Best way to get to Ireland

[aster]

I would never want to break-up a trip to Europe by having to switch planes in the Middle East. It's probably the most annoying way to get there. You're much better off with a long flight and then a short hop than breaking things up in half and not being able to settle down in either flight...

LHR is a good airport, it's places like FRA you want to stay away from in Europe...

[JayCee]

LHR is a good airport

Wrong section, this should be in the jokes section

A lot of people like to break up the flight into 2 sections in the middle east so I wouldn't say you're definitely better off with a long flight then a short one. My brother is one such person, prefers the two 7-ish hour flights as he can stretch his legs and have a smoke, I know others who are similar so it really depends on the person

[JR8]

Singapore Airlines are currently doing a promotion to London, min 2 to travel for $1,498 each

http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_UK/c ... /index.jsp

Wife had to go at last minute yesterday. Neither of us were able to book via their website (technical issues). Me from home home, and her from work certainly spent a combined two hours trying.

So she went by KLM instead.

Probably no bad thing as neither of us rate SIA much (nor their website now!). It's just one of those companies, like the BBC, that for some reason you resort to in a crisis.

[Brah]

Hmmm...tried the KLM site but it's down, and they don't have any weekend support.

Is there any rule when traveling to Europe to stay a minimum of three nights?

Every time I've been it was for a week or so, this is a much shorter trip.

[Strong Eagle]

LHR is a good airport

Wrong section, this should be in the jokes section

A lot of people like to break up the flight into 2 sections in the middle east so I wouldn't say you're definitely better off with a long flight then a short one. My brother is one such person, prefers the two 7-ish hour flights as he can stretch his legs and have a smoke, I know others who are similar so it really depends on the person

At one time, Emirates was offering a pretty good deal for an overnight stay in Dubai... included a hotel room and ground transportation both ways, for about $75. Cheap way to see the city. Don't know if it is still offered.

[JR8]

Hmmm...tried the KLM site but it's down, and they don't have any weekend support.

Is there any rule when traveling to Europe to stay a minimum of three nights?

Every time I've been it was for a week or so, this is a much shorter trip.

I've accessed the site just now... hmmm. You're right that they don't seem to have local Customer Services on weekends, but you could always call one of their offshore numbers (UK, US, hey even Holland... etc)

I don't know about minimum stays. The whole concept seems rather 1970's to me. Put another way, a minimum stay has not figured in my travel decision making for a very very long time.

SE makes a good point. Emirates are very very good (in my opinion), as long as you are ok with the lay-over in DXB. I'm fine taking that break to be honest and the new terminal is A1. Great wine bar, though not as curiously fascinating as 'spook central' the pub in the old terminal! In fact I'm only hearing good stories about the various airlines in the Emirates - Emirates, Etihad and Qatar, and I did see Emirates offering a free stop over just this past week (don't recall if it was only on business class though...) so worth checking out!

[aster]

My brother is one such person, prefers the two 7-ish hour flights as he can stretch his legs and have a smoke...

Exactly my point. Breaking up the journey into two 7-hour flights would be hell for me. Wouldn't be able to settle down and get some sleep on either of these flights.

I love the 12-hour flights to Europe on SQ because I can have a meal, watch a film... maybe watch another film, and catch some sleep. Then wake up for breakfast just before we land in Europe. Brilliant.

Sure beats landing in the Middle East in the middle of your journey and getting dumped there to roam around the terminal whilst awaiting your connection...

[Brah]

Yeah, checked with Emirates, they don't have that layover deal any more, and there's a long layover in DXB. And as time is more of a factor I'd rather get the 12+ hours done with in one go.

If I had more time and they did have the deal might be nice to get a free hotel stay and see what' Dubai is like for half a day.

Since I also have to travel to Japan, was looking to combine the two in some way. SQ have a very cheap deal to Japan, so was thinking to use that to get to Japan, then a separate arrangement from Japan to Ireland and back. But those Japan-UK flights are looking pretty expensive by comparison. May have to bite the bullet and do the two trips separately (means fly both out of SIN).

Hopefully this is not me just whinging and this path of investigation is somewhat useful for others...

So for the best deals and times look to be BA. It's been a long time since I flew BA. I hear some people complain about them.

[JR8]

My brother is one such person, prefers the two 7-ish hour flights as he can stretch his legs and have a smoke...

Exactly my point. Breaking up the journey into two 7-hour flights would be hell for me. Wouldn't be able to settle down and get some sleep on either of these flights.

I love the 12-hour flights to Europe on SQ because I can have a meal, watch a film... maybe watch another film, and catch some sleep. Then wake up for breakfast just before we land in Europe. Brilliant.

Sure beats landing in the Middle East in the middle of your journey and getting dumped there to roam around the terminal whilst awaiting your connection...

That's the thing with SIA, one hour out of Changi and they shut everything down. I'm surprised they don't go up and down the aisles demanding people go to sleep as they clearly don't want to be bothered with serving people who can't immediately switch their body-clocks to local-time -7. Dreadful.

Films? Yeah. As I recounted the whole flight back I did last October, there was no media at all for our whole section of 30 odd for the entire flight.

Er, and plus, the flight crew are just obnoxious.

Oh, and if you need to make an inter-Europe connection don't be surprised to fly into one terminal and have to make an unannounced point-to-point connection by taxi out of another.

Then they charge you a premium since they're such a 'great airline'! Hilarious.

Give me Emirates any day. They remind me of what Virgin was like in the early days. Seriously classy.

[JR8]

It's been a long time since I flew BA. I hear some people complain about them.

Better than SQ and QF though!

Last time I flew BA was in business class and it was good. It's still better than many others in economy.

Beware of their codeshares to Europe though. If you go Lufthansa a) they are atrocious and you will fly into Terminal 3, and have to get a taxi and re-check-in out of Terminal 5. Trust me that is a royal pain at say 6am!

p.s. oh and b) Lufthansa are poor... although still not as obnoxious at SQ

[Brah]

An update on this, I found the BA flights are convenient, but with the NRT connection to Shannon from LHR it's about $4,170 for the cheapest, $4,735 for other schedules. (for 2 travelers)

Cathay has a couple of flights for under $4,000 but one drawback is a 7.5 layover in HK. Will be calling them tomorrow to see if there's any other options.

From SIN it's cheaper....