Avoiding UK travel tax travelling through Dublin

Widget

Some advice
I can book a flight from Bristol to Fort Lauderdale going through Dublin with Aer Lingus for £781 but if I book the Brs - Dub flight separately I save £130.
The down side is that the connection is quite tight, I will be travelling with a suitcase and don't want to save £130 to then miss the flight.
What do you think are the chances of getting my luggage tagged straight through at Bristol?? Is it a big deal??

BuffyBot

Two issues with this:

1) While Aer Lingus policy is to check bags through to other Aer Lingus flights, even on seperate tickets, the ground handling staff at Bristol are outsourced. All you need is one numpty with a lack of knowledge refusing to do it and you're stuck with having to collect a bag at Dublin and re-check it etc

2) On seperate tickets, Aer Lingus are under no obligation to get to Fort Lauderdale. If the Bristol flight was cancelled and/or delayed, you have no comeback other than relying on the goodwill of Aer Lingus to do something for you. The contract was to get to from Bristol to Dublin, with a seperate contract to carry you from Dublin to Fort Lauderdale. The fact that they failed on the first part has no bearing on them having to fufill the second one if you don't turn up on time for the Dublin departure. Having it all on the same booking means the onus is on them to get you from Bristol to Fort Lauderdale.

Fabio

How long do you have in between flights? You need to do your CBP in Dublin too (for most flights to the US anyway) which is great as it avoids you having to do it in the US but it does add time to the beginning of your journey.

weisses

http://www.bristolairport.co.uk/accommodation.aspx

Could be worth it

Madpaddy79

BuffyBot wrote: »

Two issues with this:

1) While Aer Lingus policy is to check bags through to other Aer Lingus flights, even on seperate tickets, the ground handling staff at Bristol are outsourced. All you need is one numpty with a lack of knowledge refusing to do it and you're stuck with having to collect a bag at Dublin and re-check it etc

2) On seperate tickets, Aer Lingus are under no obligation to get to Fort Lauderdale. If the Bristol flight was cancelled and/or delayed, you have no comeback other than relying on the goodwill of Aer Lingus to do something for you. The contract was to get to from Bristol to Dublin, with a seperate contract to carry you from Dublin to Fort Lauderdale. The fact that they failed on the first part has no bearing on them having to fufill the second one if you don't turn up on time for the Dublin departure. Having it all on the same booking means the onus is on them to get you from Bristol to Fort Lauderdale.

Are you saying there are NO "Numptys" in Aer Lingus?? Or are handling companies all "Numptys"? Outsourced? Or a ground handling company "employed" to provide the service to AERlines as they simply cannot afford or have the logistics to employ so many people at every airport they fly to, making the cost of a ticket 3 fold! Do tell us!

coylemj

Madpaddy79 wrote: »

Are you saying there are NO "Numptys" in Aer Lingus?? Or are handling companies all "Numptys"? Outsourced? Or a ground handling company "employed" to provide the service to AERlines as they simply cannot afford or have the logistics to employ so many people at every airport they fly to, making the cost of a ticket 3 fold! Do tell us!

When a service is contracted out, in most cases the lowest tender wins. That means that by definition the employees are paid very low wages and when you pay peanuts......

andy_g

Moved to travel.

BuffyBot

Madpaddy79 wrote: »

Are you saying there are NO "Numptys" in Aer Lingus?? Or are handling companies all "Numptys"? Outsourced? Or a ground handling company "employed" to provide the service to AERlines as they simply cannot afford or have the logistics to employ so many people at every airport they fly to, making the cost of a ticket 3 fold! Do tell us!

Feel free to point out where I said there were no numpties in Aer Lingus, or that all ground handling employees are numpties?

I think you'll find my post contains neither.

I'm merely pointing out to the OP that you only need encounter one such person to balls up their plans - and they do exist, having encountered them in many airports

Jamie2k9

Widget wrote: »

Some advice
I can book a flight from Bristol to Fort Lauderdale going through Dublin with Aer Lingus for £781 but if I book the Brs - Dub flight separately I save £130.
The down side is that the connection is quite tight, I will be travelling with a suitcase and don't want to save £130 to then miss the flight.
What do you think are the chances of getting my luggage tagged straight through at Bristol?? Is it a big deal??

If the connection time in question is offered on a through booking form BRS-to the US lets say JFK) then booking separate tickets for the same flights isn't a problem ie BRS-DUB and then the other flight form DUB-FLT via a US hub.

I think all EI connections are 75 minutes or longer and looking at the schedules they allow a 75 minute connection from Bristol so its fine.

As already said 99% of time bags will be checked through to your final airport.

Widget

Thanks for advice, there seems to be a small risk of getting into problems, I will weigh up my options

jjbrien

You could always fly to Dublin the night before and stay in the Travel Lodge or someplace cheap near Dublin Airport to make sure you get the flight to the US.

Another option is fly Ryanair from Bristol their flight leaves at 6:30 and gets you into Dublin for 7:35 which would give you almost 3 hours to make the connection to Aer Lingus

0lddog

jjbrien wrote: »

Another option is fly Ryanair from Bristol their flight leaves at 6:30 and gets you into Dublin for 7:35 ......

IIRC Bristol is one of the most fog prone airports in the UK. Does it have enough electronic stuff so that normal landings and takeoffs are not effected by fog ?

jjbrien

0lddog wrote: »

IIRC Bristol is one of the most fog prone airports in the UK. Does it have enough electronic stuff so that normal landings and takeoffs are not effected by fog ?

It has CAT III on runway 27 which is fine for fog if runway 9 is in use then its a CAT I system. The FR plane that comes to dublin is based there.