nancymaat

Hi Fodorites,
Done more trip planning. After a few weeks of searching for various places to go along with our Budapest stop over at the in-laws during early October, we found tickets to London using FF miles so it's going to be London and Budapest. We are flying United to Heathrow, arriving around 8:15am. We plan to fly to Budapest on the same day to allow maximum time with one of the family members who will be leaving on business trip a few days after our intended arrival date. We found cheaper tickets on Easyjet to Budapest from Gatwick, leaving 12:45.I saw a previous post asking about 3 hour connection between Heathrow and Gatwick and folks said it wouldn't be enough. We'll have checked bags and 2 little kids (both 5 and under). Are we just asking for trouble to get to the connection in 4 hours? There's also Malev flights out of Heathrow to Budapest, but the cheaper flights leave at 8pm and it's not as cheap as Easyjet. Thank you.

dmlove

Factor in not only the hassle and time, but the cost of getting from Heathrow to Gatwick.

janisj

You miss easyJet's cut off for check in and you are totally up a creek. You do not have until 12:45. You have until check-in time. being in the queue to check in is not good enough. You must have your boarding pass in hand. If not, the tickets are useless and you get no credit and they won't put you on a later flight.

W/ 1 person - who can move FAST and only uses carry-on luggage, I <i>might</i> gamble on that connection. But w/ a family w/ 2 small children, checked luggage, and the chance of having to buy FOUR new tickets -- I'd never risk it.

flanneruk

It's perfectly possible - just - to get from an 0815 Heathrow touchdown through immigration and baggage reclaim, onto the bus, rounbd the motorway, get to Easyjet checkin <b> and get checked in </b> by 1130.

The problem is that if you don't make it (and &quot;it&quot; is getting checked in by Easyjet's cutoff time), you lose everything you've paid. You're stuck at Gatwick, Easyjet won't do a thing to help you and you're going to have to buy new tickets from somewhere in London at the going rate <b> on the day </b> - which will be a hell of a lot more than Malev (or BA) will charge you today.

There's no point squabbling about whether your chances of getting to the Easyjet checkin clerk (NOT queue) on time are 70%, 50% or 30%. There's a reasonable chance you won't make it - and a 100% guarantee you'll be badly messed up if you don't.

I can't believe there isn't a flight from LHR to Budapest till 2000.

Robespierre

Malev 20:00.

You'll have your hands full just changing terminals at Heathrow, if necessary.

yk

It'll be way too risky, esp with checked luggage and 2 kids in tow.

It is possible if your flight is on time, the line at immigration is not too long, your checked luggage actually arrives, no traffic jam between Heathrow and Gatwick... So many factors that can go wrong.

How much cheaper is the Easyjet flight? Have you added in the cost of traveling Heathrow/Gatwick, plus all the extra fees on Easyjet?

Another option is get a day room at one of the Heathrow hotels, so that you and your kids can rest for a couple of hours. You can even take the bus to Windsor from Heathrow and spend a few hours there.

nancymaat

Thanks to all for the good feedback.
Looks like going from Heathrow to Gatwick is not a good choice for us for all the reasons you've mentioned (even though it's about half price of the tickets from Heathrow). We'll just take a later flight from Heathrow or as jk suggested...get a day room. Thanks again.

WillTravel

Have you looked at Wizzair (flies from London Luton) or EasyJet from London Luton? Not sure how their October schedule is.

travelgourmet

Is there no other way to do this with your miles? I don't know that much about United, but I think you can book one stopover. It sounds like you want to go to Budapest and London. Can you not try to do something like:

- USA to Frankfurt/Munich (Lufthansa or United) to Budapest, returning
- Budapest to Frankfurt/Munich to London, stopover
- London to USA

Again, I don't know much about United awards, but I know you could book something like this in other programs, and it sounds as if it would be possible.

flanneruk

There's a perfectly good BA flight from Heathrow at 1400. However much more it costs than the Malev from Gatwick, it can't cost more than paying for the bus or hiring a dayroom.