Forced stopover?
 

Hello, I seem to be on a posting mood today (instead of working mood, which is what I really *should* be doing... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif).

Anyway, since I'm now in need for some EB points I'm trying to construct a cost- and time-effective MR thingy. The WFAIR-fares from Finland (to be sold until end of January) are quite cheap and the routing rules liberal. They do require a Fri-Sat or Sat-Sun night stay, though.

But I'm trying to do something different this time. I want to force an overnight in ARN so that I would fly to ARN on Friday night, spend the night at an airport hotel (at the same time finishing the 3-stay promo for Radisson/Park Inn hotels), then fly from ARN to XXX on Saturday morning, making immediate turnaround and fly back to HEL in time to enjoy the Saturday afternoon home.

Possible destinations for me could be somewhere in Germany (FRA and TXL seem to be the logical ones) and CPH. I suppose BRU could do as well. The most important thing is that there should be an early morning flight from ARN.

The fare rules state that a stopover is not allowed, but then again it explicitly defines a stopover as lasting more than 24 hours, which my stay at ARN would not exceed.

I've found plenty of availability for certain flights, but the big question is how do I go on booking this? The regular booking engine on the SAS website cannot handle this (as clicking on the more flights link will eventually cause it to report some internal errors). Tried Travelocity's quite handy multi-city feature, but it quoted me a price that was around 3-4 times as much as the WFAIR fare. And these flights all had availability on the W class. Go figure.

Anyway, do you think the call centre agents could book such a trip for me? Do I need to have some explanations handy (like vetoeing on a meeting in ARN and some papers to be delivered in the final destination of XXX)? What are your experiences on this? Or should I just contend myself with a HEL-ARN-HEL roundtrip?

Hi,

I tried pricing out a trip with the multi-city feature at www.wideroe.no and also at www.start.de (only available in German...)and both websites seemed to price this trip out just fine at 170EUR + taxes. The good thing about www.start.de is that you won't have to pay the service fee which at least Nordic travel agents (and SAS direct sales) now charge. For www.wideroe.no this charge is 100NOK (~12EUR)with e-tickets.

Have a nice trip!

Thanks, I'm actually able to achieve some results with Wideroe, even though the the fares seem to be somewhat more than what the SAS web site is quoting me (but this could be just the taxes at ARN, the system treating me as an o/d passenger instead of connecting). I did found a nice and working HEL-ARN/ARN-FRA-HEL routing that will get me back to HEL just after 13.00 for 255 EUR + the service fee. I need to think about this for a while, though.

The Deutsch site looked otherwise good, but since my German has become too rusty over the recent years I couldn't really figure it out and decided to pass for now.

Once more thanks.

Hmmm...strange. You are right. SAS prices out at 258EUR incl. taxes, while Wideroe.no prices at 255EUR plus service fee. Strange. How much does sas.fi charge in service fee? The SAS web site doesn't work now, so unable to check it.

Doesn't seem to make any difference in taxes if you take the night in ARN or not, checked putting in HEL-FRA directly and chose one with a transfer in ARN. Turned out the same price as putting in HEL-ARN,ARN-FRA.

Strange.

In Finland for bookings on the website the fee is 10€. I think this is already included in the quote, since the Finnish consumer laws require all hidden costs and fees to be summed together and presented as one price (this must drive Ryanair crazy.. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif). The fee is higher (20€-55€) if booking from the Sales center or ticket desk. A paper ticket (on routes where e-tickets are available) warrants an extra 5€ fee.

Anyway I changed my plans a little bit, skipping the overnighting and just booking a quickie intra-Scandinavian trip that can be done on a Sunday-afternoon. Another strange thing is that some of the latest discount SAS-fares seem to allow same day return (at least on a weekend), the SAS website is unable to book them, automatically quoting the higher full-flexible eco/biz prices for same day -turnarounds. Wideroe.no of course had no problems with this http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif. Ebookers works as well, but you cannot select the exact flights you want and service fee is rather high at 25€.

Anyway thanks once more, I think I'll be using Wideroe from now on when I'm in the market for some weird routings.

Yes, it's a good place to book tickets, I have used them a lot. I still haven't used www.start.de, but it looks good as they don't have the service fee yet... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Oh since you've used Wideroe before, how soon do they ticket? Made my reservation last night, when can I expect them to ticket my reservation?

Thanks in advance.