Yet another flight thread

[GirlDreamer]

So I've started to look for flights for our trip, though not nearly all the companies have released their flights yet. I've found what seems like a really good price with British Airways, £484 pp return and it's a direct flight from Gatwick. We don't live in or around London, so we would have to travel there and probably stay a night in a hotel. But I think we would have to stay in a hotel before the flight no matter where we leave from.

So should we go for it?

 

[flortlebap]

Just a thought but have you looked into VA Little Red transfers? They're £89 return or 7,500 air miles from Man. It's a 3/4 hour drive for us to London but only 40 mins to Manchester, and the cost of fuel and the hotel made the domestic flight a very attractive option!

 

[GirlDreamer]

We looked into BA from Manchester as well, but it isn't very tempting when those flights go to Heathrow and we need to go from Gatwick. I don't know how easy it is to get to Gatwick from Heatrow, but to first travel to Manchester by train, to then catch the flight (if the train goes all the way to the airport), and then transfer from one airport to another, just seems like a hassle.

Seems a little easier to just catch the train to gatwick with just one transfer and stay at a hotel there.

 

[Samaya]

Return flights with Virgin aren't released yet so might be worth waiting another week or so as VA's current sale goes on until 28 January 2014 with prices from £466 from Manchester direct. http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en/ideas-lowestfares/sale-fares/manchester.html

 

[GirlDreamer]

Yeah I guess you're right. Had a quick look at the flights that are released, and it looks like it's around the same price range. And with it being direct, the take off a little bit later, so with some luck, we might be able to book it and get there on cheap tickets with national express the same day

One thing did confuse me on virgins website though. Because the day we go (nov 13th) is already released, so I put that in and then a different return date, just to get an idea. But when I changed the return date again, the price for the outbound flight suddenly went up to twice as it was at first Is that normal?

 

[Samaya]

One thing did confuse me on virgins website though. Because the day we go (nov 13th) is already released, so I put that in and then a different return date, just to get an idea. But when I changed the return date again, the price for the outbound flight suddenly went up to twice as it was at first Is that normal?

Without knowing the dates I'm not sure of that, but was the return date you entered less than 7-days from the outbound date, if so that could be the reason as the low price seats are for 7 or more days.

Try other web sites such as Opodo to compare prices against Virgin's web site and also go through Quidco or a similar site to maybe save a few more pounds.
www.opodo.co.uk
www.quidco.com

 

[GirlDreamer]

Without knowing the dates I'm not sure of that, but was the return date you entered less than 7-days from the outbound date, if so that could be the reason as the low price seats are for 7 or more days.

Try other web sites such as Opodo to compare prices against Virgin's web site and also go through Quidco or a similar site to maybe save a few more pounds.
www.opodo.co.uk
www.quidco.com

Yeah I try to use quidco as much as possible. I forgot when I booked the WDW package though

The Virgin prices has been released for the whole of my trip now (direct from Manchester), and even though it's more expensive then BA (direct from Gatwick), I think it'll be about the same cost really, if you include travel from here to London and then hotels and the gatwick express etc. Anyway, I'll try to see if any more airlines have released more flights etc and then have a talk to my fiancee to see what he thinks as well.

 

[tubtruck]

Some very good business class deals this year for August, I ended up booking to fly out of Dublin, I will get the ferry over there and return flight is back to Manchester, they were £1138 each. Other alternative was various carriers all out of Manchester at £1499 each. Very happy, for the two of us they have cost us £1000 less than last year.

APD is now £134 rising to £138 in April 2014 flying from a uk mainland airport to Florida per person either premium economy or business class, it is only charged on the way out of the country and can easily be avoided by flying from either Dublin or even Belfast in the north. It is not charged traveling back in to the country. It is one of the reasons Dublin airport is doing so well capacity increased by 270,000 seats to the USA in 2013, their version of APD, called ATT is 3 euros and due to be totally scrapped in April 2014.

 

[GirlDreamer]

I'm not sure what to do now. With Virgin the direct flight for 2 adults will be £1735 roundtrip. We return on a saturday, but to return on the friday it'll be just over £1000, so is it worth it to pay for the extra night, or should we cancel one night and go home one day earlier?