From Athens to N.Y. with Olympic, Continental or BA?
 

Ok it's time to buy those tickets for Christmas to New YOrk because apparently they keep going up up up!!!!
Right now i have 3 choices:

Olympic:780€
Continental: 740€

and with connection through London
BA: 615€

Obviosly BA's price is the best but do you think it's worth it to have a connection when there are direct flights? Also how much time is sufficient between flights? 2 hours will be enough? (on the positive side i think it's best flying 3,5hr and 7,5 hr with a stop than 11hr non stop?)

What's your opinion? Thanks!!

11-hr non-stop is much more preferable than a 3.5-hr plus a 7.5-hr.

Whether it's enough difference for a difference of 125€, you have to decide.

If you transit through LHR, you need to go through security there, so only one piece of carryon, not one-plus-one.

Also, a roundtrip on CO will earn you close to 10,000 miles on CO's Onepass program, or any other Skyteam FF program like AF/KL's Flying Blue.

Your BA fare most likely will earn you 0, or at most 2,500 miles. That may or may not be a factor for you.

Or if you're a heavy drinker and expect to drink a lot enroute, CO charges 4€ or US$5 per drink. It most likely won't matter to you, but at least one Fodorite here will pay a much higher fare to get free booze.

Thanks rkkwan,
i thought that it might be best to split the trip but probably i'm wrong. (i don't have any experience on long flights :-) Probably i'll go with Continental or Olympic. (i've just seen that if i'll change my dates by 2 days the price drops to 695€ to both airlines)!

I just flew Olympic round trip Business Class from NY-Athens. The plane from NY to Athens was old and worn. The service was good and the food was not bad.

Athens to NY was another story. The plane was 3 hours late taking off. Whilst waiting for the plane, a young woman told me that she tried to fly from Athens to NYC the day before but the flight was delayed 7 HOURS. There was no flight crew because the FA's conduct "mini-strikes."

Another man told me that this is common on Athens to NY flights. He also told me once that he was in line for a flight and the ticket agents shut down to go to lunch. They left everyone standing in line for one hour. When they came back, they said that it didn't matter because the plane was not going to take off anyway!

I don't think I'll be flying Olympic again.

AEGEAN AIR was terrific!!!!!!!!

I think it's always best to travel nonstop between destinations. Less chance of a delay, missed second flight and lost luggage. Also connecting through London these days is a nightmare.

OMG! That's just ..great!!
I was thinking of flying with Olympic due to sentimental reasons... (being greek etc) but i'm starting to change my mind with all these stories!!

Weadles you have a point about connections through london these days..

So.. Continental seems the obvious choice!

I would pay good money to avoid a connection in London. The idea of breaking up the trip would be nice if you were breaking it up with something pleasant; in this case however you would be breaking it up with a bunch of lines and aggravation. Not my idea of a good time.

And then you would have to stuff your purse into your carry-on to go through security, unless the British airports change their policy between now and Christmas.

But have fun spending those euros on Christmas presents in New York; you can probably pay for your trip by buying all your clothes in New York, especially if the dollar/euro relationship keeps going the way it has been.

We just came back from Athens using BA - HORRIBLE!!!

Connecting through Heathrow is a major pain. You have to traverse half of England to get from Terminal 4 to Terminal when you connect. Security is thorough but slooooooooow. We were hoping that the one consolation for the 4 hour layover would be getting to shop at Duty Free, but our flight arrived late, security took almost an hour and the British pound is so strong against the dollar that we didn't buy a darned thing. Normally I like to pick up books in the UK before they appear in the States, but the cost was so ridiculous that I decided to wait a couple months for the latest Bernard Cornwell books.

On the way to Athens BA lost 8 bags in our group of 25 people. One lady never got her luggage back until the last day on the return from Athens. On our trans-Atlantic flight to LHR the entertainment system was broken. Meals were actually pretty tasty but measly. Worst of all, BA failed to enter our American Airlines frequent flyer numbers so we have to go through the painful process of straightening that out.

Of course, I'm only whining about my particular experience of last week. Having flown BA many times in the past, I was always satisfied (not necessarily impressed, mind you), but Heathrow connections really should be avoided at any cost.