When planning our recent Europe getaway, we first booked our overwater flight, which was from Boston to Dublin on Aer Lingus. This was one of the sweet spots of the distance-based British Airways chart, though it was gutted with the recent British Airways devaluation.
The flight still costs 12,500 Avios in economy class, but Business Class (which is what I booked) now costs 37,500 Avios instead of only 25,000 Avios.
(SEE ALSO: British Airways – good for domestic US travel too!)
(SEE ALSO: 6 winners and losers with the British Airways devaluation)
Getting from Cincinnati to Boston
But now I still had the problem of how to get from my home in Cincinnati to Boston for my flight. My Aer Lingus flight leaves Boston at 9pm, so I have plenty of time to get there. The only problem is that there aren’t really any good options to get there! Southwest flies to BOS, but doesn’t fly from Cincinnati. I could fly out of Dayton or Columbus, which might be an option, especially given that I have the Southwest companion pass.
(SEE ALSO: What is the Southwest Companion Pass (and how to get it))
(SEE ALSO: Cheapest way to get the Southwest Companion Pass (without the Southwest credit card))
There actually even is a direct flight from Columbus to Boston, but the only problem is that we are flying BACK to Cincinnati, so we’d have to do some car trickeration. With Delta’s reduction in service from Cincinnati, there aren’t a ton of direct flights to ANYWHERE that is not an airline hub.
(SEE ALSO: The curious case of Delta and CVG)
I ended up booking the direct flight on Delta, using 12,500 Delta Skymiles for each of us.
Connecting flights on different airlines – the threat of misconnecting
When you’re trying to decide if you want to take connecting flights on different airlines, you need to take into account not only how much of a layover you are scheduled to have, but what your plans are if things go wrong (as they occasionally do!)
In my case, I was connecting to an international flight (to Dublin), and there is only one flight per day. This is somewhat of a “dream trip” for us, so the downside of missing that flight is high.
Like I said, my flight from Boston to Dublin leaves at 9pm, and the flight from Cincinnati to Boston goes from 4:00 to 6:15pm. So if all goes well, I have about a 2.5 hour layover, which would be plenty. I’ve used sites like FlightAware to track plane path and delay times, and this flight, although delayed, has not once in the past few months been delayed so long that I’d have missed my flight (not even close
(SEE ALSO: Tracking flight path – seeing the path your plane takes?)
Of course, I said that about my Amtrak train (Checking historical Amtrak delays – will I miss my train?) but then it ended up THIRTEEN HOURS delayed
(SEE ALSO: … but I’ll probably never take another Amtrak trip)
EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention was that if you are traveling on connecting flights on different airlines but WITHIN THE SAME AIRLINE ALLIANCE, you may have some additional protection. For example, oneworld has a great policy like that; if you’re traveling one flight on American Airlines and one on British Airways, it will be like you’re on the same carrier for your whole trip.
Connecting flights but different airlines – what about luggage?
Another problem many people when they have connecting flights on different airlines is what to do about their luggage. In my case it’s not an issue as we are not planning on checking any bags, but if you are… then you probably don’t want to book connecting flights on different luggage.
Unless the two airlines are part of the same air alliance, they won’t have any coordination with your luggage – you’ll be on your own. I once had to keep track of 17 pieces of luggage in the airport and it was a nightmare. I would NOT recommend this unless you have a LOT of time.
Like WAY more time than you think you’ll need. Because you have to plan for not only what happens if everything goes well, but also for what happens when things go WRONG! Think weather delay, or flight misconnect, or anything else. Remember your first airline doesn’t have any responsibility to make sure you hit your connect (though most airlines will TRY).
What do you think? How much of a layover is “enough”? Would you risk it?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Would not risk it for such a special trip. Boston is a lovely city to spend a day in and would fly in the night before.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve encountered so many folks who missed cruises because weather delayed or cancelled their flight, scheduled for the same day as the cruise departure. Fly in the day before and be safe.
I agree, don’t risk it. Use hotel points which you surely have to stay a day in Boston.
On a related point, I am flying in from Tel Aviv to Dusseldorf late at night one day next month, staying overnight and continuing on from Dusseldorf back to New York late afternoon the next day. These are two separate AVIOS award tickets and even though it is the same airline, Air Berlin, and the second flight [which also happens to be Business; there is only Economy TLV-DUS], is well within the 24 hour rule, Air Berlin have told me they will not ticket my baggage through from Tel Aviv to New York as I am flying on two separate tickets. This is a royal pain!
That doesn’t seem right? Especially if it’s all on the same airline. They should be able to combine the tickets, at least for luggage purposes. I’d try calling back
Do it at the airport. A check-in agent will most likely do this.
I am a big oneworld fan at the moment because of a situation like this. We had flights from Tokyo to ord on American and added an avios flight later on jal from Osaka. The connection was about 2 hrs, so I could’ve retrieved an rechecked baggage, but that was definitely not ideal. They were able to completely check us and our luggage in through to Chicago, no problem. Made the trip much more relaxing.
I was thinking the same thing as Kate. I would plan for this trip much as we plan for a cruise leaving from a different, distant city, and enjoy a day in Boston. We get there the day before and don’t need to panic while we are waiting for a plane to leave for our destination … a cruise like your dream trip is not an everyday “happening”.
An eastbound flight across the big pond can be exhausting because you’ll lose a night’s sleep, and you probably won’t get much sleep the night before either. We have lots of experience, as we live in Germany, and fly a couple of times a year to the U.S. in economy:(
One nice thing is that at least our transatlantic flight is in business class with a lie-flat bed, so hopefully we’ll get at least a little bit of sleep.
One thing I like to do is fly in very early in the morning (like 6am or 7 am flight) and just camp out in the lounge and work all day (helps if you have a job you can do from anywhere).
At the very least I book 1 or 2 flights before the last one that could get me to my destination. This really worked out on my last trip from ORD-HEL (On Finnair) which departed at 10pm. I was at a client site during the day, so couldn’t do my normal 6 am departure plan, but I took a flight that left DCA at 3 PM (on United) with the last flight that got me to my destination was at 5 or 6 PM. My 3 PM flight was delayed 2 hours and the 6 PM flight was canceled! Good thing I took the flight I did.
Due to 30-minute late Uber pickup, missed AA metal PNR (BA Avios)), which caused me to miss Iberia transatlantic (Iberia Avios) award. Iberia would not waive the “24 hour cancellation clause”, which cased me to forfeit 40K Avios or re-book as a dummy, then cancel later but within 24 hours of departure. I tried to play the “OneWorld” partnership, which got me nowhere with Iberia.
Iberia (Iberia Avios) will not honor misconnects when connecting to Iberia flights on another OneWorld carrier (American (on BA Avios) on separate PNRs. Had to pay a change fee to move the reservation out into future to avoid losing 40K miles due to cancellation within 24 hour window. Will likely pay another change fee to cancel, but at least will be able to redeposit the 40K miles
Why spend all those extra points on business class if the devaluation of points bugs you? Just suck it up for a few hours in economy and save a lot of Avios. I do not understand the insistence on (what seems like all) travel/points blogs on flying in the toppest (I know, not a word) class there is when the whole plane gets there at the same time.
Same with crazy spendy chain hotels when all a person needs is a clean room where you can sleep shower and poop and has wifi.
I do not get it and wish someone would write a column and explain all this to me. Points are hard to get just like money. To me, the slogan is “Spend Wisely”.
Thanks for reading. I generally do agree with most of your sentiments. I actually do fly economy just about everywhere – these flights will be our first business class flights ever and I was wanting to try the experience. I do think one of the benefits of business class on overnight flights are that you can (hopefully?) sleep better on the plane so as to not spend a whole day of your vacation super-jetlagged.
As for hotels, I also agree – I have a whole post about why “budget” hotels destroy the so-called “nice” ones.