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

Using your dates and flights google flights is giving me a price of £1,218 and saying I should call VS to book so that might actually be the best option.

An alternative might be to do the last leg ex LGW or LCY on the 29th and as you'll be changing airports you'll have to collect your bags.

Thanks for looking! I tried calling VS but they couldn't offer me anything under £2000 ish which is what Expedia was giving me. I thought I'd try calling back later for a different agent, but in the meantime changed my dates slightly and FINALLY managed to get Hipmunk to show me flights if I split the whole thing down to multicity including the outbound, which would let me pick the flights I want to get the longest in the CH! Originally if I tried to force that or tried to put LGW/LCY it was just telling me no flights available on this route.

Long story short managed to grab Tues 19th July
6.40 depart DUB to LHR arriving 8.05
out to LA on the VS23 at 1.05pm

Fri 29th depart LAX on the VS8 arriving LHR 12.20pm on the 30th
Booked on an Aer Lingus flight back to Dublin on the 31st which I'll be able to drop. Not sure of exact price as I paid in $ but was $1,854.60 so should come in around £1,250 - paid £1,470 for around the same dates last year so very happy indeed!

Just shows that persistence pays!

Just joined the forum after reading this thread from beginning to end. It is incredible what savings can be made with a little effort. Thank you to the OP and all other contributors for their useful posts. I am looking at flights for mid-August. The aim is to get from LGW to MCO (Orlando) as cheaply as possible without it becoming an ordeal. I live about 12 miles from Gatwick so flying to/from Dublin wouldn't be too painful.

I am playing about with all sorts of methods but have been aware of advice contained within these posts about booking the last flight (the expendable one) within 24 hours of the trans-Atlantic one to avoid higher costs (taxes?). But I decided to play around with this on Google Flights and pushed the dates rather to extremes. The actual holiday dates would be 16th August to 3 September but I put the first flight (DUB-LGW) on June 24th, then the LGW-MCO-LGW on August 16th/September 3rd and LGW-DUB on October 1st. The price for an Economy seat was £527 against a direct price from Virgin of £1,400!

The reason for choosing the June date was that was the latest date I could get that price as it jumps to £800 the following day and the October date as it is my birthday weekend so a trip over and a flight back on Ryanair the following day would be good. Is there any reason that this wouldn't work? Google Flights says to call Virgin to book. We haven't yet decided whether to go to Orlando so I'm not ready to book anything but am curious to know whether it would be possible this way?

I am playing about with all sorts of methods but have been aware of advice contained within these posts about booking the last flight (the expendable one) within 24 hours of the trans-Atlantic one to avoid higher costs (taxes?).

I think it is try to ensure the last (expendable) flight is the day after your transatlantic return so that you should get no pushback about checking your bags to LGW rather than DUB.

I realise that the advice was either to make it the day after the transatlantic leg or to go from a different airport on the last leg so that you can get your bags back. But the advice seemed to be also to make it within 24 hours of landing to keep the price down but in my example above this doesn't seem to be the case? This gives the opportunity to have a weekend in Dublin (or Brussels, Copenhagen etc) at the beginning and/or end of the trip.

I realise that the advice was either to make it the day after the transatlantic leg or to go from a different airport on the last leg so that you can get your bags back. But the advice seemed to be also to make it within 24 hours of landing to keep the price down but in my example above this doesn't seem to be the case? This gives the opportunity to have a weekend in Dublin (or Brussels, Copenhagen etc) at the beginning and/or end of the trip.

Spending less than 24hrs in the UK after starting the trip saves on UK APD, the rate of APD from the UK to USA is £67 in economy, and £134 in any other class. Most the saving made is NOT from the tax saved, it's from the discount the airlines give for flying indirect through their hub.

Sometimes the discount tickets will require a discount of less than 24hrs, sometimes it won't, it just depends on the fare rules.

Great, thanks for the explanation. Has anyone had any experience of booking their first flight so far in advance of the second flight or the third from the fourth?

Apd is now £ 72 / £ 144

But the savings are far greater than that

I did some calculations on a flyer talk thread recently and the APD saving was roughly only 25% of the saving ( even in economy). The rest is airline pricing.

What I would also do is price the trip to end in the U.K. Savings not as much (but still substantial) plus no worrying about skipping the last leg.

Hi,

Looking for either MIA, MCO or CUN for the first week of Jan roughly. Thought I'd try Dublin. Some good prices into MCO but I cannot replicate these anywhere. Even fired up a VPN to set my location as Ireland. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Hi,

Looking for either MIA, MCO or CUN for the first week of Jan roughly. Thought I'd try Dublin. Some good prices into MCO but I cannot replicate these anywhere. Even fired up a VPN to set my location as Ireland. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Recent sales have been quite restricted on dates. Are you using the ita matrix to find them?

I'm seeing MCO 1051 on VS, Dublin via Manchester, 1st of January... Can get 740 odd quid to one of your destinations via AA, but didn't look too hard too. All business class.

Thanks Smid.

Yeah, looking on the ITA Matrix but finding it increasingly difficult to replicate the prices on any site.

Thanks Smid.

Yeah, looking on the ITA Matrix but finding it increasingly difficult to replicate the prices on any site.

Take down the exact flight codes and flight numbers and phone them up. As long as you've clicked through to the actual fare to check, it should be bookable over the phone.

Never used a site to book any.

I'm still interested to know whether anyone has booked ex-EU flights with quite a gap between inbound to the UK and the final outbound flight as described at my first post above? Also, in terms of actually booking is it just a question of ringing e.g. Virgin and booking through them? I would have thought that they would be quite suspicious at the price but as long as it's a legal booking would they have to accept it?

I'm still interested to know whether anyone has booked ex-EU flights with quite a gap between inbound to the UK and the final outbound flight as described at my first post above? Also, in terms of actually booking is it just a question of ringing e.g. Virgin and booking through them? I would have thought that they would be quite suspicious at the price but as long as it's a legal booking would they have to accept it?

You can book via whoever you want - direct with the airline or on one of the on line travel sites. There is an advantage of booking direct in that it is easier to sort out any problems if a flight is rescheduled for example.

Why would they be suspicious of the price? It is the airlines who are offering these prices in the first place!

As to the gap before the last flight why would that raise suspicions? People have all sorts of complex travel patterns . If you are on the phone they may ask "are you sure that's the right date?" but they wouldn't refuse the booking out of hand.

This isn't a 'mistake' fare, why would anyone be suspicious? It's a perfectly valid way of travelling at a cheaper price.

Your > 24 connection on the final leg probably added about 150 quid to your price though.

Thank you both for the reassurance. "Suspicious" was probably the wrong word it was more whether it would be difficult to make the booking, making the rep understand what you are trying to book but it would be worth it anyway. I tried the same search as I had earlier over the dates form 24th June to October 1st and it is now £599. Curiously, I changed the last leg to early morning on 5th September (so less than 24 hours after flight 3) and the price stayed the same.

Curiously, I changed the last leg to early morning on 5th September (so less than 24 hours after flight 3) and the price stayed the same.

As Smid says, that would normally increase the price but that isn't always the case - it's down to how the particular airline has priced the fare classes on that particular day or days. If you're on a BA final leg in Club Europe/Club World, for example, then if it's within 24 hours of the previous leg then it will quite likely be a different booking code than one where it's more than 24 hours ... the prices of those booking codes are usually different on the same day but not always and, of course, a "within 24 hours" on one day is not always more expensive than a "more than 24 hours" the following day (or a month or two later, which I once booked if you go all the way back to the top of this thread!).

I made some ex-DUB bookings last year with VS UK-US wrapped in BA DUB-UK fares where it worked out cheaper to do two different combined DUB-UK-US-UK-DUB business class bookings but pay the bit extra to 'stretch' the first combo UK-DUB final leg by a few months to be the 'positioning' flight for the following DUB-UK-US-UK-DUB meaning it saved me the cost of the UK-DUB 'positioning' flight for my second trip, gave me that flight in Business instead of doing an Easyjet cheapo and also meant my first trip was fully completed (so no risk of losing miles / TPs retrospectively) as well as being no discussion whatsoever on retrieving my luggage at DUB-UK-US-UK point on my first combo. Booked those two different combined DUB-UK-US-UK-DUB business class bookings on Expedia Ireland but other sites are available.

I'm just starting to look at these fairs now and finding it quite difficult to look at all options outlined in these pages - but grateful for all the input.

One question though.

I was playing around with Google flights (which is quite nice IMHO for trying lots of different options/combinations fairly quickly) and followed the process as if I was going to book.

Eventually, I got to a "Book this with British Airways" link which then took me to BA etc with the itinerary intact.

Now after logging in to my EC account, the flights and price was still there, but quoted in Euros.

Ignoring currency fluctuations and credit card exchange rates for a moment, has anyone actually booked using this method, and might there be any perceived downsides to it?

It will price in the currency of whatever country your trip starts in.

There should be no downside at all - unless you do cancel and there have been major currency shifts.

Ok - thanks Tonty.

Thanks, TimCrawley, I think I have just about got my head around what you did. Sadly, I can't afford 2 trips but your plan works for one as I described above. Looks like that's the way to go. I've been looking at Economy but have seen many people on here saying that they have found reasonable Business Class fares. I assume it's because I am looking during school holiday season that when I to change my Economy searches to Business Class Google Flights say it can't be done and then if I ask for other flights they seem to be normal Business Class fares.

I've found that it's much easier to take the exact flight numbers and booking class and talk to someone on the phone.

The dangers are the system automatically applying certain booking codes, which makes the price vary massively sometimes if they use some sort of automated system.

It applies especially with BA, where you'd get more tier points in a domestic US flight if using their Booking code. If booked via BA flight number, it gets 140, if booked via AA flight number its 210. Also there are automated upgrade code's which means some will automatically upgrade to First.

Also as for the lack of price change, be aware that these sales start and stop, and availability fills up. Seats aren't always going to be there. Even VS price matching isn't always matching the sales too (seen BA prices shoot up, but VS being fine). Depends on who's on sale. I think the main ones that VS and BA are matching are United and Aer Lingus from Dublin.

Apologies for what may seem a daft question but; if I book directly with Virgin over the phone after finding prices online (using Expedia/E Dreams etc), will they also book the BA Dublin to London flight at the same time?

Many thanks in advance.

Apologies for what may seem a daft question but; if I book directly with Virgin over the phone after finding prices online (using Expedia/E Dreams etc), will they also book the BA Dublin to London flight at the same time?

Many thanks in advance.

Yes, you can do it on the phone.