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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 7, 2021 11:44:55 GMT 2
Mrs Faz and I have decided we no longer want to fly Economy for long haul holidays. The downside is the cost of Business class. Last year I discovered that we could fly BA to Bangkok and it would be £800 cheaper if we started our BA fight from Toulouse, going to Heathrow then changing planes and catching the direct flight we wanted. So we took an EasyJet flight Bristol-Toulouse (£25) and started our BA flight there.
Research has come up with an even better deal. We fly Swiss from Heathrow via Zurich (change planes) and then on to Bangkok. The change of aircraft at Zurich is at a civilised hour (not the middle of the night as it is with the Gulf carriers), we get a fully flat bed and food from a Michelin starred chef.
At the moment all airlines have terrible reviews (including Swiss) because of the chaos caused by Covid cancelled flights and refunds. By next January this should be sorted. The Biz class fare Heathrow=Bangkok-Heathrow is £1030 (BA London-Bangkok-London is £2200).
Do I have Annie's go ahead for flying Swiss?
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Post by OnlyMark on Mar 7, 2021 14:06:20 GMT 2
I've always found direct business class flights are more expensive then two legs, usually when you are starting off from the hub of the airline you are thinking of. Thus BA is more expensive from London, Lufthansa from Frankfurt etc.
I don't fly long haul in economy any more either. Anything above three to four hours.
The other problem is using two tickets - so one flight on economy to the city to pick up the business flight on two airlines or on the same airline. I'm always afraid if the first one is delayed/cancelled I miss the important one.
On one ticket there is obviously protection.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 7, 2021 14:59:46 GMT 2
When I started travelling from Switzerland to the UK, I found that flying Swiss was not any more expensive than travelling with easyjet. and you get chocolate!
More seriously, whilst travelling long haul, comfort is really important and Swiss seems to stack up really well in this area. Bon voyage!
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Post by shrjeff on Mar 7, 2021 19:24:47 GMT 2
flyng out of tel aviv means that there is competition, just what baz found between ba and swiss... i tend to fly ba for long haul and learned how to upgrade from business to first using the 'avios' which aren't useful for anything else... using list prices to go from business to first gave me a value of 20 cents per avio with no additional cost! and then british considers us first class passengers - last trip they gave us a little day room at heathrow gratis... but who knows what their marketing system will be in another year when we will begin to travel again...
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 8, 2021 0:46:15 GMT 2
It is a long time until we shall be flying to Bangkok but I enjoy planning holidays. I shall book Swiss and our seats... but not yet. I wanted to use our French bank account which has euros put into it from a French investment. Good to have euros as the pound is very dubious. However we have been contacted by our French bank this weekend and our bank card has been compromised so is now frozen. Apparently the bank was suspicious about the purchase of clothes. Not by us. OK, this is how it goes.
The bank sent us a new card at the end of last year. The new card has been operative for a bit over 2 months.
When we go outside the euro area (travelling) we inform the bank.
Since we have had the new card we have made 2 purchases: hotel in Greece and hotel in Turkey. We have stayed 4 times at the Greek hotel and they have all our details and I think are reliable. The hotel in Istanbul we have never stayed at before.
Both hotels were booked through booking.com. No money has been taken out of our account for either hotel - we pay on arrival - but our bank card details are known.
The branch of our French bank is closed until Tuesday. Let's hope things are clearer then.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 13, 2021 18:03:40 GMT 2
Indirect flights are generally always cheaper than direct flights to "compensate" you for the inconvenience. I had a Dutch colleague who flew to Bangkok regularly because he is a partner in a B&B in Chiang Mai. In spite of all of the direct KLM flight from Amsterdam, he would always fly Air France AMS-CDG-BKK because it would save him 200-400 euros on the fare, depending on the season. By the same token, somebody in Paris would save about the same amount by choosing a flight via AMS.
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Post by shrjeff on Mar 13, 2021 19:48:15 GMT 2
k, it's not to compensate for inconvenience... non-stop flights to far away foreign destinations are monopolies... in your example, klm has a monopoly on the ams-bkk non-stop route and milks it for whatever it can get... AF has to compete with all the other national airlines like BA for the indirect fares so it is cheaper...
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 14, 2021 17:25:18 GMT 2
Oh, then my 35 years working for an airline means nothing.
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Post by shrjeff on Mar 14, 2021 19:09:29 GMT 2
well, i've never heard of a business plan which builds in discounts for inconvenience... though i suppose it could be the airlines explanation why they charge less for indirect flights... i've always heard of pricing in relationship to competition...
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Post by Netsuke on Mar 14, 2021 21:33:23 GMT 2
Flights Melbourne to Bangkok are 9 hours 10 minutes. That’s for a direct flight ✈️. People in the Northern Hemisphere are so lucky 🍀, they can travel literally anywhere and it won’t cost an arm and a leg, but us poor Colonials who live Downunder, pay big bikkies to fly to that Northern Hemisphere.
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 16, 2021 12:23:20 GMT 2
I was too slow making up my mind so the Swiss flight LHR-BKK disappeared. Research has showed weo could fly Swiss biz class Paris-Bangkok for £9 return. Incredible. I am not booking it because I think the Heathrow offer will come back.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 16, 2021 23:03:55 GMT 2
I would take any flight for £9 return.
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 17, 2021 0:19:33 GMT 2
I would take any flight for £9 return. Ah, the problem with the £9 biz class fare is that you have to do the business - flap the wings. You have to upgrade to Smooth Class - which is £945 return to get the lie-flat seat and the stewardsess who tickles your toes. |
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Post by Netsuke on Mar 19, 2021 11:08:32 GMT 2
I would take any flight for £9 return. Ah, the problem with the £9 biz class fare is that you have to do the business - flap the wings. You have to upgrade to Smooth Class - which is £945 return to get the lie-flat seat and the stewardsess who tickles your toes. Unless I am missing something here, Baz, someone who is prepared to take any flight for £9 return (I would!) would have no interest in wasting £936 to lie down! I don’t need stewardesses to tickle my toes thank you very much. Not even if they were stewards wearing kilts and over 6 foot tall! |
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 19, 2021 11:22:50 GMT 2
Ah, the problem with the £9 biz class fare is that you have to do the business - flap the wings. You have to upgrade to Smooth Class - which is £945 return to get the lie-flat seat and the stewardsess who tickles your toes. Unless I am missing something here, Baz, someone who is prepared to take any flight for £9 return (I would!) would have no interest in wasting £936 to lie down! I don’t need stewardesses to tickle my toes thank you very much. Not even if they were stewards wearing kilts and over 6 foot tall! How about if they yodelled while tickling your fancy? |
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Post by Voy on Mar 19, 2021 14:33:53 GMT 2
How about if they yodelled while tickling your fancy?
heh. Every time is see "Fly Swiss" , I get a vision of a plane full of guys in lederhosen and dumpling girls in dirndls !
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 19, 2021 18:48:29 GMT 2
voy, although we do have lederhosen and dirndls, they are more typical of Bavaria.
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 19, 2021 19:58:39 GMT 2
My sister-in-law (now deceased) used to wear lederhosen. It was amazing the way dogs used to come and sniff it.
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Post by Voy on Mar 19, 2021 23:07:58 GMT 2
Annie, I know that - but you get the idea... When it was SwissAir it was one of my favorites - in fact the only time I ever had venison on an airplane .
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Post by Netsuke on Mar 20, 2021 0:49:28 GMT 2
Annie, I know that - but you get the idea... When it was SwissAir it was one of my favorites - in fact the only time I ever had venison on an airplane . I had a venison pie once from a gourmet pie shop in a place where suburbia meets country. I didn’t finish the pie. It was too gamey. Possum pie isn’t bad, tastes a bit like chicken only sweeter. Personally, you can’t go past a good old four’n’twenty. |
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Post by Voy on Mar 20, 2021 1:02:56 GMT 2
black birds? crows?
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Post by Netsuke on Mar 20, 2021 2:46:45 GMT 2
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Post by Voy on Mar 20, 2021 14:36:03 GMT 2
aha - you have to have the local knowledge !
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