Ex-DUB trick being monitored/closed - be aware

Just wanted to add this this. Being London based, I did AMS-LHR-LAX-LHR-AMS, Economy on the way out, UC on the way back, for £1100 in feb

This was with BA between AMS - LHR

So is the ex-DUB trick completely closed now? I just keep getting the "The seats you selected are no longer available" message...

Edit : Nevermind, scrap that. Can't get DUB to work, AMS and BRU are £500 higher. but seem to be getting the same price and seats available ex-MIL, so I'll just do that, all the same I guess!

Cheapest ex-Europe does tend to vary.

OSL has been good in the past and it looks like DUB's time is over (farewell DUB we knew you well) and it will move onto another starting point destination.

LIS, MAD and CPH might be worth a try as well. The problem is the further you get away from LON the less flight choices there are from LHR due to the time taken to fly there and then you will need to spend a night away too unless you do your out and back the day before the long haul sector and sleep at home.

As always the best advice is to look a several starting points and check prices and timings.

So is the ex-DUB trick completely closed now? I just keep getting the "The seats you selected are no longer available" message...

Edit : Nevermind, scrap that. Can't get DUB to work, AMS and BRU are £500 higher. but seem to be getting the same price and seats available ex-MIL, so I'll just do that, all the same I guess!

Ex Dublin is still there and still often the cheapest going transatlantic. Expedia will no longer work when using Aer Lingus so either choose BA flights or use bookers which still works fine with Aer Lingus.

[mitchja]

I've just found several VS routes ex-DUB on Opodo which let me get as far as the payment stage so I think the issue is just with Expedia and not the actual fares or route.

MIA return for £1146 over the New Year is one example, those more the dates either way and the fare jumps up though.

So is the ex-DUB trick completely closed now? I just keep getting the "The seats you selected are no longer available" message...

Edit : Nevermind, scrap that. Can't get DUB to work, AMS and BRU are £500 higher. but seem to be getting the same price and seats available ex-MIL, so I'll just do that, all the same I guess!

Ex Dublin is still there and still often the cheapest going transatlantic. Expedia will no longer work when using Aer Lingus so either choose BA flights or use bookers which still works fine with Aer Lingus.

It seems to be the other way round for me. Eg DUB to JFK using Aer Lingus as the connecting flights works at around £1050 and let's you get to the payment stage. Pick the ones using BA and you get the "seats are no longer available" error.

David

Just back from LAS. Had no problem getting our hold luggage tagged up for LGW. Just said we had a change of plans and used work as the reason for not doing the last DUB trip.

So I'd say to anyone worried, put the puppy eyes on and you should be ok!

AC

Dublin route still works. Dates might be strange. ita matrix is the one which shows them up.

Just got DUB->LHR (ba business) LGW->LAS (vs upper) on 23rd December, 7 days back the same way, 1172 ukp. I've paid 1152 ukp to go PE direct before on VS...

Enter DUB (click advance routing)
ba lon vs
Enter LAS
vs lon ba

Choose business class, 23/12/15, 5-8 days, GBP for currency.

Now getting it through an engine to book it. Phone VS with the flight numbers?

Dublin route still works. Dates might be strange. ita matrix is the one which shows them up.

Just got DUB->LHR (ba business) LGW->LAS (vs upper) on 23rd December, 7 days back the same way, 1172 ukp. I've paid 1152 ukp to go PE direct before on VS...

Enter DUB (click advance routing)
ba lon vs
Enter LAS
vs lon ba

Choose business class, 23/12/15, 5-8 days, GBP for currency.

Now getting it through an engine to book it. Phone VS with the flight numbers?

Try searching for the flights on kayak.co.uk, using the multi-city search. It will then return the results (shows as £1177) with a link through to lastminute.com where you can make the booking.

Result of the flight search:

http://www.kayak.co.uk/flights/DUB-LHR/ ... 1/business

Just back from LAS. Had no problem getting our hold luggage tagged up for LGW. Just said we had a change of plans and used work as the reason for not doing the last DUB trip.

So I'd say to anyone worried, put the puppy eyes on and you should be ok!

Where was your flight back to DUB from - LGW or LHR?

Just use sky scanner. Dub route still works just fine. Flights to vegas from lgw return coming in at £1,200 for upper.

Just back from LAS. Had no problem getting our hold luggage tagged up for LGW. Just said we had a change of plans and used work as the reason for not doing the last DUB trip.

So I'd say to anyone worried, put the puppy eyes on and you should be ok!

Where was your flight back to DUB from - LGW or LHR?

Our flight back to DUB was from LGW as well. There would have been a 6hr wait and I was tempted to use the quick hotel rest reason. But went for the change of plans work wise and the very kind lady tagged us up for LGW without any fuss.

We saved about £500 on the Expedia package by doing the Ex-DUB trick. So we extended the Dublin visit before LAS and had a mini free holiday in itself!

Just to confirm the experience Always Chilled had - (above).

This was our first time of using the ex-Dub method...though it was ex-AMS in our case. Our route was LAS - MAN - AMS. When we checked in at LAS using the kerbside check-in area, the agent tagged our bag to AMS before we even had chance to ask for MAN.
When I asked for the bags to be checked only to MAN, the agent apologised for not asking me in the first place and happily rechecked them to MAN without any fuss at all!

Top tip. Just have hand luggage! It's not like you can't pick up a toothbrush and toothpaste from a CVS/Walgreens on the corner of SF :-)

With both BA and VS allowing you two pieces of hand luggage, surely there is enough clothes for at least 7-10 days!

That definitely will work, just taking cabin luggage, I'm guessing (hoping)??? Got a booking from Expedia, doing Brussels to LHR, LHR to Miami and then back again, but I plan to just have cabin bags and not take the final leg (LHR to Brussels). From what I'm reading here, it looks like that will work ok, am I right in my understanding? Would love some reassurance here please, really don't fancy being stranded. Or worse!!!

Just remember the BA and VS hand baggage limits are very different.

BA = 23kg
VS = 12kg

Just back from LAS on a DUB-LAX/LAS-LGW/LHR-ORK itinerary. No issues or questions at check in and was checked in only to LGW with no mention of our onward flight to ORK (presumably as they couldn't check us in anyway due to airport change).

Unfortunately we just missed our flight to ORK due to M25 traffic hence we had to go home instead. Never mind

Just remember the BA and VS hand baggage limits are very different.

BA = 23kg
VS = 12kg

Just checked the VS site again, it says you can take 2 pieces of hand luggage, max individual weight 12 kegs, as you say, but combined weight max of 16 kgs, am I reading that right? Just occurred to me that our checked bags this time, going out, only weighed 13 and 15 kegs respecitvely! And a lot of that was clothes we recycled.....

[honey lamb]

Just back from LAS on a DUB-LAX/LAS-LGW/LHR-ORK itinerary. No issues or questions at check in and was checked in only to LGW with no mention of our onward flight to ORK (presumably as they couldn't check us in anyway due to airport change).

Unfortunately we just missed our flight to ORK due to M25 traffic hence we had to go home instead. Never mind

Hmmph! And there was I waiting for you at the airport to welcome you with true Irish hospitality.

It might not have been due to an airport change (although it probably was) if you were on a BA codeshare. I couldn't do LHR-ORK recently because of that - and I wanted a through-check

Sorry about that,hope you didn't wait too long

It was an EI coded / operated flight so no codeshare issue.

[honey lamb]

Sorry about that,hope you didn't wait too long

It was an EI coded / operated flight so no codeshare issue.

Nah! I checked the time of the arrival of the flight into LGW, gauged the length of time to get to LHR and calculated your potential flight from there and then thought - Sod it, if they have any sense, they'll go straight home!!

Indeed, there is a difference from BA and VS on hand luggage. As long as you have your liquids sorted, you'd be able to take pretty much a reasonably large piece of hold luggage onboard with BA. Not so much with VS.

As for short checkin, the lesson is don't rely on it. Sure its early day with this sort of stuff with VS, but no doubt they'll be enforcing it consistently.

Nowadays, I'm not even sure if I can short check my hold luggage to LHR on the OUTWARDS leg, ie: DUB-LHR (overnight) LAX, because of this sort of procedure. I'm pretty confident the person on the desk will allow me to do that, but the warnings are that don't be surprised if they don't.

I'm puzzled by BA's very generous hand baggage allowance.

I assume they're relying on the fact most passengers don'tuse their full allowance because surely there's no way the overhead lockers on a shorthaul A320 could accommodate 150+ 23kg suitcases. Anyone who's flown on a full A320 will know capacity's at a premium even on airlines with much smaller allowances.

[mitchja]

The last couple of BA domestic flights I've flown on have been chaos for this very reason, there's barely enough room in the over-head lockers now for all the extra hand luggage. It's seems to take longer to board now too

I'm puzzled by BA's very generous hand baggage allowance.

This may be the answer.

A few years ago they had a campaign and a comparison tool that compared BA with the LCCs and part of that was the hand bag allowance which was higher on the LCCs than BA so not wanting to lose any business they basically matched the LCCs allowances. They therefore created a rod for their own backs.

They also recently started 'hand baggage only' fares but kept the limit at 23kg.

To me hand baggage is for stuff you might need on a flight - book, bag of sweets, toiletries, jumper and maybe a change of pants. Also a couple of bears manage to creep into mine!

I wouldn't want to rely on being able to short check bags, hence the plan to take cabin luggage only. Was looking at bags that comply with dimensions for both VS and BA, look to be enough to accommodate a few changes for a hot climate, especially when staying in a house where there are washing machine facilities. Toiletries I can buy out there so that's not an issue either.

Surely, if you only have cabin bags and nothing checked in, there isn't anything to stop you from not taking the final leg back to wherever in Europe???? Or have I got this wrong?????