Tips for cheap tickets to London?

[Anonymous]

I have not been to London in over 10 years, and was surprised how expensive the tickets to Heathrow are in the two times of year I'm searching ($550+ in mid-October and $700+ in mid-April).

Does anyone have any tips for best times to fly, best times to book, alternate airports, or other tips for making travel more affordable? Or will we just need to suck it up and pay more than we expected? If so, we may just stay a day or two less to save on hotel.

[Anonymous]

UK airport taxes are really high (they are part of the ticket price - on some airlines like BA they are broken down so you can see how much) so it's hard to get really cheap tickets to London. That said, there was an offer the other day for $24 flights from NY to London (return was more expensive but I can't remember what), so I guess deals do come up occasionally. I fly to London all the time as I'm from there, and I'd say $550 is pretty good. There's a new (or maybe not new but new to me) airline called Primera Air that I've seen advertise tickets for around $350 - maybe check them out. Some of my friends have flown WOW Air via Iceland too, but I hate layovers and will pay more to fly direct.

[Anonymous]

$550 isn't bad at all although with luck you might get down to $400. Can be $700-1000 at peak times.

[Anonymous]

Editing above to add - Primera flies to Stansted - make sure when you are checking flights you put in all London airports and don't restrict it to Heathrow. Stansted is a bit further out than Heathrow but accessible via train/bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Editing above to add - Primera flies to Stansted - make sure when you are checking flights you put in all London airports and don't restrict it to Heathrow. Stansted is a bit further out than Heathrow but accessible via train/bus.

OP here, thanks. Primera was the one with the $550 flights actually--I'd never heard of them before. I wasn't sure about where Stansted was--so it's not too much of a pain to get to London from there? We'll have a 7yo with us, so was trying to limit to nonstop flights so it's not too much of a schlep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Editing above to add - Primera flies to Stansted - make sure when you are checking flights you put in all London airports and don't restrict it to Heathrow. Stansted is a bit further out than Heathrow but accessible via train/bus.

OP here, thanks. Primera was the one with the $550 flights actually--I'd never heard of them before. I wasn't sure about where Stansted was--so it's not too much of a pain to get to London from there? We'll have a 7yo with us, so was trying to limit to nonstop flights so it's not too much of a schlep.

No it's easy - direct train to Liverpool Street station (takes about 45 mins), and there are also buses to Victoria and other places in central London.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Editing above to add - Primera flies to Stansted - make sure when you are checking flights you put in all London airports and don't restrict it to Heathrow. Stansted is a bit further out than Heathrow but accessible via train/bus.

OP here, thanks. Primera was the one with the $550 flights actually--I'd never heard of them before. I wasn't sure about where Stansted was--so it's not too much of a pain to get to London from there? We'll have a 7yo with us, so was trying to limit to nonstop flights so it's not too much of a schlep.

If you are checking a few bags each way you maybe eat up that $150 savings with Primera.

https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/good-bad-and-ugly-of-primera-air/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Editing above to add - Primera flies to Stansted - make sure when you are checking flights you put in all London airports and don't restrict it to Heathrow. Stansted is a bit further out than Heathrow but accessible via train/bus.

OP here, thanks. Primera was the one with the $550 flights actually--I'd never heard of them before. I wasn't sure about where Stansted was--so it's not too much of a pain to get to London from there? We'll have a 7yo with us, so was trying to limit to nonstop flights so it's not too much of a schlep.

If you are checking a few bags each way you maybe eat up that $150 savings with Primera.

https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/good-bad-and-ugly-of-primera-air/

OP here. Wow, thanks, will keep this in mind. Didn't realize it's one of those low-cost airfares; we'd have to plan accordingly (pack light, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Uh, $550-700 IS a cheap ticket to London. Even 10 yrs ago. I lived there 10 years ago, and the only sub-$700 tix I could find btw London & DC were in January.

What price are you expecting to find???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh, $550-700 IS a cheap ticket to London. Even 10 yrs ago. I lived there 10 years ago, and the only sub-$700 tix I could find btw London & DC were in January.

What price are you expecting to find???

OP here. I have no idea--I guess I need to update my idea of a cheap ticket!

We went to another European city recently but we used points, so I don't have a good idea of how much to pay for flights.

[Anonymous]

Do you a cc that gives you airline miles? Check into the sapphire reserve cc.

[Anonymous]

Wow ... you think that’s expensive? Those are great fares.

[Anonymous]

I bought tix to London back in January for an October trip this year and got them for $660 apiece. I was pumped. We paid more per ticket to go to Alabama for Thanksgiving last year.

[Anonymous]

OP again. Another question: several websites state that you can save several hundred dollars by booking flight + hotel together. Any drawbacks to this approach? I'll have to do more research, but wondering whether the hotels offered are generally inconvenient to public transit, or some other drawback.

[Anonymous]

+550 is a pretty good deal, IMO.