Hi,

I'm a frequent traveller between BHX and CPH using SAS and generally it all works fine. However! my trip just before Easter has got interesting as the usual 1745 flight from BHX to CPH on Maundy Thursday doesn't exist - the only flight is at 0830 and as I will be getting to CPH from Sweden it means a very, very early start (perhaps too early).

The system I use for booking flights has helpfully suggested that I could fly with KLM and change at Schiphol or with SAS/KLM changing at Frankfurt with layovers of between 1 hour and 4 hours. Bizarrely they actually work out cheaper than flying with SAS direct but I was wondering if it usual to do such a thing as to change planes on such a short journey.

I'm very tempted to do a stopover at Schiphol as I really liked it there the last time I went 10 years ago- especially the panaormic terrace

So is it usual to change flights when doing a european flight to the UK or am I mad?

Thanks
P

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"Bizarrely they actually work out cheaper than flying with SAS direct."

Nothing bizarre about that at all. Airlines know that many passengers prefer a nonstop flight to having to connect somewhere. So the airlines that offer nonstops can often charge a premium for those flights, while the airlines that only offer connections on a particular route must offer discounts to attract passengers. In fact, it's possible that CPH-AMS-BHX on KLM will cost less than CPH-AMS by itself!

Totally normal. I do a lot of CPH-KRK/WAW/WRO or CPH-VIE and often enough end up connecting though FRA, MUC or ZRH. Most of the times since the direct flight for that day is already fully booked or just has full fare business seats left and I can get e.g. CPH-MUC-WRO for 250€ instead of 1000€ for the direct flight.

Also this is FlyerTalk! Most people enjoy being on planes and airports and also every extra connections awards extra miles! So in the true spirit of Flyertalk try to weave in as much connections as possible but manage to get wherever you need to go in time!

EDIT:// by the way... do not take the SAS/KLM connection trough FRA! That cannot be booked on a single ticket as SAS and KLM do not cooperate or codeshare! It will be two separate tickets and if you miss your connection... well... then you are stuck in FRA. Sounds like a Kayak "hacker fare"... be careful with those. Or is it in fact SAS and LH? Than it would be a good connection.

I've had that plenty of times as my employer thought saving a couple of EUR is cheaper than an additional 2h min. to my travel time....
Milage wise it was nice but that was pretty much the only benefit.
The worst story was flying LEJ-FRA-DUS instead of LEJ-DUS direct (1h)
Today I am happy to have an employer valuing my time much more ;-)

From the point of view of FF miles and status, you want to keep it to Star Alliance, therefore stopping over in FRA is far preferable to AMS, despite the much greater distance.

Thanks for the replies! I have to admit I'm quite excited to go to spend a few hours at a different airport and use a different airline! I will be going on the SAS/Lufthansa route via FRA (SAS to FRA then Lufthansa to BHX).

Cheers
P

Not to be anal about details, but on a Y/YY fare (and possibly lower) you certainly can book this (and pretty much anything on IATA member airlines).

I think it's becoming less common with the rise of point-to-point budget airline travel. Regional airports, with the advantage of being cheaper, now have a wider range of destinations direct.

Having said this I would imagine thousands of people per day are still connecting short haul to short haul. Heck, I connected in LHR doing a simple Brussels to Manchester journey, with both flight times roughly equivalent to that of a gently lobbed frisbee.

Yeah... but that would be most probably so expensive that it would make that routing very unattractive.

Anyway, he corrected to SK/LH which makes sense.

If you are not worried about the extra time spent, there is nothing wrong with it. In the days of free connections on BAEC RFS flights, I often did MAN-LHR-ZRH/MUC. These days I often use SK and connect in CPH. It's usually cheaper than direct flights. Another route I like is BHX-ZRH-MUC on LX. Often cheaper than BHX-ZRH.