is worth, the airline's website says no.

Johan

Pau3590

does anyone know if long distance bc passengers have also lost their luggage from amsterdam?
or is that usually fine?

we fly october 18 bc ams -cur

johan rebel

I have no data on which to base a definitive answer, but I figure that if you present yourself and your bag(s) at check-in in good time, the chance of them not being loaded on the plane is low.

Johan

Pau3590

that were also my geschten.In may this year the same flight also bc, no problems. but that was before the misery at Schiphol starts.

we are simply present 3.5 hours before departure. the flight is 8.30am so I don't expect any problems. but I still hesitated to buy a GPS tracker so that I can see if my suitcase is on the plane, just before we leave. Then I might be more relaxed.

b12e

that can work both ways though. If the airtag/tile/... didn't indicate it's on the plane, you'll be stressing throughout the whole flight and it may still have been loaded anyway, just not picking up a smartphone nearby.

AnaTFN

THIS. I started using an airtag recently to track my checked-in suitcase and it wouldn't report at all until it was near the belt on arrival. I didn't understand why. Then read that airtags don't have their own GPS and what they do is to piggyback off the location data of some nearby apple device. So I'm a bit disappointed with that experiment...

b12e

even if it had GPS of its own, it'd also need to communicate its location, thus would need an antenna and sim card to communicate.

that kind of stuff can get expensive quickly, even though the amount of data is low, it'd start new 100kb sessions and you'd be potentially billed several dollars per location transmission in roaming fees.

that, and the battery wouldn't last for over a year.

sakedon

I'd still recommend having airtags/tiles/trackers only for them to be a bit of help in case the bag ever gets lost, not for real-time tracking. There is no need to add another layer of stress after we drop off the bag at check-in whether it makes to the plane / transfer / belt / whatever, what can we do anyway past the check-in?

When you arrive at the destination and (a big if...) if you can see the bag is not at the same airport as you, you can then do yourself a favour by reporting a missing bag directly instead of waiting for the bag that won't turn up. Or if it's somewhere at the airport, you can point this out to agents instead of dealing with a 'black box to be or not to be' situation.

Fabo.sk

EC is my favorite part of KLM product.

Sitting up front is nice, but being tall and large as I am the extra space is more than worth the 10 odd euros and the higher chance of empty middle seat is also nice.

Speaking of, I meant to be at the airport like 20 minutes ago.

Good old NS, in addition to removing 1/3rd of IC trains from schedule in advance, cancelled another 1/3rd, leaving me with a lot less options than expected. And then the singular option that made sense for me got delayed and reported impossible transfer.
Now I'm arriving less than 90 minutes before departure time. Hope my Privium will be of help.

On direct flights, baggage doesn't seem to be an issue.

Less so with connections, but that's not your case.

AirTags used to be a lot quicker, however there were cases of stalking via covertly places tag. They were nerfed, still absolutely capable of being used to find lost items, but not enough to allow for real time tracking.