Air plane travel back home

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
Hi all,

Since I've arrived here I found the lack of alternatives to fly home a bit appalling.

From Zurich to Portugal (either Porto or Lisbon) a typical ticket costs between CHF 300 to CHF 700, depending if you buy it in advance - and the only option are Star Alliance's TAP or Swiss (almost all the flights are in code share between these two).

Considering that from Lisbon to London I could get as cheap as €60 to Luton or €120 to Heathrow, these prices are simply too high.

There's no low cost alternative from Zurich to Portugal.

On the other hand, one can fly from Basel using Easyjet (and sometimes TAP at very cheaper prices), but the hassle of paying additional for luggage, train tickets or parking fees, not talking about travel time - 1 hour each way. I've given up considering Basel as an alternative.

My question is - does this happen too with your travels to your home countries? How often do you travel? Have you, like me, decided that paying more to travel from Zurich is a small cost to pay for the inconvenience of travelling to farther airports?

2
Convenience comes at a cost.

I'd wager that the time it takes to get to Basel from Zurich, particularly if you have a car, is less than the time it takes to get from central London to Heathrow. You have to decide whether the extra hour of travel is worth the difference in price.

Speaking personally, if it was CHF120- vs. CHF300-, I might opt for the convenience of flying from Zurich, but when that ticket creeps up to CHF700-, I'd make the trek to Basel.

3
Swiss is the only airline flying direct Zürich-Chicago, and prices certainly reflect that.

Either OH or I have to travel back to the US every other weekend to deal with our responsibilities there; some months it's been every weekend. The flight prices are killing us - but because there is so much that must be done in such a short time, the extra day of travel that a less expensive indirect flight requires rules that option out.

Ya do whatcha gotta do.

4
I also guess you are overlooking that you are on a significantly higher salary. 300CHF I wish it was that cheap to do a flight to ozzie land try 1500CHF when its on a sale and then try 4 tickets at the same time. You have it good so stop complaining

5
I'm not complaining!

I just wanted to know if people cope/deal with this differently than I do. I agree with your point of view completely.

And btw, Portugal is 2 hours away from here! Not comparable to Australia!

6
It really depends on how much you travel. If it was only once or twice a year, I would not worry about saving CHF 300-500 against traveling from farther airports,

As I travel once every month on an average, I prefer picking different airports (within 2-3 hours travel) which help me in saving some bucks.

7
There is another option:

Take the train to Milan /Italy, then on to Malpensa Airport.

Easy Jet flies from MXP to Lisboa for a 168 euro return Fare(Dep Jul 12th, return

Jul 26 th), TAP from 223 euros return fare.

When there is competition between Star Alliance and One World on the route for example , prices reflect that.

Air Berlin did not serve the destination to Hamburg non stop any more, so there is only LH/Swiss now(means no competition) and the prices have jumped for

the weekend traveller( Departure on Friday and return on Sunday) for around 200-400 sfr.

Check for several airlines is not easy, but really worth the time spent, for example, MXP(Milano)-SYD(Sydney, Australia)-MXP(MILAN)(Dep.04th Jul, return Jul.23 ) will cost in business on mcflight.de

10416.94 EUR, on cathay pacific.com only 2771.71 EUR

8
Funny, I was just checking flights to Portugal to see the in-laws this summer.

Now that we've lived here for some time, we know when not to fly to Portugal (July-August and Christmas time can also be quite something). The prices go up considerably in July/August/December because that's when everyone wants to visit home (=Portugal) which pushes the prices up.

Try checking GVA flights to Vigo in Spain (via Madrid but be prepared not to see your luggage any time soon), Porto or Lisbon and remember that Alfa train is super comfortable (and painless) between Porto & Lisbon.

We always try to visit Portugal & my home country 1-2 times a year and alternate the Christmas destinations as well.

9
You still fly commercial ?

10
The TARDIS is on the garage for it's millennial service and I'd die of old age going by car...

11
You might also consider using frequent flyer miles for these short flights. Generally, you get the best "bang for your buck" by redeeming your miles for long-haul, premium (business/first) class travel... but the exception to this rule is short-haul European travel.

I fly a lot of British Airways long-haul travel for work, and the miles add up quickly. But BA have a great option where you can redeem very few miles and pay a limited tax of around EUR40 per flight, and finding award tickets within Europe is much easier than finding award tickets to longer-haul destinations, particularly if you book well in advance. Flying Blue (AF/KLM) have a similar, fixed-price award option for European flights.

I don't fly much with Star Alliance any more, since bmi closed their frequent flyer program and our corporate travel has shifted away from Swiss/LH and towards BA, but when I was still a member of the bmi program, the intra-Europe flights were good value there, too.

Of course, this assumes you have a bank of miles to draw against in the first place.

12
I would not waste my hard earned miles on the short trips in europe, I am member in the BA Executive Club as well. It is really hard to get a reward flight

in business class to australia, but it is possible.

Due to the withdrawl of qantas from the partnership with BA and the new partnership of Qantas and Emirates the possibilities are more reduced, so with the new partner Airline Malaysian Airlines it is possible to get the reward flights on their flights as well.

I fly ZRH-HEL-SIN-PER and PER-KUL-LHR-ZRH in Business Class for free (only fees have to be paid). THe leg to Australia is with Finnair and Qantas , the Return Trip with Malaysian Airlines and BA .I got my Reward flight booked in November last year and will fly in July.

13
Well, it's horses for courses, really. An intra-Europe trip on BA, in economy, will cost you 18'000 miles round-trip, plus a flat fee of EUR30. If you prefer to conserve your miles, you can do it for 9'000 miles round-trip, plus EUR50, plus the flat fee of EUR30. Availability for these short-haul flights is generally pretty good, and this can represent a significant saving on a flight like the OP has described, where there is little competition and tickets are expensive (EUR500-700)

To fly from Europe to Australia, in business class, you need to spend 200'000 miles. On top of this, you need to pay the taxes and fuel fees, which adds about EUR1'000 to the 'free' ticket. Availability is limited, and you've got to be very flexible in your dates. It's unlikely you'll be able to use the tickets at a traditionally busy/expensive time of the year.

If I have a theoretical 200'000 miles in my account, I can have 22 short-haul intra-European flights and spend EUR1'760 in taxes and fees. This represents tickets that would otherwise have cost me EUR11'000 - EUR14'000.

Or I could have your J-class ticket to Sydney. I'd be willing to bet that in the low-demand seasons, like where you could actually get an award seat, you could purchase a restricted, non-changeable business class ticket for under EUR4'000. As an added bonus, you'd actually earn business-class mileage credit for this flight -- enough for at least four, and maybe as many as eight (depending on whether you're a BA Gold or not) -- additional intra-Europe flights. And enough tier points to get you to silver...

The economics are obviously different if you're flying on routes where you can routinely pick up cheap fares (eg, where there is competition from Easyjet), but if you're flying on a route where one airline has the monopoly, using miles instead of cash can leave you far better off, as the example above shows.

Using miles for long-haul economy travel? That's a mug's game!