kippy6

My husband is thinking of taking our family of 6 on a cruise from New York to England. How can I get a reasonable ONE WAY air fare from England back to the states AFTER we are done w/our cruise? All of the websites I have seen force you to input an American departure.

--I need to find websites that will allow you to put in England as a departure, flying to US as the destination. This is much more difficult than I realized.

kerouac

It may be cheaper to buy a round trip ticket from England and throw away the return.

swandav2000

Hi kippy6,

Usually the cruiselines will offer the return transatlantic flight as an add-on to the cruise fare. I'd e-mail or call a few to see what they are.

Or you could take one of the discount business-class airlines (like Maxjet), which do allow you to book only one way.

Good luck!

s

J62

What websites are you using? I just tried aa.com and had no trouble booking a 1 way or RT flight originating in London.

Ditto for www.kayak.com

Christina

YOu can easily do that on www.opodo.co.uk, but I don't know if they limit purchases to UK credit cards or not. I don't know what websites you are using, but it's pretty easy to do that on standard ones -- you can easily do that on Expedia, for example, although they may not list some of the airlines opodo does (like Maxjet). They show Maxjet and Aer Lingus as the cheapest, and you can easily do such a booking on Aer Lingus own website also (departure from London).

Whether you think the fares are reasonable is another matter, but they showed Maxjet at around 350 GBP one-way and that doesn't seem too bad to me. Aer Lingus is only around 200 GBP 1-way on their own website (to JFK). One way fares are always pricier than half a round trip, it seems but 200 GBP seems very good to me (that was end of June, also).

Sarvowinner

I flew from Dublin to NYC one way on Aer Lingus October last year for E260. You can pick up cheap flights with Ryanair from London to Dublin.

kippy6

Thanks for your quick replies. I did try Kayak, Priceline, etc... via Cheapflights. Those fares were over $700 one way. We found a great deal on a cruise, so now we need a GREAT deal on airfare (6 peo can get expensive!), otherwise we'll have to nix this idea.

I even tried British Airways, but it doesn't seem to let me start from the UK. I was wondering if the UK has their own version of cheapflights.com. Maybe I should be looking at the European flight websites that the Europeans use??

As far as buying a round-trip ticket and throwing away the other, that is a good idea, except that we don't want anything to go to waste. If we could even do a "jaws" ticket, and have the other leg of the trip one day down the road, that would be good.

Sarvowinner

When are you planning on travelling? Aer Lingus has Dublin-NYC in July for E 216.

flanneruk

The British equivalent of cheapflights is cheapflights. I can't see your problem with the BA or AA sites, both of which let me plug anwhere in as a start location.

Have you ticked the "one way" option?

The only scheduled low-cost operator on the London-NYC route is Zoom, but all the dozens of direct and direct "full fare" operators are accessible from my versions of cheapflights, Opodo and Expedia

WillTravel

I would consider other Canadian options as well, although Zoom is a good one.

The distinction between scheduled and charter is possibly less significant on the return, where the worst but low-probability thing that could happen is you have to wait an extra day or in a really unusual situation a couple of days. These sites all offer one-way flights for a reasonable price, back to Toronto or Montreal, whichever is most convenient for you. Also consider the possibility of returning from Paris:
http://www.canadianaffair.com
http://www.flyglobespan.com

Air Transat is another Canadian option - not sure of the UK site for it, though.

ira

Hi K,

>As far as buying a round-trip ticket and throwing away the other, that is a good idea, except that we don't want anything to go to waste. <

If an RT ticket is cheaper than a 1-way, what is being wasted?

Have tried www.kayak.com and www.mobissimo.com?

WillTravel

Following up from above, the Air Transat site is http://www.airtransat.co.uk .

If you do buy a roundtrip ticket, make sure that you buy it from England and throw the 2nd half away. Throwing away the 1st half will cancel the 2nd half.

alanRow

<<< except that we don't want anything to go to waste >>>

Flights are routinely overbooked, must thing of it as saving some poor sap from an unexpected stay in NY

Gardyloo

The thing about the World Wide Web is that it's... worldwide.

Where from, where to, when? Hugely important.

Robespierre

And don't forget that the UK government charges you $80 to fly out of the country.

Personally, I'd see if any French carriers offered that one-way, and use the airport tax to have a "cost-free" day in Paris.

Robespierre

What to do with the return (to Europe): find some random guys in the NY phone book with your exact names, and mail the tickets to them anonymously.

WillTravel

And if you can't find a French carrier to do that, Zoom or Air Transat will work for flying out of Paris one-way.

kippy6

Thanks for all of the replies. We live in Atlanta. My husband only has about 100,000 Frequent Flyer points.

Option 1: We were considering using those FFP to get to New York (the kids and I have never been to NY)...6 people in our party---My husband is interested in a 6-day cruise that departs Brooklyn, NY on 7/18. It sails directly to Southhampton, London. We wanted to spend 3-4 days in London before heading home to Atlanta.

Option 2: Do a reverse trip, and depart on July 12th from England on cruise ship. Destination would be 6-day cruise to NY. Stay in NY for 1-2 nights, and fly back to ATL. I'm thinking now that this might be a little easier to work out. Maybe a little cheaper... (we are trying to save money, but still go on the cruise my husband wants to go on). We could arrive in England, say on July 9th, a few days early, and then enjoy the cruise on the way home.

One airlines today said that most tickets are good for 1 year, so you could feasably take the return flight 1 year from purchase!! Of course, I'm thinking, why don't we just take a cruise the opposite direction next Spring Break. And yes, maybe try a different country, and use our return flight then. (I asked if we could use it for a return flight from Costa Rica, but she told me it has to be in the same hemisphere...can you tell I'm a novice at this??) Anyway, that might be long enough to save up for another European trip so long as we find great deals again.

swandav2000

Did you call a cruiseline or two as I suggested earlier?

Remember, the ship will be full of folks who need to return, and the cruiseline can get everyone flights back.

s

WillTravel

The return ticket might be good for one year - but you usually have to pay a change fee to make it good for a specific date.

I don't think that in general if you just don't use the ticket and then try to use it after the date, that you will be successful.

If you buy a ticket in the right fare code class, this might be possible - but then it's a very expensive ticket generally speaking.