This summer the family wants to see Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and possibly brief return visits to London and the lakes district over 4 weeks. We need to make airfare (and general transport) as economical as possible to make the trip affordable. I have had great success the prior 6 summers finding good airfares very early (like NOW for June/July). But my initial attempts so far have left me a little flummoxed. My first inclination was to fly into Dublin or Shannon, spend almost two weeks in rural Ireland, then take the ferry from N.Ireland to Scotland, spend about a week there, then make our way briskly to brief stops in the lakes district and London, flying home from London. However, while RT airfares to Dublin or Shannon (or open jaw Dublin/Shannon) are decent right now (around $1000), no open-jaw flights involving London are sub-$1200. We could be convinced to skip the return to London and the lakes, but there doesn't appear to be a cheaper option flying from Scotland either. Does taking the ferry back again to Ireland from Scotland to fly home from Dublin make any sense? The obvious solution would be a cheap connector flight from London to Dublin to make RT flying to/from Dublin work, but in addition to the extra costs, there are scheduling issues there, too, including a likely redundant overnight stay in Dublin to make the flight connections work. So any opinions or outside-the-box options would be welcome. Thank you...
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32345 posts
Randy, How easy or costly would it be to get to Toronto for your flight? You might have a look at Air Transat, as they often have some good prices. They've revamped their interiors in the last year or so, and offer some amenities like Club Class with better seating, expedited check-in, etc. (at extra cost of course). You could (for example) use open-jaw flights inbound to Dublin and return from either Glasgow or Gatwick. You could also look at Canadian Affair, but they use Air Transat as their carrier, so I'd probably just book with the airline. For travel from Dublin to London, you'll have to decide if you want fast transport or cheap transport. National Express (Coach) currently have fares listed as low as £14 PP on that route (those are an overnight trip unfortunately, so won't be the most comfortable). You could also look at one of the budget airlines. If you ended the Ireland portion in Belfast, you could use EasyJet to Scotland. If you want to travel from Dublin, your choices will be RyanAir or Aer Lingus. Good luck with your planning!
Posted by
2081 posts
Randy, i start playing around with in/out cities R/T vs O/J and dates. ALso, if a place to stop is iffy, i will look at cutting it out for the next time. It sucks to leave out a stop, but sometimes it has to be done. i havent price the ferrys when i was up there since i wanted fast. but to each his own. happy trails.
Posted by
PA
2856 posts
Because of the higfh Exit Tax (or whatever it is alled) applied at Heathrow your plan will always run higher.
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
The exit tax is included in the price of the ticket and imposed at all UK airports. It's no an add-on. What you see is what you pay.
Posted by
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
4087 posts
The southern UK city of Bristol has a convenient international airport with Irish connections. You could visit the south, then move on to London and home, or even go home from Bristol although that might mean connecting Bristol-Amsterdam (or Paris)-Minn. The balance between price and efficient use of time, including the costs of accommodations needed to make connections, can only be determined by vigorous research.
In general trans-Atlantic flights from the midwest next sumer have not yet shown signs of budging.
Posted by
Seattle, Wa, USA
663 posts
I've found that sometimes the airfare becomes much cheaper if you do the trip in reverse, fly into London and out of Dublin. When I went to Italy last year I checked many possible flights before I determined that flying into Milan and out of Rome was the cheapest at that time. Then I planned my trip around that.
Posted by
OP
Minneapolis, MN, USA
1525 posts
Thanks for the responses so far. Yes, I did consider doing the trip in reverse as it doesn't really matter to me either way. Very little difference in price at this time. London is still $200+ more than Ireland. If I were traveling alone I might shrug it off as too small an amount to worry about in the larger scope of things. But we're a group of 5 so that's really a $1000 difference. I can't shrug that off unless there is no other choice. I have heard talk of high airport fees in London causing flights there to be unusually high. That's ironic, since the best deal we ever got for summer airfare was to London six years ago ($565/p.p.). It's also a little frustrating when you consider that even though airfare is usually very closely tied to distance, points farther East are cheaper, including (often) Paris. If a flight home from Paris was $100 cheaper than a flight home from London, I would do that, and get Eurostar tickets between (never done that before), just to spend a little time in Paris again. And here's a maddening bit of trivia; A week ago I was searching and found an open-jaw airfare on Air France for Dublin/London that involved changing planes in Paris and then backtracking, for around $1150. Then I thought "Hmmm; if it's $1150 with an additional flight, I wonder how much just the first leg would be (Minneapolis to/from Paris)." The answer; $1600!! I've seen small discrepancies like this with connecting flights, but never one this large. Take an extra flight and save $450!! Makes no sense...
Posted by
2081 posts
Randy, Im not sure whos or hows those decisions are made, but its the way it is. 6 years is alot of time to pass and also fares. I know that WHEN you go is just about important as to WHERE. on my first trip over there last year, i spent about 1200 USD from PDX>EWR>OSL>DUB to get there and AMS/RKV/SEA/PDX on my return. just to save 100 bucks, but it cost me 6 additional hours in airports on my way there. sometimes you just have to pay the $$$ to get where you want to go unless you can change something. happy trails.