London to Aberdeen

Ah, Betsy, yes indeed these can be long flights. Have you looked into flying through Amsterdam? I was a flight there that looked much better. I did a flight once from Madison at 3 PM via St. Louis. I think that you can do better. Pam

Plenty of British Airways IAD->LHR->ABZ flights meet your needs: For example: IAD (18:35) -> LHR (6:40) : LHR (8:55) -> ABZ (10:25) IAD (22:30) -> LHR (10:35) : LHR (11:50) -> ABZ (13:20) No doubt other carriers IAD->LHR flights would connect with the BA ones, but you would need to change terminal. No point wasting hours trekking over to LTN.

When looking for tickets, use http://www.Kayak.com or http://matrix.itasoftware.com/. This will give you all the options. Assuming you have not yet bought your trans-Atlantic tickets, you can find the flights Pamela and Marco are referring to (through LHR or AMS, not changing airports). You do NOT want to do this on separate tickets if you can avoid it, and you definitely don't want to change airports. If you are not flying back from Aberdeen, be sure to "multi city" and put in your desired segments (for instance, Washington to Aberdeen and London to Washington. Again, this will give you the whole itinerary on one ticket. This means that if you miss your connection due to a problem with the flight, the airline is responsible for getting you to your destination. If you book separate tickets, YOU are responsible, and the cost of 5 last-minute tickets will be very high. If you've already bought your trans-Atlantic tickets into LHR, look into buying a roundtrip ticket from LHR to Aberdeen, then discarding the return; this can be cheaper than a one-way. I'd imagine a car service from LHR to Aberdeen, if you can even find one, would require a second mortgage.

Forget about kayak, Amsterdam, and all the others. You have been given the itinerary. Waste no more time; go directly to ba.com and Was to Abz. Arrival is the next day, but flights originate from Dulles in the evening. Alternatively, there is a flight out of BWI at 9:30pm which, with Heathrow transfer, gets into ABZ at 1:30 the next afternoon.

Thanks to everyone who posted a reply. We have already booked our air to LHR through UA using miles. Our son now finds that he can fly in a day earlier which makes the whole same day car hire from LHR to Luton a non starter. No screaming children or (hopefully) lost luggage. They will spend one night in London with us and we will all fly out of Luton to Aberdeen. Although the times are not as convenient, Easy Jet/Ryan Air is a lot cheaper than BA or such.
Many thanks for all the suggestions.

Ahh - now if you are travelling on redemption with UA the cheapest way to ABZ if there is availability is via Frankfurt on Lufthansa - probably no additional miles than to LHR, and you would just be paying the airport charge (which would be cheaper than Easyjet / Ryan).

"Easy Jet/Ryan Air is a lot cheaper than BA or such." Don't forget to factor in the time and money it takes to get to Luton from London.

Hi Go to Aberdeen Airport website and you'll get list of airlines flying to/from Aberdeen. If flying to Abz BA is very reliable, goes from LHR and can be booked multi- city; it is, however, a bit more expensive. Virgin will be starting an Aberdeen route soon. Don't bother travelling any other way if you're pressed for time (it's a LONG way from London). regards
S

Betsy, unless they absolutely must fly from Dulles, check the other east coast airports (BWI, Phil, Newark, JFK, Logan, etc.) for direct flights to Edinburgh/Glasgow and, you never know, Aberdeen. Certainly pretty quick to get to any of those locations, faster than LHR-Aberdeen on the other end. Edinburgh or Glasgow would put the travelers a lot closer to their destination than Heathrow.