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In Part One, I explained how I saved £1402 by flying from Dublin to LAX, instead of direct from London. Now it’s time to tell you how things worked out in practice…

To recap, here was the plan:

Monday:

2115: LHR to DUB with BA
Shuttle bus to Hilton Dublin Airport
Sleep

Tuesday:

Shuttle bus to Dublin Airport
0945: DUB to LHR with Aer Lingus
1245: LHR to LAX with American Airlines

Travel begins…

And it all started well in T5 at Heathrow. As I was waiting to board the flight, I realised that my Aer Lingus flight the next morning wasn’t going to let me take advantage of my BA Silver Status. A strange quirk of this code-share, so it was time to try my luck. I asked the ticketing agent in the Galleries Lounge if they could move me on to the earlier 0915 DUB to LHR BA flight, a bit of sweet talking and they said they’d move me on to the BA flight, citing that they could waive the change fee for me as a gesture of goodwill since it would give me a bit longer to connect to my next flight. How nice of them.

The flight to Dublin departed on time, was uneventful and landed 15 minutes early. Then it was a 5 minute walk from the plane to arrivals, going through an automatic passport gate. It made me think that if I was in a rush to catch a back to back flight, it should be a fairly quick process.

Dublin

Annoyingly, I’d missed the shuttle bus for the Hilton and instead of waiting 25 mins for the next one, I was keen to sleep, so jumped in a cab. After apologising to the taxi driver for giving him such a short journey he took me to the Hilton. It took around 10 mins and cost 20 Euros, but I made sure I gave him a nice tip to make up for the short trip.

A quick check in and no problems at all. My Hilton Honors Diamond membership meant I was entitled to free breakfast at the hotel, but I knew I’d forgo it to get on the shuttle bus early enough. The shuttle bus runs at regular intervals and is free if you’re a Hilton Honors member.

The next morning it was time to get the shuttle bus back to the airport. Where the cab took 10 mins, the shuttle bus took closer to 20 due to the morning traffic, but I still arrived in plenty of time for my flight.

Flying to Los Angeles

I checked in at the BA desk, my bags were priority tagged all the way through to LAX and I was given information on the Dublin lounge. After security, I found my way to the outsourced lounge, enjoyed a breakfast of fruit and decent coffee before boarding and taking the uneventful and on time flight to London.

On arrival into T5 at LHR I followed the flight connection signs to get to T3. Once there, an American Airlines rep checked my documents and I jumped on the shuttle bus. There was no wait and we were on the move for the 15 min drive to T3.

At T3 you continue to follow the flight connection signs, but since you’re in the flight connection centre, that’s pretty much all you can do. You enter security, where there is a priority lane for Business / First / Status. Once through you find yourself in T3’s departure lounge where it’s only a short walk to the oneworld lounge of your choice.

And that’s it, you’re then ready to take your transatlantic flight.

Bottom line

It was super easy, if a little stressful with all the extra travel before a long flight – but for the cost saving, it can’t be beat.

It made me realise that if everything went to plan, it would be very easy to do the London to Dublin leg on the same day, and even do the back to back, but one small issue and everything could be ruined. It’s a big risk knowing that if you miss that flight back from Dublin to London you forfeit your whole ticket…

Have you ever done a same day turnaround to benefit from cheaper ex-eu fares?