Schiphol and LHR or Possibly Brussels airport rambling question

You'd have to change your ticket FYI - unless you had already booked a separate ticket from Heathrow home. If you don't show up for the first leg out of Brussels, the airline will cancel you entire ticket. In that case, do you have to fly through London? Can't you get a flight from Amsterdam home through a US city?

I would stick with my original tickets and do a little backtracking. I've changed airports before in London (Heathrow to Gatwick) and while it is set up to do so as efficiently as possible with the buses, there is still the unknown stress of traffic which can have a big impact.

Remember, your bags (if any checked) won't be checked straight through and you will need to wait to claim them at London City prior to making your transfer to Heathrow. Then you will need to check them in again.

What airline are you flying?

It will be a lot closer / easier just to go back to Brussels from Amsterdam and take the flights you already have.

Amsterdam and Brussels aren’t that far apart. Don't get hung up on the idea that you are backtracking.

You're talking about 120 miles--2 hours and 22 minutes between Amsterdam Central Station and the Brussels Airport. Then it's a 1.2 mile hike from the train station into the terminal.

Having flown out of LHR, AMS and BRU, I would stick to your original plan and fly home from the much easier BRU Airport. It’s smaller, and is only 15 minutes by train from the Brussels Centraal train station 🚉 and there are 18 daily express trains linking Bruges directly to BRU airport in 90 minutes.

The tickets are BA Avios reward flights, so we could change that first leg for $65 fee. Not touching London to Austin leg. That’s hard to book on miles. We never check bags, so that’s not a worry. Thanks for the advice thus far. The Brussels flight is 7 am, so definitely would need to spend the night before in Brussels.

Brussels Centraal train station is a five-minute walk from the Grote Markt ( Grand Place) Plenty of hotels near the Grand Place.

If would help to know your dates so we could give relevant advice.

I assumed from the LHR connection that you are flying British Airways or its partner American. Without knowing your dates, I picked a random date in July and saw that in addition to the early flight at 7:10 from AMS to London City Airport, there is a 7:40 am flight that goes to Heathrow, in plenty of time for the 13:00 flight to Dallas ( which I also assumed is your long-haul flight.)

There is also a direct flight from AMS to DFW on American Airlines that shows on the BA schedule for the same price as the connecting flight.

If you are indeed flying BA, or booked with AA, you should talk to the airline and see what are your actual options and the cost of the change.

In no case would I want to transfer from London City airport to Heathrow, even with 4.5 hours to do that.

If you consult a map you will see London City Airport is due east of Heathrow, on the opposite side of London (east instead of west). It is surrounded by urban development, and there will be a lot of commuter traffic at that hour of the morning, whether you go by taxi or tube. If you absolutely HAD to do it, the best way might be DLR from the airport to Jubilee Line, transfer to the Bakerloo to Paddington—-the TFL journey planner says that would be about 45 minutes at that hour of the morning. From Paddington it is a comfortable 20-minute ride to Heathrow T5 on the Heathrow Express (buy tix 90+ days ahead to get them for £5.50). But we avoid using the Tube with luggage, especially at commute hours.

OK, so you posted while I was writing. So these are award tickets, but with what kind of miles? BA Avios, AA miles, Alaska miles, or ? Are you sure you can change the originating airport without affecting the long-haul flight? We have made changes to our award flights on occasion, but the online process only allowed changes in date or time on the same itinerary, not an airport change. (To do that, we had to cancel and re-book).

And then there have to be award seats available on the new flight.

You don't HAVE to spend the night before in Brussels. (But you certainly could.) The BRU airport is well connected by train to several other towns e.g. Leuven and Antwerp. I really enjoyed my day trip to Leuven and wished I had stayed a night or two. I see (checking now) that there are regular direct trains in the morning that take about 15 minutes from Leuven to the airport station. If you look on a map, Leuven is about the same distance from BRU as the center of Brussels.

Lola, I have changed airports on BA Avios reward flights before, but I believe I called to do it. So not online. Typically the super hard availability is the long haul. The inter Europe flights are much easier to get. But again, the connecting BA flight from A’dam is a dud. So probably not worth the hassle and change fee.

“I thought it'd be easy to swap in an Amsterdam to London flight, but the only early morning flight goes to London City Airport, not Heathrow. There's a 4.5 hour connection time, so we could taxi over to Heathrow from there. But that seems stressful. It's at 7:30 am, so not sure of the traffic situation.”

Where did you look for flights? I checked the KLM website and on May 10 there is a 7:20 am KLM flight to London Heathrow, arriving at 7:40. Another option is the 8:35 flight, arriving at 8:50.
However I think it’s easier to keep your original flights. Amsterdam and Brussels are connected by direct trains. Yes, it will be backtracking, but it’s by far the easiest option.

Also, I really don’t want to be pedantic, but it’s Schiphol and Rijksmuseum. Not Schipohl and Rikjsmuseum.

Well, if I break up the flight and fly KLM to London and something goes wrong and the flight is delayed, I’ll have no recourse. British Airways won’t be obliged to accommodate me on a later flight home, I’ll just be stuck in London. So that seems like the riskiest idea in this day and age with flight delays, short staffing, etc. I used to do things like that all the time, but have gotten older and wiser. Taking all of the above advice in mind, I think the Brussels option is safer all around.

That is the best choice, I would say. You absolutely do not want to take an unconnected flight to Heathrow the same day as your long haul flight back to the US. And if BA can’t put you on a flight from AMS that lands at Heathrow, I would stick with the Brussels flight. Having faced many snafus on our recent (September) trip to Italy, many involving BA but not their fault, I advise sticking with the simplest option. And hope Heathrow is not still canceling short-haul flights in and out due to lack of staff when you travel.

The train from AMS-Brussels is easy 1.5 hour journey. Thalys has multiple trains a day, and there are also a couple of Eurostar options. Booking early gets best rates (a round trip in April is currently 58 euro). I had some unfortunate train strike issues this year that affected my Thalys/Eurostar journey, so I wouldn't personally be in motion the day before my flight home, but hopefully all of that nonsense will be over next summer. BTW the trains arrive at Brussels Midi which is not the nicest area (I stayed in a nice hotel, surrounded by a not nice neighborhood). I'd pick a different spot for the night.

Amsterdam and Brussels are well connected by train. There is an hourly regular IC train between Amsterdam and Brussels which will take you 2 hours and 45 minutes. And then there are some special trains. My daughter temporarily lives in Belgium and sometimes takes the IC train when she comes home to the Netherlands. She always buys the ticket on the day she wants to travel and never had any problems so far.

You could find a hotel at Brussels airport to spend the night. Takes all the last minute panic about sleeping in or trains running late out of the equation.