Oh - something else to know, abasket, assuming that you wind up with a connection someplace.
Much of W Europe (though not the UK) is under the Schengen agreement. This means that for passport purposes, they are treated as one country. Just so you don’t freak out if you arrive at your second country and think - how come no one is stamping my passport? You just get stamped at your entry country and then your last departing country, but any intra-Europe flights are treated no differently from if you were flying from, say, Boston to Philadelphia.
I freaked out earlier this year - my D was traveling by herself, went from BOS-FRA and then FRA-MAD, texting me as she hit each destination, and she just walked out of the airport at MAD and I started thinking - omg, she skipped immigration, when she arrives for her next flight in a few days they won’t have any record that she entered Spain, she’s going to be arrested, what do I do, she was already on a train to another destination – I worked myself into quite a lather until I remembered this!
I guess that coupon we had really helped! We did run through the airport to make our connection (we had 45 minutes to get to the gate before they closed it) and we would have made it with about 5 minutes to spare. When we got through security in that terminal, we found out that flight had been delayed and didn’t even have a gate assignment yet, so all that stress for nothing.
Yes, an even if you do manage to make the connection at LHR, in my (admittedly not very recent) experience, your luggage won’t. Nowadays, I avoid that problem by never, ever checking baggage.
^^^That’s another thing I didn’t get. We were able to check our luggage through to Berlin and did not have to claim it in London, like you have to do in the US when you are connecting.
And all of our luggage made it to Berlin! Maybe our experience was a deviation from the norm. Little did we know!
^^ That has been my experience as well. The transfer requires a passport check at arrival (purportedly as described above) but the luggage transits without having to recheck it. At several airports, there are random checks at the exit and a green/red line depending if you WANT to declare something.
All in all, I will go to any length to avoid checking bags. Unfortunately for some of my international travel I have to carry large, heavy suitcases with materials - but organized in such a way that they’ll all fit inside one another when they are empty. Still, I’ll go for close to 3 weeks in a carry-on. The secret is rolling vs folding.
I just booked flights to Nice for later this month. I discovered something very interesting about flying through London Heathrow - there are some huge airport fees to fly through London Heathrow.
Because I was using frequent flyer miles, the only cost I saw were the ‘fees’. Selecting flights that went through London were literally $400 (round trip) more in ‘taxes and airport fees’ than other flights that did not stop in London.
So, I can attest that you will get lower fares by selecting routes that avoid London while trying to get to Marseilles or Nice.
Also, can you get to Chicago cheaply on some other carrier? ORD-CDG seems to run some decent direct deals overnight and then you have all day to train to Marseille.
Also pretend you’re starting out at IAD (Dulles) and see what you can do. Sometimes it’s better to piece together itineraries. For example, earlier this year I needed to go from ORD to GRU (Sao Paulo). It was actually cheaper for me to take a one-way flight to CLT (Charlotte), then buy a ticket CLT-GRU and GRU-ORD-CLT, then just walk off the plane at ORD and toss the last flight. (You can only toss your very last flight.)
^^^PG, how many foreign countries have you traveled to? You are so lucky to be able to do that, though I’m sure at times you don’t really get to enjoy the places you go to if you are working the whole time.
Me too! But unfortunately my carryon bag got taken from me and gate-checked bcs the overhead bins were full. It’s been 2 days that I’ve been home and my bag still is missing. ~X(
Nrdsb4 - I just came off a super busy 2014 where I went to Germany (twice), France (twice), the Netherlands, Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, India and Spain. I do get to sightsee; I had guides in some of these countries and got to do fun things, like the Great Wall of China. But it was an exhausting year.
In the last few years I went to France twice, checked baggage, never had a problem. Not sure if it is still available, but Delta routed me ORD though Cincinnati, direct to Paris, and it was the easiest airport for connections as well as customs on re entry. The other time, I was on Air Canada via Toronto, US customs in Toronto, then on to ORD, which was also a breeze. My feet can be very painful, and I always check baggage to enable my several pairs of shoes as well as shopping. No problems on international flights, ever with checked baggage. Domestic, sometimes. But I don’t travel for business, so fewer flights per year than some of you.
GMT, sympathies! That happened to me last year, with a gate checked bag containing my laptop not arriving on my flight. It showed up the following AM. I was terrified, and more so because I didn’t have a tag on it.
I don’t fly for business, but I’ve traveled a good bit and only ONCE has my luggage not made it at the same time as I did. I’m starting to think I have some really good Karma going!
DH and I went to Bora Bora and our luggage didn’t get there until the next day, but for a trip like that I had the essentials in my carry on. Won’t say what they were!
Ok, I’ve decided that I’m just going to hire Pizzagirl to handle all my travel plans. The ideas you guys have are amazing! I’m going to have to look up a airport guide to initials!!!
Again, since I’m traveling with my 81 year old mom, I have to take pit stops and round about ways into consideration. She will NOT understand anything too out of the ordinary and will get very anxious if I do anything too unconventional.
I think I can consider flying out of Detroit or Windsor (or MAYBE Cleveland but that probably doesn’t get me anything better?) and then pit stops in either the typical cities (Paris/London) or the alternative cities (Amsterdam, Germany, etc.) that will take us to Marseille. MAYBE a train ride.
I’m going to scour this thread and write down pertinent notes and then lock myself in a closet with my laptop sometime this week - preferably today or tomorrow when fares might be lower - and see what comes up.
Well, my wayward bag got delivered to my home 3 days late with busted zipper. But my precious stash of imported (they’re expensive where I live) Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are safe!
The ideas you guys have are amazing! I’m going to have to look up a airport guide to initials!!!