BA Club bargains to Hawaii

[anonymous-user]

"Cheap" is a relative term, but I've just been looking at some pretty bloody cheap business class flights on BA.

The catch is that you have to start in Dublin (ie buy a cheap one way "locator" flight to enable you to start the flight). But the itinerary I was looking out was

Dublin -> London City; London City -> JFK (on the all business class BA flight that touches down at Shannon to pre-clear US immigration); JFK to Honolulu via LAX; each leg on consecutive days at the beginning of August

Return is the same thing backwards, again on consecutive days at the end of August but the final leg can be Heathrow to DUB. Haven't worked out whether the stopover in LA can be extended. Internal US flights are (I guess) AA business class.

Pricing at £1098 return, which would be very good just to go LON-NY in business.

You can play around with prices and routes here: Matrix.itasoftware.com

[Blaster72]

Are you sure that's legit? The LCY to JFK return is usually at least £2.5k alone.

[anonymous-user]

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 14th January 00:03

[GT03ROB]

Blaster72 said:

Are you sure that's legit? The LCY to JFK return is usually at least £2.5k alone.

I believe so, there has been a lot of discussion on flyertalk.com about it.

[Blaster72]

That is an amazing deal!

[GT03ROB]

There are a lot of "bargins" out there for ex-EU fares. Originate from an EU destination using BA then transfer at LHR onto a intercontinental flight & the business class ticket for the whole flight is often less than Business just ex-LHR. You just need to add the cost of the flight to get you to/from the EU city in the 1st place.

[Truckosaurus]

It's the starting in Dublin part that is the key, that saves you a huge amount in tax and fees (for some reason).

[snabzter]

One of the reasons for the lower prices s BA have a lot of competition from other carriers in Europe (excluding the UK)and to attract more customers they have to price quite keenly. If going from Amsterdam to NY you could fly direct with KLM so for BA to attract customers to fly via Heathrow they price lower than if flying direct for UK.

[Chucklehead]

You'd be able to get pretty much the exact same fares direct from London if our government would do something about the fking APD that we pay. Dublin =€10. It's be several thousand £s for that combo from Heathrow.

Would like to fly BA001 one day!

[tvrolet]

Transatlantics are always waaaay cheaper out of Dublin as the Air Passenger Duty is far less than the UK, and based on the origin not where you fly through. We're got a couple of US trips coming up (out of Edinburgh) but my daughter is coming too and she works in Dublin. We're all booked BA, but her fares connecting through Heathrow to sit on the SAME transatlantic flight as us are much much cheaper.

But you have to have your flight origin in Dublin (so as the OP says, you need to get there on an unconnected flight), not just change flights there. So there's no opportunity to check luggage through and if either flight is delayed so you miss the other you're kind of screwed; so to be safe you need a long transfer time (or spend some time actually in Dublin as part of the trip). And depending on where you're going Dublin also has a US border in the airport, so you can clear US immigration in Dublin so you avoid the queues in the US.

It's the bit where you book your flight and it says £XXX.XX included in the fare is taxes and charges. If your origin is out of Dublin then a whole load of that just disappears.

[Pillskii]

No doubt a very cheap deal, but is Hawaii really worth nearly 2 days of travelling and multiple transfers? And the same again on the return.

[tobinen]

Interesting website

[Jamesgt]

I've been looking at these fares the last few days. There are deals to be had to many places if you travel out of many of Europes airports. Dublin to JFK is under £900 for business class. We are getting robbed in the UK

[anonymous-user]

The reason that this fare is so low is that it is a sale fair.

The price of a straight BA ex-Heathrow flight to LA is £2.5k:



But you can see from the fare breakdown that the UK APD amounts to "only" £142 of that fare (and BA's fuel surcharge is another £100 or so). The base fare each way is where the big differences are.

We do get ripped off in the UK, but not because of the Govt, because of BA's differential pricing, and (as I see it) the fact that their ex-EUR sale fares tend to be much more heavily reduced than their UK-based sale fares.

[DJRC]

Do you know or have an idea which are the cheap deals before you input what you look for? Or are you just entering random st?

[anonymous-user]

DJRC said:

Do you know or have an idea which are the cheap deals before you input what you look for?

Yes, more or less.

Multi city trip originating in Dublin or Amsterdam (quick to get to from London) to London, then to a N Am destination (or two, eg JFK, then onwards to somewhere else), then return the same way.

Make sure each sector in the out bound and each on the return are on consec day as > 24h between flights ceases to count as a stopover and usually bumps the price. Some days are cheaper than others - eg that first example doesn't work at all if you shift each of the outbound flights back a day.

Also going via JFK seems to work if you specify LCY as the London departure airport rather than LON (all London airports); perhaps that City to JFK service is heavily discounted under this offer.

Also helps to have a London airport change between the last and penultimate leg if you want to drop the last leg and ensure your hold luggage doesn't travel on the final leg.

[russy01]

Interesting on the Flights....

Bit of a pointless post here, but FIL has just come back from a big ol trip in the US with a couple week stint in Hawaii. They spent a week on a ship cruising around each island.

Whilst it was a good trip he said he wouldn't go back. With the money spent he could get two good holidays in the Caribbean...

[Welshbeef]

swerni said:

Pillskii said:

No doubt a very cheap deal, but is Hawaii really worth nearly 2 days of travelling and multiple transfers? And the same again on the return.

Yes.

Next question

It would have to be a good 14-18 nights to make it worth while time wise. That said the sole person I know who has been there (and he went as a second Honeymoon 5* hotels etc/ a junior suite) he loved it.

Not sure if I'd go - plenty of other closer great places to visit first.

[Sheepshanks]

Greg66 said:

We do get ripped off in the UK, but not because of the Govt, because of BA's differential pricing, and (as I see it) the fact that their ex-EUR sale fares tend to be much more heavily reduced than their UK-based sale fares.

I flew to Chicago, then to Dallas, then to Mexico for a conference recently. Colleague did the same but he had to fly from Finland to Heathrow first. Even with the extra flight his round trip was a couple of hundred Euros less than mine was in £, about £400 cheaper overall. Used the same website as you to get the route / pricing. Nothing stood out massively, it was just that every item, flight, tax, fees etc, was a little bit less.

Weird pricing isn't unusual though - years ago went to Toronto from Manchester and it was cheaper by a significant amount to book to Boston even though the first leg to Toronto was the same flight.


Your trip to Hawaii seems to involve a lot wasted time though. It's some years since I went to Maui but I flew through SFO and did it same day.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Friday 16th January 22:17

[anonymous-user]

Yeah, it's not a routng I would choose, that's for sure. We went to Maui a couple of years ago, and flew direct to the west coast, took a couple of days, then flew on. On the way back we took a couple of weeks somewhere else on the WC and flew direct back to London.

However, time is more valuable to me now than it used to be. In my 20s I'd have been on this like a rash.