Continued...
Back to the RWC tickets: preparing for the worst, we were looking for alternatives to the Newcastle game. The only appealing and fitting substitute was the game against Georgia in Cardiff the week before. So this was now our plan B (and the wedding in Switzerland was demoted to plan C
). Checking out hotels, normal rates were already north of GBP 250 per night during these dates for even very average hotels, so I booked 2 nights at Holiday Inn Cardiff North and 3 nights at Holiday Inn Newcastle Jesmond using my IHG Rewards points, both reservations fully refundable of course.
Finally, during the pre-sale which was on in late November we got tickets for the Newcastle game (yippee!). A price category higher than we originally wanted, but so be it (beggars can't be choosers). Cancelled the Cardiff hotel the next day, told our friend we’re not coming to the wedding, and now could move on to booking the return flights and the intra-European flights.
First to the intra-European flights: for our travels around Germany and Switzerland we elected to go by car. Simple reason: Autobahn. That's one of two things I am missing most in Australia: driving really fast on the Autobahn, and an efficient high-speed train network. I am usually a 100% loyal Hertz customer, but on this occasion we elected to go with Sixt, simply because we wanted a special premium car with a good chance of a powerful engine. And Hertz' German fleet is very...average...in this regard, while Sixt has much better premium vehicles. So we booked a BMW 4-Series Coupe (or similar) for a week, for our trip from Frankfurt via Switzerland and Stuttgart to Berlin. Also, curtesy of Air Berlin's oneworld Gold Status match (which I got matched with my Velocity Gold) you can sign up for Sixt Platinum membership, which should give you an upgrade and other perks.
Then we had to get to Newcastle somehow. We have to leave from Berlin on the 7th of October (due to the 3-night hotel booking we now had), and return to Frankfurt on the 10th, as we need to commence our return journey to Melbourne no later than the 11th, ideally from FRA. There are not too many options when going to the North East unfortunately. NCL is a sizable airport, but flights to/from Germany are very limited.
Back in 2005 when studying in Newcastle, I often used Ryanair HHN-STN and then connected to Easyjet STN-NCL; that always worked a treat. But there are no flights between Stansted and Newcastle anymore I found out. Once I flew LH, which for some odd reason not be known to me flew to NCL from DUS only (it must have been the only LH destination not served from FRA or MUC). This flight has now been handed over to LH’s LCC, Germanwings aka Eurowings, who does not fly to FRA. And as they do not interline or codeshare between LH and 4U, I couldn’t use this option either to get back to FRA.
Looking at alternative ports, MAN is still quite far away (3 hrs by car and even longer by train). EDI would be better (1.5 hrs by train), but getting to EDI was not much easier in the first place. Smaller airports in the northeast such as Leeds or Durham-Tees Valley were no options either.
So this really only left 3 viable options: SN/BM via BRU, BA via LHR, or KL/AF via AMS or CDG. I would have preferred BA due to the fact that connecting at LHR T5 is really easy and efficient, and I could earn QFF points and SCs. But: timing for the return flight NCL-LHR-FRA was horrible. Either depart NCL at 6am, or have a few hours layover at LHR and only get to FRA in the evening. Fares were also not appealing. Discounted. The Brussels option didn’t work because there are no flights between NCL and BRU on Saturdays. Otherwise I would have loved to try them. Pricing wise they also looked good (better than the other 2 options). Anyway, discounted.
This left me with KL and AF. No issues with KL at all for me. I have never flown with them but thinking of them for intra-EU flights and connections via AMS, only positive things come to mind. AMS must be a very efficient and friendly airport to navigate. The opposite impression is what I have of AF and CDG though (also, having never flown them and never been to CDG). In the end, cost and timing of flights were the key factors, so ended up booking AF for the way over and KL on the way back:
TXL-xCDG-NCL AF Y (paid), and
NCL-xAMS-FRA KL Y (paid)
Will be interesting, two new airlines and two new airports for me. We only have a 60 min connection in CDG (on one ticket), so I got a bit nervous this week after reading somewhere intra-T2 MCT is 60 mins, but it actually seems quite straightforward. We’ll need to connect from 2F to 2E and according to the CDG guidelines this should take 25-30 mins, no need to go landside or through security, and only passport control to navigate (as we’ll leave the Schengen zone). And curtesy of Alitalia I now even have Skyteam Gold status, which will us get into the Berlin lounge at least (CDG and AMS may be not enough time).
To be continued....
