We were able to use mileage to go to London/Heathrow this next summer. Our destination, however, is France. We want to spend some time in Normandy, Brittany, and the Dordogne. I saw flights on British Midland to CDG which are reasonable. $140 round trip...when I choose other cities, like Bordeaux, the price goes up a lot. Does anyone know if we should go on and spring for the tickets now, or is it better price-wise to wait for special fares? Also, does anyone know of any other airlines which fly to our destinations with competitive fares? I have looked at opodo.com, and BMI seems to be the best so far.

Somebody??

bmi, BA and Air France (many of whose services are now operated by flybe) are the only operators to France from Heathrow.

Low prices from SE England to provincial France are from Stansted, Luton, Gatwick and Southampton.

You need to go to www.nonrev.net, then follow for timetables for a full list. I think that inputting your departure airport code as LON brings up all flights from the London airports, though you need to input Southampton separately.

applefares.com is a website that has all the discount European airlines (may be the same sort of thing as the one flanneruk has given you). Your price of $140 rt on BMI actually sounds high.

But as flanneruk says, the discount airlines tend to fly to & from secondary airports. Getting from Heathrow to the other airports is a pain but may be your best bet. Do search using LON instead of LHR as your departure point for more options.

I'm a little confused here. Are you spending anytime at all in London or the UK? If not, on what airline have you used your FF miles for tickets, that wouldn't book you to Paris ..even with a plane change, at no additional charge. We've flown BA to Paris thru London on FF miles and didn't pay any additional fee. Also have used delta and AA FF miles to fly to London and then home from Paris .

Maybe I missed something?

I visited www.flybmi.com and found one-way fares from Heathrow to CDG as low as 12 GBP. Two more no-frills airlines search engines are www.flybudget.com and www.skyscanner.net.

Jody, We are on Virgin Atlantic, booked thru Continental. Believe me, I tried to get to CDG, but they said there was nothing available. I tried for 6 weeks, spoke to numerous agents, checked the website daily, and then decided I was lucky to get to use my miles at all. So I went on and had them ticket me.

I looked at the BMI website as well. It starts out looking like a real bargain, but when you put in the dates (26 june -11 july) and they add in all the taxes and surcharges the prices goes up quite a bit.

Does it really make sense to change airports to get a cheaper flight? It seems by the time you pay for transportation and spend the extra time, you would come out even...

BTW, thanks for your help.

Those FF seats sure do fill up fast! You have me thinking I might need to start planning next years trip already.

Good luck! You'll love Brittany!!

Thanks Jody,
I know that there is a possibility of them opening up more FF seats as the dates draw nearer, but we only have enough mileage for the standard coach seats, which makes them even more scarce. I knew I would be mad at myself if I didn't grab something when I could, if nothing turned up later on. I can always put the miles back in for a $50 charge. (We used mileage last February for last summer and flew business class. So those must not go as fast.)

Why don't you try British Airways www.ba.com. For the dates you posted BA is showing about $125 per person from Heathrow to CDG, or $155 from Gatwick to Bordeaux. You could do the bus transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick for about another $20-25 per person, if getting to Bordeaux quickly is your main goal.

AA Thanks for your help. I put in my info on BA, and because we arrive Heathrow @ 7:40, the earliest we could leave would be the 9:15 outbound to CDG. Returning, we would have to arrive at LHR from CDG as early as 10:00 or so to make our flight to MIA. Not such a good deal because of our time frame. It would be a deal if we could use later times. Looks like Sundays are not a good day for inexpensive travel.

You may want to consider flying to London the day before your return home. I'm guessing but it looks like you have early flight to MIA on that Sunday. If for some reason your Paris-London flight is delayed, you may run into problem, since you will be on 2 seperate tickets.

Wren, FYI, recently a friend and I flew BA Vancouver to Heathrow, arrived at 1:30 pm and then sat on the tarmac a further 1 1/2 hours. Even though we arrived early'ish in the afternoon, we couldn't safely book a Ryan Air or EasyJet flight to Rome that same day. So for our 7:30 am flight the next morning, we bused for two hours from Heathrow to Stansted leaving at 4:50 pm, then cabbed to our Stansted B&B, arriving 7:30ish. Although our flight from Stansted to Rome was inexpensive, the additional cost of the bus (BP 22, return), our B&B (BP 50) and dinner, let alone the inconvenience and longer travel time, I wouldn't schedule my second flight through a secondary airport again. Best of luck.

BowenLinda, Thanks for the heads up. I think sticking with Heathrow sounds like the most efficient thing to do.

Our return flight out of LHR isn't until 11:30 and with the flights from CDG you gain an hour, so if we leave at 9:40, we will arrive in LHR by 10:00. I am not sure I want to cut it quite that close, but the Virgin Air agent said I can check my bags all the way thru in CDG, so I could run like heck if necessary!!

I think I will just continue to watch the fares and hope for the best. Flying definitely seems to be the easiest alternative!!