It' our first (and maybe only) time visiting Europe and I'm not sure that our travel plans are sound. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions that you have to offer. Thank you!

Our goal is to get to Rome; so departing SFO arriving at LHR at 1:35PM (we really like the price, timing and duration of our trans-atlantic flight) and then taking a bus to Gatwick Airport where we can catch an easyjet.com flight at 5:00PM (for about $100.00 per person) to Ciampino airport in Rome.

For our trans-atlantic flight home we need to make our way from Paris to LHR. Our idea is to fly out of CDG @ 8:34AM on an easyjet.com flight to London Luton airport(cost only about $40.00 per person) and then bus to Heathrow for our 2:15PM flight home to SFO.

Not enough time. You need 5 hours to safely do the LHR-LGW transfer, as those low-cost airline has very strict check-in rules. You have 3:25, and is undoable.

The return is also highly risky.

rkkwan:
Does your 5-hour suggestion still hold if we have no baggage to check? Also, would you recommend taking the chunnel from Paris to LHR rather than fly?

You are going to take at least an hour to get out of Heathrow however you do it

3h25m is not enough time, no ifs, no buts

As for the return - have you checked BA, flights from £39 per person including taxes

BUT do you really want to be several hundred miles from your departure airport on the day you return home? Any delays could mean having to pay for full price one way tickets in order to get home

Have you checked open jaw (multi ticket) flights into Rome and out of Paris?

I think the cost savings created by using Easyjet are negated by transfer costs (not to mention possible baggage surcharges and plain old aggro.

I can see open-jaw return trips (LHR to FCO, CDG to LHR) for $260 or so (don't know your days) which I'll bet would be less than schlepping to/from LGW or Luton, and certainly easier on the system.

To get a cheap Eurostar ticket (forget you ever heard the word "chunnel&quot you'd need to buy a round-trip ticket and throw away the return portion, and even then it would probably cost more than flying straight to Heathrow, never mind connecting from train to tube or taxi, etc.

And yes, the connection times you mention are unrealistic.

<<< To get a cheap Eurostar ticket (forget you ever heard the word "chunnel&quot you'd need to buy a round-trip ticket and throw away the return portion >>>

For people registered as Americans can be cheaper to get a single as the cheapest one way ticket is $67 with a day return at $72. Compare that to UK folk whose cheapest ticket is £59 (bout $105)

One VERY important thing to know about easyJet -- you need to be checked in -- not just in the check-in queue, but checked in w/ boarding pass in hand before the cut off time. That is the main reason your LHR/LGW plan has nooooo chance. If you miss the cut off, your ticket is voided and you'd have to buy a very expensive walk-up ticket.

as for no checked luggage - leaving from any UK airport you are only allowed one item through security. Not a carry on plus a handbag/personal item, but just one item.

W/ all the hassle is the savings worth it?

If you decide on the Eurostar instead you'd still need about 4 hours from arrival at LHR.

<i>For people registered as Americans can be cheaper to get a single as the cheapest one way ticket is $67 with a day return at $72. Compare that to UK folk whose cheapest ticket is &pound;59 (bout $105)</i>

Is that a recent change?

We always fly directly from SFO to LHR and then get our ticket out of LHR to Italy, Dublin or France as the case may be...it is much better for travel and even if it is a bit more expensive it is worth it.

There are tons of flights from LHR to FCO (Fiumicino not Ciampino) airport on Alitalia and even Bristish Airways...

A perfect option would Alitalia's 4:35PM Flight which is usually around under $200 per person

To add to janisj's comments, also be aware that easyjet (like most budget airlines) have VERY strict limits on checked luggage. So if you're forced to check a bag (because of UK's 1 bag rule or otherwise), read the fine print about baggage allowances or you could pay more in &quot;penalties&quot; than the cost of a ticket from LHR - FCO.

<b>alanRow</b> posted a very revealing (and scary) link on the Airlines forum in regard to LCC baggage policies - www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700377/

I agree that some people get misled by the fact that the total allowed weight is 20 kg, rather than that the weight per bag is 20 kg. He just didn't read very carefully. Peter Greenberg seems to be going over the top - a post on Fodors would have cleared the point for him in advance and saved him the cash.

And I don't consider a 44-pound checked baggage allowance (for EasyJet) to be terribly light.

A bigger concern for me is reports that the Ryanair scales are inaccurate, at one airport at least.

Gardyloo I don't know when Eurostar changed the prices but it's not unknown for Eurostar to have American only offers - a couple of years ago they had a Saturday night ticket from London to Paris so you could go clubbing in Paris on a Saturday night travelling back Sunday morning.

Then again if you don't register as European you book 9 months in advance rather than the 5 for us lesser mortals

As for the article on the airlines branch, the only scary thing is how ignorant the &quot;journalist&quot; is.

Re Eurostar - I just looked at the website and could not find any one way fares less than US$125, which admittedly is much better than the best I've done previously (which admittedly is several years ago.) Best I could see before was a &pound;99 return, which worked out cheaper than the single fare; you just chucked the return portion.

Obviously the EasyJets of the world are taking a bite out of the train too.

On the matter of the baggage charges at easyJet, I think it has to do with knowledge lag. Back when they were younger things, these extortionate baggage charges weren't applied, or if they were the per-kilo overage rate was much less. We went on a cruise (thus lots of luggage) and flew to CIA on easyJet a couple of years ago; I think maybe we got charged no more than &pound;20 for the excess, if that. I suspect many people are still thinking in those terms, not the current ones.

Website changed again - now Americans can only book 5 months in advance.

I can find $94 one way fares in September but still hunting for the $67 ones which are mentioned in the fares link

Big thanks to EVERYONE for the advice and expecially montysc! We decided on taking an overnight nonstop SFO to LHR on United ($1,355.14 per) arriving in London at 1:35PM. From there, catching an Alitalia flight at 4:35PM to Rome ($167.80 per). As far as getting back to London (from Paris) for our booked 2:15PM flight home to San Francisco - still not sure what to do; (a)chunell, (b)air or (c) just sleep in London the night before?!!@#$%^

c) for safety
b) if you *must* have another night in Paris - BUT you must be on the 1st Eurostar of the day to London
a) if you are the sort of person who wins lotteries

alanRow: You are too funny - &quot;C&quot; it is! Do you have any suggestions about where abouts to stay in London?

What is your budget? w/ a 2:15 flight out of LHR you can stay just about anywhere and have no problem getting out to the airport. Do you have Marriott or Hilton points? If so there are some very good properties in London.

If not, you can use priceline to get a nice 4 star hotel for around $100 or even less. check biddingfortravel.com for info.

Glad to hear you were able to schedule your flight to Roma out of LHR.

For your return from Paris to LHR I would offer a few of our opinions...

With your later flight home at 2:15 it is pretty easy to fly from Paris CDG or Orly to LHR and then connect to your flight home.

We have always stayed overnight in London because our flight leaves at 11:00 AM from LHR...

We have stayed in Downtown London 2 times for this schedule and several other times at a Heathrow Airport hotel. We always use Priceline for the Airport hotels and our last &quot;win&quot; was at the Sheraton Skyline for only $68 on May 8.

I can't stand how expensive everything is in London (not that Paris is any better) including food, taxis etc.. so on our next trip we are talking about staying one extra night in our destination country and just taking an early morning flight to LHR that gets in about 8:00 AM or so for our 11:00 departure...for what it is worth we would rather spend one more night in our vacation location than in London having visited London on several trips...Good Luck