[NTarrant]

Travellator you purchase a ticket from say AMS-LHR-HKG-LHR-AMS. You then pay the fare from AMS in Euro’s. You have to travel out to AMS so you could do that by flying there as Binman did to MXP.

[Travellator]

GHOST Trip —-

Mar 16 2012 return Mar 24 LHR/HKG/LHR CW £ 3055

Same dates AMS/LHR/HKG/LHR/AMS – CE & CW converted from Euro £ 2020.

Return economy LHR/AMS/LHR at start/end of journey £ 100

Saving £ 925 EACH !!!!!!

[MartynSinclair]

Slight correction Nigel, I think you would select AMS-HKG_AMS and select an option through London as a transit. If you select London as part of the itinerary, you may find your taxes increased as you could be an arriving LHR passenger as opposed to a transit passenger.

If you need an overnight stay in London, choose the last outbound from AMS. On the basis that this is too late for you to connect to the HKG sector, you will still be charged as a transit pax.

Regards

Martyn

[Travellator]

Yes GHOST was booked AMS/HKG/AMS and it automatically added the LHR legs in CE !

I supose tier points BA miles etc are added as normal ?

[MartynSinclair]

yes they should

[Travellator]

And BA Amex miles ?

[MartynSinclair]

Cant answer, dont use that card!

[Travellator]

No problem Martyn again thanks for the info – well worth the exercise, the inconvenience in a bit more flying would pay for 3 or 4 nights in a VERY nice hotel.

[NTarrant]

Martyn, I have recently booked a trip to DXB starting from BRU for December. I put in DXB-BRU but this only gives the option of the 0235 or 1005 flight to LHR with connections to BRU. However I wanted to return on the 1530 flight so I entered them as seperate flights but travelling LHR-AMS the next day. There was no difference in fare.

Unless it is changed, when Mrs T and I travelled BRU-LHR-DXB/HKG-LHR-BRU earlier in the year we left six days between our BRU-LHR and LHR-DXB flights, essentially we had the weekend in BRU, went home for the week and came back for the DXB flight. We did the same on the return. There was no difference in price.

I have a feeling there is a certain amount of time you can have between flights before you get hit with the taxes. I am sure VK posted this on another thread. This is why I did the trip above with Mrs T as she would not have any “messing around” as she calls it!

[VintageKrug]

I’m a fan of exEUR and when time permits I will use them.

However, there are some good deals exLHR during the sales; these can also be combined with a shareholder discount, and sometimes additional taregetted codes as well.

For instance, booking until 24th August using the code “brighton’ gets 10% off the cost of the exLHR flight until 24th August.

That would bring your GHOST itinerary down to £2750. Then an additional 10% on the shareholder discount reduces it to about £2550.

When compared to the £2120 of the exAMS+positioning flight, and the fact you’ll might have to overnight in AMS, adding additional cost the saving becomes smaller. If this was a sale fare the difference would be marginal; almost exactly the same as the APD charged to fly exLHR.

Particularly for those on business, for whom “time is money” then exEUR isn’t such a compelling prospect.

exEUR is a great deal for those premium leisure customers who can capitalise on a weekend (or night) away prior to their main trip, and value the additional TPs and miles. It is especially good value if you can make use of the final sector for another weekend break, and kick off your next trip without having to pay for an additional “positioning” flight.

[FrequentTraveller]

Keep the transit time in the UK to less than 24 hours. This avoids the UK departure tax becoming appliable and BA’s own fare recalculation treating the change of plane as a stopover.

[VintageKrug]

Yes, that’s good advice.

I was more referring to situations where flight times make it impossible to get the earliest flight out exEUR and make the connection at LHR, especially when there only one early departure on BA to your longhaul destination.

Those circumstances, though they are few and far between, necessitate an overnight in London, which though not triggering APD, could be about the same in hotel costs for those not resident nearby, defeating the purpose of the trip.

[MartynSinclair]

Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I would have agreed with VintageKrug about Time=Money.

Being 50+ and semi retired, I will continue travelling for business, but I do have a lot more time on my hands so for me, its more about TIME=ADVENTURE.

Ex-Europe fares seem a thing of the past for me, I am going to take a look at the Azidone option ex-Cario, is that ex-Asia or ex-Europe still?? If I book this Azidone, I will be asking for a recommendation for a Veggie dinner in Cairo.

[Travellator]

Ex EU fares attract Shareholders discount also, the discount on ex UK fares is after taxes so is a lot less than 10% whereas ex EU fares have less tax.

[JordanD]

Martyn – whilst I doff my cap at your spirit of adventure, I pass on a warning from comments on a thread of ex-EUR initial departures that appeared recently on FlyerTalk. A number of participants recommended against Cairo and specifically against Tel Aviv for using as ‘start’ points. They raised an issue that security in both locations (especially the later) get quite concerned with individuals doing such short turns in their countries.

I pass this information on and make no judgement on the validity of the statements, other than to say that it was a view shared by the many, rather than by the few.

[Author]

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