V-Flyer

Hi there everyone.

I'm looking to find the cheapest way to get from London to Hong Kong later in the year to go to a friend's wedding, but unfortunately due to not being able to take much/any time off work I need to do this in the shortest possible timeframe. It's a Saturday wedding and so to actually return on the Saturday (I believe there's a flight around midnight) is actually possible, but I then I get stung by the "not staying over on a Saturday night" rule.

Have any of you got any tips on a way around this, or indeed what the jet lag situation is likely to be if I (say) flew out on a Thursday, arrived on Friday and then flew back on either the Saturday or Sunday night to ideally be in work on Monday morning.

I know it's a crazy schedule, but hopefully someone will have a clever idea or an idea of how poor/tired/both I'm going to be by trying to stick to it. Much as I'd love a week off and an UC return flight (even with the new Onesie!) I don't think that's likely this time, equally I don't want to miss one of my best friend's big days.

Your thoughts please???

I once did out of London on the Friday service, into HKG Saturday afternoon, party that night, slept it off on Sunday and took the midnight flight back to London, back into the office Monday morning. Didn't even miss any time at work. It is do-able, but frankly:

(a) I was younger then
(b) That was the BA service, and I always sleep better with them than with VS

Cathay have 2 daytime flights HKG-LHR so you should be able to get back to the UK on the Sunday catching one of those.

The obvious way to avoid the Saturday night rule is to book a reward flight, if you can. This is one of the situations when even an economy redemption is great value.

In terms of jetlag, I think you'll be OK when you're out there. I've done Weds night to Sunday and functioned OK on arrival on Thurs and then completely fine on Friday.

Coming back will tough on the first day but after that day and a decent sleep I would personally be no more knackered than usual.

I wouldn't take a dayflight back, though. I would definitely do the overnight and make every conceivable effort to get into UC for that leg at least.

It depends if you think you might go there again within a year. If you will then you can buy two roundtrips - one originating in UK and one in HK and pair up the outbounds to make a return.
However, as you say cost is an issue you may not want to do that.
Hate to send people to another airline but I do not think CX have the saturday night rule and - as mentioned by another poster - they also have daytime flights. In fact I think there are 3 that leave on sunday and arrive sunday evening.

If I had to go VS and could not wait until the Sunday to return then I would buy a mileage ticket which does not require a saturday night stay.
Not got any miles ? then you can buy them. In fact right now there is a miles bonus of 20% so if you buy 42k you get 50k which will cost you about £650 and remember no saturday stay.

Normally regarding jetlag it is not bad going out but you do suffer when coming back. You will wake up very early the next day in HK but generally the evening time isn't too bad.