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Save £££ on your airfare with rail / bus hidden-city ticketing
You might have heard of “hidden-city ticketing”, a trick to purchase cheaper air tickets by adding one or more segments to your desired itinerary. For example, Flying New York – London – Paris could be cheaper than New York – London due to its indirect nature, so in this case it saves money to book the first route and drop the second leg if you only intend to travel to London.
There are complications of course, which I will discuss later in this article. There is an advanced and safer approach though which is less-known, that takes advantage of the interlining agreement between airlines and rail / bus companies.
Actually I’ve been aware of it since a long time ago. I was studying in Switzerland and my Mum was coming to visit me. When looking for an air ticket Swiss’s website offered the following route: PEK-ZRH on Swiss, and then Zurich-Basel on a SBB train. It’s cheaper than flying to Zurich only!
Similar arrangements can be found on Lufthansa’s website between them and DB:
Apparently it’s not necessarily cheaper so you need to do your research.
Most practically, the trick works best if you are looking for a one-way flight to the UAE. A direct flight from London to Abu Dhabi on Etihad costs around £500:
Whereas adding a leg to Dubai reduces the price by more than half!
The trip from Abu Dhabi airport to Dubai is undertaken by a coach. If Dubai is your final destination, you could take the coach or make your own travel arrangement; otherwise just leave the airport and enjoy Abu Dhabi!
Traditionally there are two complications with hidden-city, but they are very unlikely to hinder the novel approach:
- Luggage check-through to the final destination – your luggage won’t check through onto the train or bus so you’ll have to collect them yourself anyway
- Airline blacklisting you for the behaviour – contrary to a flight, it’s technically very difficult for the airline to know if you’ve taken the train / bus journey or not, which prevents them from taking any actions against you
TAP Portugal business class sale: UK to Brazil / Mexico / US from £1200
TAP Portugal has brought back its attractive business class (Executive) sale to the Americas. The price isn’t as good as the last time but it’s still a decent deal.
You can check out the offer page here. Here’s a summary:
- Book by October 2
- Travel between September 19 and June 30, 2023
- Christmas / New York / Easter periods are excluded
- Depart from London or Manchester
The deal is valid for departures from mainland Europe as well, for example Spain, France and Germany. Spain had some very cheap fares (€999) in the last promotion, but I didn’t see anything particularly attractive this time.
These are the headline fares:
- From £1249 – Cancun
- From £1249 – Brazil (Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia etc)
- From £1359 – US and Canada
There are two kinds of business class fares – Executive and Top Executive. The latter is more expensive, but flexible and accumulates more miles.
Here are some examples:
London – Cancun October 2 – October 8 (link)
London – Rio de Janeiro January 19 – January 29 (link)
London – Toronto December 8 – December 12 (link)
You can add a stopover in Lisbon or Porto, which will affect the final price. Buying from an online agency is usually slighter cheaper than from TAP Portugal directly, but that would potentially lead to a headache if the flight schedule changes, so it’s your call.
TAP Portugal: London – Brazil in business class for £1,200
TAP Portugal has launched an Executive (business) class sale for flights from Europe to Brazil. You can depart from multiple cities (including London) and arrive at Rio or Sao Paolo.
Many dates are available from September to March.
London – Rio de Janeiro, Nov 24 – Dec 4
London – Sao Paolo, Feb 21 – Mar 1
You need to book by May 16. Stopover in Portugal (Lisbon or Porto) is possible, but your itinerary will be repriced.
Flying to the US? Take 15% off your next TAP Portugal flight
TAP Portugal has semi-frequent 15%-off discount codes, and another one is making its rounds which may be useful if you are travelling to the US soon.
You could check the (UK-version) landing page here.
- Book by April 10
- Travel between April 18 and May 16
- Depart from Europe for the following destinations: Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
- Limit one use per person
- 15% discount against the base fare and carrier imposed surcharges (but not taxes)
- Not valid for Discount or Executive (Business Class) fares
Discount codes are market-specific. For UK departures use USA15GBP, and for other European countries it would be USA15EUR or USA15CHF etc.
Enter the code when searching for the flight, and below is an example of the discount being applied:
Shame that it doesn’t work on business class tickets. For economy class, the code should work on all fares except Discount, a.k.a the hand-baggage only fare.
4 days only: Fly business to the U.S. for £999 with TAP Portugal’s Valentines sale
TAP Portugal is starting a Valentines’ sale for departure from certain origins including the UK.
The landing page for Economy is here, with some headline prices:
- Lisbon £74
- Porto £69
- Faro £93
The landing page for Executive (business class) is here, with some headline prices:
- New York / Boston / Chicago / San Francisco £999
- Toronto / Montreal £1249
And the rules are:
- Book between Feb 10 and Feb 14
- Travel by September 30
- You also earn double status miles
£999 for business class to the U.S. is especially good, although you need to transit in Portugal. For such promotions you usually get free stop-overs at Lisbon or Porto too – and if you stay in Portugal for more than 24 hours before your onward travel, your ticket potentially gets even cheaper due to the lower APD charged by the UK.
Iberia Gift Card Sale – Save 25% off Your Next Flight Bookings
Iberia is running a promotion on its gift cards (again!) and it may be interesting to some.
You can check the offer here and click the Buy Now button to make a purchase. The gift cards provided in the link are in GBP, however you can switch the country if you want options in EUR or USD.
Until 14 February, you can enjoy a 25% discount when you buy gift cards, and there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the amount.
- Can be used against Iberia / Iberia Express / Air Nostrum flight bookings
- Revenue bookings only, i.e. not award flights
- The flight must take place by 31 December 2021
25% is a very decent offer, and remember that it means additional savings on whatever cheap bargains you find. The snag of course, is that you must fly by the end of this year, which can be tricky to many of us.
If you are frequent traveller to or from Spain, the deal might make sense as I expect intra-Europe travel resume to some extent in a few months’ time.
Asiamiles Credit Card 10% – 15% Transfer Bonus
Asiamiles, the mileage programme of Cathay Pacific, has started a credit card transfer bonus promotion.
You need to register on this page first. Now through 31 January 2021, you are entitled to a bonus when transferring credit card points into Asiamiles:
- Recipients of targeted emails get a 15% bonus
- Everyone else gets a 10% bonus
The bonus miles will be deposited into your accounts within 8 – 10 weeks of the promotion’s closing date.
In the UK, the only participating bank is American Express Membership Rewards. 10% doesn’t sound a lot, however if you have the Amex ICC card it means every point is equivalent to 1.35 * 1.1 = 1.485 miles, which is a great conversion ratio and worth considering.
For the use of Asiamiles please see my intro here. Unfortunately they’ve eliminated stop-overs on one-way awards so you can no longer book two trips as a one-way flight, however Asiamiles still represents better value when redeeming long-haul premium cabins compared to Avios.