Emirates Business Class cheap fare tips

[nej606k]

Have spent the afternoon trawling Kayak for cheap business class fares to the Far East this winter and it looks like the fare is much cheaper (£300-£400pp in some cases) if you start the journey in another European country. The 2 that came up the cheapest were departing from Munich or Hamburg. Does anyone else have any tips for cutting the cost of business class fares?

This map shows the Emirates Europe route map http://www.emirates.com/english/flash/route_map.as...

[Nobby Diesel]

That's the UK Departure Tax in action.
If flying in Business or First, it's always cheaper to fly to a Euro hub first as the tax is calculated on the cost of the leg out of the UK.

[BigBen]

Nobby Diesel said:

That's the UK Departure Tax in action.
If flying in Business or First, it's always cheaper to fly to a Euro hub first as the tax is calculated on the cost of the leg out of the UK.

It also works starting your BA flight in say Oslo then flying back to Heathrow. This is possible as BA have to compete with direct flights on Finair (or whatever local carrier) and the only way they can do so is on cost given the flight will be indirect.

Ben

[Kudos]

They fly Dublin to Dubai, no APD there. Handier than Germany!

[Silver993tt]

BigBen said:

It also works starting your BA flight in say Oslo then flying back to Heathrow. This is possible as BA have to compete with direct flights on Finair (or whatever local carrier) and the only way they can do so is on cost given the flight will be indirect.

Ben

fly to Oslo, back to Heathrow and then out again? What's the point in wasting all that time, best to simply get an economy seat out of Heathrow direct to where to want to go and save a boat load of money.

[BigBen]

Silver993tt said:

BigBen said:

It also works starting your BA flight in say Oslo then flying back to Heathrow. This is possible as BA have to compete with direct flights on Finair (or whatever local carrier) and the only way they can do so is on cost given the flight will be indirect.

Ben

fly to Oslo, back to Heathrow and then out again? What's the point in wasting all that time, best to simply get an economy seat out of Heathrow direct to where to want to go and save a boat load of money.

I have never done it, however you can have a weekend in Oslo a few weeks before your main trip if you are so inclined. I only picked Oslo as iirc it was cheapest, Amsterdam also yields very good savings and would not take as long, and might be better fun for a weekend away.

[Kudos]

BigBen said:

I have never done it, however you can have a weekend in Oslo a few weeks before your main trip if you are so inclined. I only picked Oslo as iirc it was cheapest, Amsterdam also yields very good savings and would not take as long, and might be better fun for a weekend away.

Have you ever been in Oslo? Bloody expensive

[BigBen]

Kudos said:

BigBen said:

I have never done it, however you can have a weekend in Oslo a few weeks before your main trip if you are so inclined. I only picked Oslo as iirc it was cheapest, Amsterdam also yields very good savings and would not take as long, and might be better fun for a weekend away.

Have you ever been in Oslo? Bloody expensive

No, but you can save thousands off your ticket so could work out.

[Dr Jekyll]

Silver993tt said:

simply get an economy seat

[Silver993tt]

Dr Jekyll said:

Most certainly. You will be paying thousands less. Use the money to buy a holiday in a top 5* hotel instead with all services provided or after a few years of regular long haul trips buy a 911 as I did a few years ago. Much, much better than wasting it on a slightly bigger seat and some more food which for a few hours in the air is worth about £50 per leg at the very most.

[BigBen]

Silver993tt said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Most certainly. You will be paying thousands less. Use the money to buy a holiday in a top 5* hotel instead with all services provided or after a few years of regular long haul trips buy a 911 as I did a few years ago. Much, much better than wasting it on a slightly bigger seat and some more food which for a few hours in the air is worth about £50 per leg at the very most.

Depends on how tall you are doesn't it?

[whoami]

BigBen said:

Silver993tt said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Most certainly. You will be paying thousands less. Use the money to buy a holiday in a top 5* hotel instead with all services provided or after a few years of regular long haul trips buy a 911 as I did a few years ago. Much, much better than wasting it on a slightly bigger seat and some more food which for a few hours in the air is worth about 50 per leg at the very most.

Depends on how tall you are doesn't it?

And if you actually want to fly business class, which the OP does.

[DJRC]

Or a credit card with Air Miles, use it enough to get your Business Class upgrade long haul once a yr. Dont know if Emirates have any such deals but Virgin's Amex Black basically gives me a cpl of freebie Upper Class upgrades a yr or one freebie Upper Class return a yr. Thats a deal n a steal to me.

[Deva Link]

Nobby Diesel said:

That's the UK Departure Tax in action.

Maybe that has an impact, but these things have always happened.

You get situations such as one we had years ago where it was cheaper (by a significant amount) to fly to Boston via Toronto than it was to fly just to Toronto. It's due to competition from carriers who fly to Boston direct.

[kryten22uk]

nej606k said:

Have spent the afternoon trawling Kayak for cheap business class fares to the Far East this winter and it looks like the fare is much cheaper (300-400pp in some cases) if you start the journey in another European country. The 2 that came up the cheapest were departing from Munich or Hamburg. Does anyone else have any tips for cutting the cost of business class fares?

This map shows the Emirates Europe route map http://www.emirates.com/english/flash/route_map.as...

By far the way to save most money is to wait for the sales. You have tons of options to the Far East from the UK, including all the European carriers (BA, Lufthansa, Swiss, Virgin), the Middle East ones (Qatar, Emirates, Etihad) and Far Eastern ones (Malaysian, Cathay, Thai, Japan, Singapore). All of them have 2-5 sales per year, with discounts in business of anything from 10%-50%. You just need to keep an eye out and be in the right place at the right time.

[Viperzs]

Have a look on Netflights.com for your flights. I saved about £1,000 on my last Emirates business class flight to Dubai by booking with them!

[Nobby Diesel]

Deva Link said:

Maybe that has an impact, but these things have always happened.

You get situations such as one we had years ago where it was cheaper (by a significant amount) to fly to Boston via Toronto than it was to fly just to Toronto. It's due to competition from carriers who fly to Boston direct.

Indeed.
There are many a strange scenario with air tickets.

I can recall a family holiday when I was about 12 years old (back in 1978 roughly), where we turned up at Heathrow for a Concorde flight to the Washington, with our tickets looking like we had originated our journey in Lagos. I vividly remember my dad crossing his arms and standing his ground, when the check in staff rumbled the fact that somehow he had bought a significantly cheaper ticket, by making it look like we had flown in from Nigeria.

This was in the days of tear out coupons in your air ticket.