Consolidated thread about Ex-DUB and other Ex-EU travel.

I would just like to say a great big thank you to you guys on here for the inspiration of the ex DUB Trick!!

For a smidge over £1400 I have bagged this:

First time in UpperClass!! Even get a 747 on the return!!

Well done great price

Dan

[honey lamb]

The disappointing part of that itinerary is that on the DUB-LHR leg you will be flying out of the rather dreadful T1 instead of the rather splendid T2

That's ace
I love it when a plan comes together

HL is the lounge any good in T1?

[honey lamb]

HL is the lounge any good in T1?

Dunno. I never had to use it as I was always on domestic flights between Dublin and Cork and in those days, were little more than a bus service between the two cities. They could have refurbished the terminal as it was seriously dilapidated the last time I flew out on what was not a domestic flight but that was many moons ago. The worst part (which won't affect you) was a series of linked portacabins for Ryanair flights while they built the D pier. It's a long hike to those gates but I think they are exclusively used by Ryanair. I don't know which ones they use now for BA since my last few flights have been from the new and vastly improved T2 (although the Priority Pass lounge is very disappointing)

Just a post responding some of the posts before the Great Server Crash of the 11th:

TimCrawley, how did you manage to get your flight DUB-LHR a week before your VS flight? The best I could wangle was an overnight stay in either direction.

Another user was asking about the ex-EU trick, I am really sorry I cannot remember who you were:

This is similar to what I did, but this is for a simple out and back itinerary, mine was slightly more complex as I was using "Multiple Destinations" to go out to LAX and return from MIA.

Just to repost and expand on my 'lost in the database' earlier reply:

Today, following the great advice on V-Flyer (many thanks to all on the EX-EU discussions and ColOrd's success that was posted for inspiring me to do it today) I made two seperate bookings to wangle the ex-EU fares on the LGW to LAS route in Upper Class. Did both on Expedia.ie website using the 'multiple destinations' option on 'flights' plus opening the advanced tab at the bottom to be able to select Business class etcetera (don't know if I could have done same on UK site but had no problem with using my UK address, UK Debit card etc on .ie website it just meant prices below were in €).

First booking I chose the DUB-LON (which became LHR after search button hit later) to be in mid-December so I can do some Xmas shopping in Dublin with the extra LHR-DUB I'll have to book later for mid-December. Then I chose my outward and return LGW-LAS legs and finished by inputting the date in mid-March (but morning flight) for the LHR-DUB final leg to tie in nicely with my second booking below ... selecting Business so I get my nice Upper seats on Virgin. That booking cost me €uros2372.54 instead of £2413.44 on VA website.

Second booking I chose the DUB-LON (which became LHR after search button hit later) to be on same date in mid-March (evening flight this time to fit with the above morning flight LON-DUB) so I can do some shopping in Dublin before catching flight back to LHR. Then I chose my outward and return LGW-LAS legs for 5 days later in March / April and finished by inputting the date in April for the LHR-DUB final leg which I'll never use (although if I'd already had another planned trip later in the year I guess I could have planned this one to tie in nicely with my third booking!) ... selecting Business so I get my nice Upper seats on Virgin. That booking cost me €uros 2129.16 instead of £2413.44 on VA website.

With both bookings I put in my BA and VA Flying Club numbers and within minutes they were showing on BA and VA manage my booking options.

Really pleased because for the January booking the BA LGW-LAS route doesn't run and for the March booking it would have still been £1998 in BA Club World (and the 747 UC I do think is better than BA CW, the A330 UC I'm afraid I don't think is as good as BA CW - but that's another story/discussion, I guess!)

Just to clarify what it let me book (so no issue with multiple days between flight legs on outward or return which ColOrd was asking about):
Booking 1
DUB-LHR 17/12 evening
LGW-LAS 7/1
LAS-LGW 19/1
LHR-DUB 18/3 Morning

Booking 2
DUB-LHR 18/3 evening
LGW-LAS 23/3
LAS-LGW 4/4
LHR-DUB 5/4 lunchtime ... will not use it, though

Ahh cheers Tim, obviously I had to use multiple destinations, but I just did DUB-LAX and MIA-DUB, it did not occur to me to split those segments down to their individual sectors!!

That will come in handy for the next trip (New York in March 2016...)

Tim, I am genuinely impressed with the ingenuity there, I did not realise how far apart the ex-EU sectors could be to still come into that Fare coding!

Huh, that is a nice approach Tim. Well planned out

It never occurred to me that you'd be able to nest fares using the ex-EU trick for transatlantic sectors with months' long 'stopovers' - I always figured the airlines' booking systems would smell a rat.... I have a feeling a lot of my scheduled travel is going to become a lot cheaper. Cheers

Glad that tip will help a few people as the tips on the forum from others have certainly helped me.

In retrospect, when I just left the last LHR-DUB default to 5/4 I really should have just picked a later date in, say, June or July and booked a morning flight as I'm sure there will be a trip later in the year where I could have matched up a DUB-LHR with it (and as that first DUB-LHR leg of the 3rd trip could be several months in range before the 3rd trip moved onwards from London it would have been just another happy free day out in Dublin in June or July).

I used a similar technique many years ago when I was regularly travelling between the UK and Germany on Fridays and Sundays when I found return tickets in one outward direction were much cheaper than the other - so I booked one expensive one with the outward and return over 8 months apart, then filled in the gap with multiple outward and returns in the other drection as & when I needed them.

Happy booking everyone :-)

Ingenious - thanks for the tip! This method also de-risks the whole trip as we're essentially under no pressure if there were to be a delay on your initial positonong sector. We also stand to get a weekend EU city break (potentially two if opt to use last sector) part paid for (with BA CE flights!) in the deal!

I just tried this for my Vegas dates next April (trip already booked ex AMS saving me £k's compared with non ex-EU) but this time I experimented with the multi-city method above. It worked a treat and allows the DUB dates (both pre & post the VS flights) to be weeks/months apart. VS currently have a sale running but even with their current sale prices the price I just got for ex-DUB saves around £1,000 for a couple. The key thing for me though is the de-risking of any potential problems with the initial positioning flight since the whole trip is different now, ie. a city break to DUB a few weeks earlier and a totally normal VS flight ex LGW on the desired dates....and not forgetting the final icing on the cake - the second city break later in the year if you so choose to use your final sector BA Club Europe flight, not forgetting Avios and TP earning!

[Pete]

Such a good tip and explanation, it's worth making it a sticky topic! Thanks ColOrd

Sorry if this is a silly question but if you opt not to use the first and last legs, out of and back to Dublin, does this affect the main journey on Virgin. If you choose to no show on both the Dublin legs that's ok? I personally would not wish the extra expense of further matching flights to form mini breaks to Dublin.

Sorry if this is a silly question but if you opt not to use the first and last legs, out of and back to Dublin, does this affect the main journey on Virgin. If you choose to no show on both the Dublin legs that's ok? I personally would not wish the extra expense of further matching flights to form mini breaks to Dublin.

If you don't take the first leg from DUB, then your TATL flight is cancelled. That's why TimCrawley's discovery above is so useful. Forummers have chosen not to take the final leg back to DUB but it means asking not to have your baggage through-ticketed and there's some thought that airlines might start acting against that missing leg too which again is why Tim's discovery is so useful.

You don't have to do a mini break, you can just fly out and straight back again. The cost of the positioning flights will be a small amount when set against the savings of using the AMS/DUB trick.

Certainly you should not miss the first DUB-LON leg. By missing the first leg, you run the risk of having the remaining legs cancelled.

That said, people have missed the first leg (especially if it's a BA flight connecting to a VS flight) and have, in the past, been fine to check into the VS flight having missed the first leg, but I wouldn't recommend it. I'm not sure anyone on this board would really commend missing the first leg.

People on the whole miss the final leg, yes. Some people have suggested caution (BA auditing your Executive Club account etc), but I think that would only become an issue if you were to repeat this process regularly.

Whiterose and Nylon, thanks very much for the info, much appreciated.

Pete, would it be worth changing the title of the thread to reflect why its now a Sticky? I am happy for you to do that if you feel it appropriate.

Does anyone have any idea what the cost is of moving the fourth leg BA fare (I bucket) once the first three legs have been flown?

Let's say that when you book the first ex-DUB ticket (1), you make the fourth leg to be at some arbitrary distance in the future, i.e. before you actually know when your next ex-DUB ticket (2) will be.

Once I've booked 2, I'll then want to move that fourth leg of 1 to, say, the day before my first flight of 2.

Might the change fee be comparable to the cost of a positioning flight?

Thanks!

I have read reports elsewhere of BA allowing some pax to miss the first leg but this appears to be when there have been extended interruptions to service such as severe weather.

They won't always do it and they don't legally have to either and they could clamp down on it if they feel it is getting abused. Just like they have with short checking bags.

The only safe way to get your luggage short checked is to have either an overnight stay before the last leg or hVe the final leg from a different airport where you'll have to collect your bags in any event.

But presumably it would be VS not BA blocking pax from taking leg 2, if leg 1 was missed, right?

I've tried numerous times to do the multiple city booking and it doesn't work for me. What am I doing wrong?
I've tried Expedia.ie and uk
I always get can't find flights....