UK trip -flight advice needed
 

Hello Fodorites! It's been a few years since I used all the great advice here to plan an fabulous trip with my daughters to London and Scotland. Now, I am planning on returning with my best friend who has never been to the UK and we will be going to London and Scotland again. While an open jaw flight makes the most sense, it is A LOT more expensive than a non stop RT from SFO to LHR. Same thing happened on our last trip so we booked a separate flight from EDI to LHR to connect with the flight home.

This time, I would like to start in Scotland. I placed Edinburgh at the end of the previous trip and we were so tired by then I felt we gave Edinburgh short shrift (after 9 days of me driving in Scotland I was beat!). We are "mature" women (I'm 59, she's 61), but my friend is not in as good shape as I am, so I thought the hilliness of Edinburgh would be best done during the first half of the trip. Having to connect in LHR makes for a long day though and we will have the day 2 jet lag to contend with. The best priced flights get us into LHR at 2pm. I can get us a connecting flight to EDI at 3:20 or 5:25 or one to GLA at 4:20. All flights are in terminal 5. The connection time for the 3:20 flight to EDI worries me it will be too short. Both the international and domestic legs are with BA, just not on the same ticket. We are planning on carry ons only though.

Does the 3:20 connection sound doable? Or, should we do London first (get over the let lag on flatter ground) and put Edinburgh at the beginning of our Scotland portion? We'll have 16-20 days total.

I'll post a tentative itinerary once we have a concrete starting point and those of you I consider experts on this forum (you know who you are, you basically planned my trip for me 5 years ago) can help me iron out the details:)
TIA!
Nancy

Questions -- are you flying Business or coach? Makes a very big difference. If you are in Business 3:20 would be more than doable since you get off the plane first and get expedited Immigration and security (all assuming you land on time).

If you are flying coach/economy that is too short because you are in the back of the plane and don't get expedited anything :(

If you are in coach I'd book the 5:25 and if you land early T-5 is not a bad place to while away some time with lots of restaurants/shops.

Were you for sure searching for open-jaw tickets and not two one-ways? It is fairly rare these days for an open-jaw ticket to be a LOT more expensive than a RT.

I ran a test on matrix.itasoftware.com (which is Google's information website) and found San Francisco to Edinburgh, returning from London, in mid-March for about $800 on a single itinerary. One change of plane going east, non-stop home. Simple round trip SFO-LHR was only $25 cheaper and then you pay more getting to Edinburgh, not to mention the possible need to recheck luggage to go north separately.
The key, as mentioned above: Use a multi-destination search function.

"While an open jaw flight makes the most sense, it is A LOT more expensive than a non stop RT from SFO to LHR."

As the others have indicated, you may be analyzing this wrong. Input your flight plans using the "MULTI-CITY" option. Just SFO to EDI on day 1 and LHR to SFO on day ___.

I agree with the multi-city search. If there is SFO > EDI / London > SFO for only $25 more (or even $75-$100 more) I'd take it because then you'd be totally protected if your arrival flight is delayed.

You live in NorCal - right? If not right in the Bay area maybe also look at other options to SFO. I'm in the Sacramento area and while SFO seems the logical choice, I have sometimes found it is cheaper to book SMF > LAX (or DFW) > LHR. And I avoid that nasty drive to/from SFO. Not relevant if you live close to SFO

(BTW - I just re-read your UK TR - wonderful stuff)

I didn't believe it either, but I checked and it WAS a lot more expensive (checked mid-July dates) to do open jaw BUT only if you went to EDI first (then it was about $400 more). But if you went to LHR first and returned from EDI, it was only about $200 more expensive. Which would be worth it to me, as you spend that anyway booking separate flights plus the hassle and problems, of course, in doing that.

Of course could vary slightly on some other dates than I choose, but that on my dates, you just had to change the itinerary around. Since the OP doesn't seem to care that much anyway on that point, I'd search more.

Open Championship?

Wow, you guys rock!

I did start with a multi city search and opened it to all the Bay Area airports and London airports as well as EDI/GLA. I tried Christina's suggestion of switching the arrival cities around, but didn't see the savings in Sept she was getting in July. I don't think I'm missing anything.

I live near Sacramento, but the prices out of SMF are over $800 RT . All the multi-city options leaving from bay area airports are also over $800. We are open to any time in Sept. so I have been searching multiple dates too. I just tried again on Google flights and matrix and Skyscanner and we can get RT from SFO to LHR for $544 on BA. A flight to or from EDI and LHR is $54. While $800 is A LOT less than I paid when we went in June 2013 (those tickets were-gulp- $1400 each!), if we can save over $200 by flying into and out of LHR, that's money we can put to good use by staying an extra day or having some nice meals etc.

Janisj, good point about economy vs business. For $544 it is most definitely the cattle call area of the plane and it does take forever to offload the cheap seats! We are not checking bags, so no worries there, but it probably is best to give ourselves some cushion. We should do a Sacramento area GTG so I can finally meet the infamous janisj! You were especially helpful when I planned the last trip :). Inchmahome Priory and Callander have you to thank for us falling in love with them and the Trossachs.

Probably won't be cheaper but you could search for non-stop LAX or LAS to LHR and using Southwest from SMF to the departure airport.

A GTG would be great -- we have 2 or 3 every year in Sacramento -- several Fodorites in the area and others travel through . . . any excuse for a Party :beer: :pizza: