The ex Amsterdam trick

[preiffer]

Nope. They only provide limos in the places where THEY operate to the final destination.

In this case, you're a transfer passenger, London isn't your final destination

You can play them at the "cheaper Ex-EU" game, but I wouldn't push it too far. To be clear, VS have investigated/audited FC members who have done the "AMS trick" - and indeed BA have - and in some cases (certainly in BA's case) they've cancelled freq. flyer accounts and removed all miles because of so-called "abuse". So, I'd say you can save the money by keeping it under the radar, but push your luck/point on the CDC transfer and you might lose more than a taxi ride...

As always, you may get lucky, but I genuinely wouldn't push the issue.

I very much agree with what preiffer has written - indeed I tried to raise this earlier in the thread. Throwaway tickets are one thing, but asking for a CDC car home from the penultimate leg before the throwaway would seem to me to be asking for trouble!

[honey lamb]

I'm sure HoneyLamb said she was able to check-in to a VS flight even though her flight from AMS to LHR was on BA and that she could do it via the BA version of on-line check-in.

However I am the first to admit I may be totally wrong on that !

Tonty, you are perfectly correct. I booked via Expedia and the two flights were on the same PNR. BA actually started to tag my bags through to SFO but I stopped them preferring to check in at LHR to ensure the bag went into the UC bin. On my return I had difficulty in persuading the check-in agent from checking me all the way through even though my LON-AMS leg was from LGW.

Nope. They only provide limos in the places where THEY operate to the final destination.

In this case, you're a transfer passenger, London isn't your final destination

You can play them at the "cheaper Ex-EU" game, but I wouldn't push it too far. To be clear, VS have investigated/audited FC members who have done the "AMS trick" - and indeed BA have - and in some cases (certainly in BA's case) they've cancelled freq. flyer accounts and removed all miles because of so-called "abuse". So, I'd say you can save the money by keeping it under the radar, but push your luck/point on the CDC transfer and you might lose more than a taxi ride...

As always, you may get lucky, but I genuinely wouldn't push the issue.

To support what preiffer is saying, I had booked a ticket which had CDC eligibility. This was over the phone and when I was offered a CDC from home to the airport, the offer was withdrawn when the agent realised I had ato take a flight to get me to LHR. The offer was only good for my destination.

On my last trip to EZE I again took the ex-AMS option and this time did actually go back to AMS and from there flew to Cork for the very reason given about the airlines auditing FF accounts. It was a chore but well worth the savings

Are you able to break your journey in London before continuing to your destination on the outbound - by break I mean for a few days.
I am guessing that the original carrier (BA or KLM) would not allow this but what if you called VS directly just to change the LHR outbound sector ?

Are you able to break your journey in London before continuing to your destination on the outbound - by break I mean for a few days.
I am guessing that the original carrier (BA or KLM) would not allow this but what if you called VS directly just to change the LHR outbound sector ?

No because once you remain in the UK for more than 24 hours APD will then be charged on the ex-UK leg of your flight.

Part of the whole AMS 'trick' is that it avoids the APD because your journey originates outside of the UK but there are HMRC rules that apply

Also if you try to change your ticket in such a way that the fare basis rules are invalidated it will force a re-fare of the ticket. I would be willing to bet that stopovers (>=24hrs) are not allowed with these sorts of fares.

Can someone please explain to me (in simple, single syllable words) what the AMS trick is? Presumably starting / ending your journey outside of the UK = a cheaper price. But my experimenting on this hasn't resulted in much joy when looking!

[Neil]

Can someone please explain to me (in simple, single syllable words) what the AMS trick is? Presumably starting / ending your journey outside of the UK = a cheaper price. But my experimenting on this hasn't resulted in much joy when looking!

Yes, that is pretty much it. There are many threads on here and other sites like FT about this. If you start your journey in say AMS you don't have to pay a lot of the UK government imposed taxes (APD) which makes the flights significantly cheaper.

It tends to only really offer a big saving on J class fares.

Simply, when you book any flight from the UK you pay a substantial amount of tax - hundreds of pounds for a long haul business class flight.

Other EU countries have much lower taxes so flying out of, say, Amsterdam, Brussels or Frankfurt and connecting in London on to the long haul flight can save a lot of money as you pay that country's tax rather than the UK's (as long as the connecting flight is within 24 hours).

The disadvantage is you have to get to the afore-mentioned European city just to catch the flight back to London. That costs money - though you'll still save - but more importantly it takes time, so if you're pushed for time it's not ideal. And you can't simply not do the first leg as the rest of your ticket would become invalid.

On the way back though, you can ask for your bags to be checked to London in order to avoid the final leg back to the European city.

brilliant thank you both - I'll do some research on the next trip before blindly booking!

Out of curiosity, I've just checked on Expedia for prices for a theoretical flight on VS to Los Angeles in early September.

There's an Upper Class sale on at the moment, so the direct flight from London is £2499 return. But if you were to start in Amsterdam, the exact same VS flight is £2124.

So assuming you can find a flight to Amsterdam for, say, £75 you're saving £300. Not bad - and it would probably be a bigger saving if there wasn't a sale on.

[preiffer]

Can someone please explain to me (in simple, single syllable words) what the AMS trick is? Presumably starting / ending your journey outside of the UK = a cheaper price. But my experimenting on this hasn't resulted in much joy when looking!

Yes, that is pretty much it. There are many threads on here and other sites like FT about this. If you start your journey in say AMS you don't have to pay a lot of the UK government imposed taxes (APD) which makes the flights significantly cheaper.

It tends to only really offer a big saving on J class fares.

It's not just the taxes (it's actually less about that now).

It's that VS has to attract Euro traffic into its London hub. So, it offers discounted fares (with MUCH better terms - think: changeable Z's, etc) to those starting from a European hub. And, these fares include business class travel into LHR/LGW with someone like BA too... :w

May seem a dumb question - but ill ask it anyway. If you don't take the final leg i.e. LON-AMS and just stay in LON when you arrive back, what actually can the airlines do?

Does it breach some condition of the ticket? Meaning you would pay more. Or breach a condition of your FC membership?

A friend has done this trip a few times and has never had any come back at all.

He's just looked at LHR-LAX in UC out in June back in Sep and its ￡5500 direct with VS

Going on the same flight same dates but doing it AMS-LHR-LAX-LHR-LGW-AMS, The AMS-LHR & LGW-AMS are with BA in business and the LHR-LAX-LHR is with VS in UC gives a total flight price of ￡2300 - thats less than half !

Getting to AMS and a hotel will cost about ￡150.

So a massive saving there.

As has been pointed out, the main saving is NOT the uk APD tax.

APD on and UC ticket to USA is *only* £166.

How exactly do you book fares ex AMS? Doesn't seem to be an option from the website?

The savings are indeed huge, massive in fact. APD is nought to do with it as Preiffer says. Just plug in to Expedia an UC trip to Las Vegas returning from Los Angeles next month. Ex Heathrow = £5148. Ex Amsterdam = £2215. Identical VS flights and two BA Club Europe flights thrown in on the AMS routing. Saving for a couple = near on £6000!! Go with another couple and that's a staggering £12000 saved, makes the mind boggle

BTW it can also be cheaper for some people in Europe to fly to London then back to their home airport and onewards on the same basis of 'our' AMS trick.

Cost of flight LHR-ZRH-JFK on LX - approx £2k.

Same ZRH-JFK flight - approx £3k

[honey lamb]

How exactly do you book fares ex AMS? Doesn't seem to be an option from the website?

You have to use a site like Expedia

Know it's posted before but would you have to fly the very last leg from lhr - ams or could you just leave heathrow and head home. Would there be any repercussions?

In theory no you wouldn't have to fly that final leg.

There have been some anecdotal reports on here of airlines closing people's frequent flyer accounts - but also plenty of people saying they've done it lots of times with no problems.

So I guess you just take your chances - clearly the airlines don't want you doing it but it's certainly not illegal or anything.

Know it's posted before but would you have to fly the very last leg from lhr - ams or could you just leave heathrow and head home. Would there be any repercussions?

It's also perfectly possible to mix n'match as in, say, ex AMS but on the return why not go to a city you actually want to visit for real. Messing about on Expedia is easy as you can edit the search to your heart's content in the top left replacing the European cities - I was somewhat surprised that even places as far afield as Athens don't seem to have a significant bearing on the quote! That way, unlike AMS you're also getting a far superior BA service - often on wide bodied 767!

Incidentally getting yourself back from somewhere like ATH is peanuts on EZY!

As a very naive old guy, even though a frequent flyer refugee from BA, what exactly is the "ex-Amsterdam trick". Until recently as I didn't pay personally for the flights which were booked for me but since retirement........
Thanks

As a very naive old guy, even though a frequent flyer refugee from BA, what exactly is the "ex-Amsterdam trick".

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