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

Thanks Smid, it serves as a sanity check for me more than anything else so much appreciated. Yes you are right and we are flexible to a degree so will keep playing, thanks again.

Can anyone help with this...

We have booked the following all on one ticket

DUB - LHR 22/10

LHR - NYC 23/10

NYC - LHR ( We have got the 08.15 from NYC so it arrives LHR at 20.00 on the same day ) 28/10

LHR - DUB 29/10 ( Next day departs at 19.00hrs )

I have two questions if anyone can help me out?

Will BA check our bags through to NYC on the 22/10? or can we request only to LHR

Due to the fact we are staying overnight in London and not departing until the following evening, will they only check our bags to LHR?

Thanks in advance,

Steve

You will have to collect bags at LHR, they don't have enough space to store bags over night.

With my first Ex EU fast approaching, I was wondering if any VFlyers have asked for short checked bags on their trips?

We have a short connection booked DUB-LGW-LAS-LGW-DUB, and were originally planning on travelling with just two cabin bags each, but my aunty is travelling with us and wants to put a bag in the hold.

I have read on the BA flyertalk that there has been a clamp down on their side, but was interested to hear peoples experiences with Virgin?

If all else fails we can ask the mother in law to check an extra bag in (she is travelling on same flight in economy) at a cost of £60

With my first Ex EU fast approaching, I was wondering if any VFlyers have asked for short checked bags on their trips?

We have a short connection booked DUB-LGW-LAS-LGW-DUB, and were originally planning on travelling with just two cabin bags each, but my aunty is travelling with us and wants to put a bag in the hold.

I have read on the BA flyertalk that there has been a clamp down on their side, but was interested to hear peoples experiences with Virgin?

If all else fails we can ask the mother in law to check an extra bag in (she is travelling on same flight in economy) at a cost of £60

From my understanding, you have made the one error for ex-EU flights - no change of UK airport or overnight stop on the return leg to prevent short-checking. (Assuming you were planning to bin the last leg of the return back to Dublin).

If your connection through LGW-DUB is short, there is evidence that both BA & Virgin are clamping down on short-checking bags, as they know it's highly likely you are not going to show for the final leg of the itinerary, which is against the T&C's.

I knew exactly what I was doing when I booked, couldn't get the cheaper fare with an alternative flight from a different London airport.

There haven't been any reports of VS refusing to short check baggage for quite a while now. When I last did it at JFK in December the agent didn't bat an eyelid.

It is not without risk but I'd say you'd have to be very unlucky to be made to pay extra to short check.

Hi all,

Quick question, if I travel DUB - LGW with Aer Lingus and have an overnight stay before taking the VS flight to MCO the following day, will my luggage be checked through to MCO from DUB or can I pick it up at LGW (my preference) before rechecking it in the following day?

Thanks,

Steve

Hi all,

Quick question, if I travel DUB - LGW with Aer Lingus and have an overnight stay before taking the VS flight to MCO the following day, will my luggage be checked through to MCO from DUB or can I pick it up at LGW (my preference) before rechecking it in the following day?

I'm not sure if they even _can_ check it all the way through to MCO from DUB overnight, even on the same airline. I think you'll have no problem getting it back, I've done so on a BA to BA T5 overnight both times I've flown.

Is there anything in the Ts and Cs that says they can charge for short checking. Just curious.

Anyone else having difficulties searching through Expedia / ebookers for any virgin ex eu fares, or is it just me?

[mitchja]

Anyone else having difficulties searching through Expedia / ebookers for any virgin ex eu fares, or is it just me?

Yes, Expedia has been playing up for days here, fares to FL in the New Year are jumping between £1055 and £7850!!! I just put it down to lack of availability. MIA seems to be very booked up already for New Year even with the 2nd VS service there?

MCO is (or at least was) coming in cheapest at £1055 but I don't really want to fly home from MCO as I'll end up getting stuck at LGW. There seems no way to route through MAN using the DUB thing unless anyone knows a way to do that? Tried the multiple flights but that just fails completely.

I'm looking at NYC and SFO - no availability, on any dates?...
Is this the end of Ex-EU?

I'm looking at NYC and SFO - no availability, on any dates?...
Is this the end of Ex-EU?

No. It just means that there isn't any availability on those routes.

Also depends where you are looking as that site could have sold out its inventory.

I've seen availability from being there to none to there again in the space of 30 minutes on google flights.

I'm looking at NYC and SFO - no availability, on any dates?...
Is this the end of Ex-EU?

The best of Ex-Dub has been based on price matching BA sale fares, which went as low as 750 quid for west coast US.

There's no particular decent ex-Dub fares at the moment, unless you count the 1300-1400 ones.

Well I am back from my first Ex-EU and no problem with getting our bags checked back to gatwick only from LAS yesterday!

Out of interest, was your return to Dub originating from LGW or LHR?

Gatwick-Dub and a very short connection too

Also just back from my first trip using this method. There was 5 of us who booked these tickets for this flight to and from LAS. All went flowingly perfect. Simple as that!

Just read all 22 pages of this thread to bone up on everything ex-EU related. Used ITA Matrix and Google flights for the first time to price up some UC flights to Miami next year. Getting a nice price of £1100 on eBookers.

I read a few people commenting on the fact that if you book on Expedia, you can use your Virgin CC and get the bonus miles as it is Virgin who invoice. Is this the same with eBookers do you know? I can't get the flight to come up on Expedia...so tried eBookers, noticed that the websites looked exactly the same minus the branding!

Evening!

Searching multiple sites for LAX on April 8th, returning April 22nd. Looking at ex-DUB but the best I can get is LAX-LHR-LGW-DUB. My worry is the risk they'll change my LGW-DUB to LHR-DUB "to save me the trouble" of changing airports. Does this ever happen?

Ideally, we would do the DUB-LON a week before and the LGW-DUB a day or two after LAX-LHR but I'm losing the plot trying to find a search engine that will let me do it and I've tried Google Fares, Expedia, Opodo, ITA Matrix, although I admit I'm not an expert in using the more complex search engines...

Can anyone help me find a route that will work? If all else fails, I will go for the LAX-LHR-LGW-DUB as a last resort.

Thanks in anticipation,

Rod

[mitchja]

I've had my ex-DUB VS flight to BOS at the end of Aug booked via Expedia for months now, also with the last flight leg departing LGW.

Other than BA changing the flight time to 4 hours later in the day, it's still departing from LGW.

I don't think you can book any ex-DUB flight with lay-overs of much more than 24hours in London in either direction on the same ticket. The day before on the DUB>LON flight is the best you are going to get.

It will be the same coming back as well. Usually the flight to DUB is the same day you land off the international flight though sometimes if you are lucky, it's the day after that, but will no further out than that.

You can indeed book with a longer stop over but this will add to the price. At a very minimum it will be £ 174 which is the ex UK APD which kicks in once a connection goes over 24 hours (scheduled) and probably more.

On my current trip my Lon-dub leg is the day after I land back in the uk but I could have done it a week
Later - with a change (upwards) in the price.

Google flights should give you options but you need to use the 'multi city' option to select the dates.

[honey lamb]

Another successful ex-EU fare, this time to Santiago, Chile on BA in CW using AMS as my point of exit and booked with Expedia. It was less than half the price I would have paid if I had booked from Cork or Dublin on the BA website or Expedia so I'm more than happy with that.

One interesting thing I discovered when researching the fares, the BA website stated that First was not available from Dublin or Cork on the LHR-SCL leg but it was readily available on the ex-AMS flights. I wonder why?

Just completed an ex-EU without issue but that almost wasn't the case.

Flying on VS on Friday from LAX to LHR (so landing Saturday) with the last leg LHR - DUB on Sunday morning. They automatically tagged my bags to Dublin and then said "your luggage is checked all the way to Dublin". I said "Oh - no, the flight to Dublin isn't until Sunday, I need my things as I'm only taking one of these bags to Dublin with me."

They looked at each other and had to make a call - eventually whoever they spoke to said that as my connection was over 12 hours they could do it but the girls on the gate seemed to be under the impression it had to be over a day, regardless of whether there was an overnight stop.