Ex EU flight with VERY tight positioning flight connection

[GCH]

Fats25 said:

Just curious - how much money are you saving doing this?

I personally have saved in some instances several £thousand on a single flight in premium cabins by doing ex-EU. Even in coach I have paid less than 50% of the LHR-xxx-LHR price, even on very short notice. With cheap RFS (reward flight saver) positioning flights usually available, and ditching the last leg (caveat: I don't check bags) it is not such a huge hardship for such a big saving.
Frankly, the biggest pain in the ass bit is re-clearing security at LHR, especially if flight connections is ram-a-jam. Going landside and upstairs to fast-track south used to be the quicker workaround, but as the UK border lines are quite bad nowadays, even that can be slow.

You do need to know exactly how these things work, know your timings, leave a buffer, and know your rights, as when they go wrong, they tend to go spectacularly wrong and can potentially leave you open to huge expenditure and hassle.

With DUB it depends whether you arrive at a 200 or 300. Usually it is hassle free and you arrive at a 200, but on occasion you arrive at a 300 gate and have to go through passport control and security - not ideal if you have booked a b2b - especially if it was a late inbound with a very quick turnaround planned by the ground crew. Having said that, I have done far shorter b2bs at DUB than the OP and not had any issues.

SVG is a pretty hassle free starting point right now - your outbound aircraft is the aircraft you come back on, so you have an immediate turnaround but with the advantage of no chance of any security or passport hassles, and basically a 35 metre walk before turning around and re-boarding the same aircraft.

Edited by GCH on Tuesday 4th October 22:59

[Fats25]

GCH said:

(caveat: I don't check bags)

Is that the key thing here? I assume if you have luggage your luggage will continue without you even if you don't board the plane and ditch the flight?

[surveyor]

Fats25 said:

GCH said:

(caveat: I don't check bags)

Is that the key thing here? I assume if you have luggage your luggage will continue without you even if you don't board the plane and ditch the flight?

You need to make sure that you have a break in the flight. I normally make sure that I have an 18 hour connection at London and am flying out of a different airport to make sure that my bags are not through checked.

Last time we looked though it was through some freak as cheap to fly from man via lhr (which is more convenient) than Dublin

[GCH]

Fats25 said:

Is that the key thing here? I assume if you have luggage your luggage will continue without you even if you don't board the plane and ditch the flight?

Easiest way is to build in an airport switch in LON on the return.
The other way is to make it an overnight connection (as long as less than 24hrs) therefore you have a reason to be wanting checked bags for the connection, that you then unfortunately miss the next day.