Pollyana

Thats a shame, guess the closest they do are Manchester or Liverpool.
I see what you mean about the flight booking, that's a wee bit complex!

Justcol

Trainline.com
there's plenty of direct trains from lhr to Warrington

Chocolate eclair

Cheers mi duck. I shall take a look. Depends on how many changes there are with all our luggage and OH's recent vasovagal syncope. I can't cope with him pulling something, collapsing and all the luggage. Call me selfish.

Anyhow, I've usurped BEVS thread, sorry. Have you managed to find any flights that dont cost two arms and a leg M?

Pollyana

Plenty of trains, but yes, beware of changes - not all stations have lifts between platforms, also beware of the cost, which is the reason I go for the coaches first. Train fares are now pretty horrific, even in advance. I travel between Brighton and my sister's place in mid Wales - usually around £25 on the coach, as opposed to around £130 by train!

I'd recommend BEVS looks at the coaches first too - I know they run to Bournemouth and Weymouth

Justcol

I can't hear national express without starting to hum this 😆

Justcol

Prices for June aren't out yet but end of May were only about £35 and there were no train changes.

scrubbedexpat143

Have you booked yes, ducks? So yeh, you may want to get in while you can, while the getting in is good.

If not, this should really, really make your day -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-data-suggests

I take it the article is Australia-focused. But then airfares in the two countries usually run quite the same anyway, do they not?

So yeh, you may want to get in while you can, while the getting in is good. Before the travel industry reads this and acts accordingly.

Me, I'm safely booked and confirmed to fly from Indonesia to Sydney at the end of May, a decent (Asian) airline and not one of my usual so-called discount buckets, all included and at n surprisingly (being me, even suspiciously) good fare. I booked only one way as I'm quite unsure as to how long I'll be back in Oz - a small matter of an op for my left eye cataract to be done I hope in June, so I have to factor in time for recovery as well. Plus my half yearly med apps, one of the lesser positives of being old.

The plus-side is, we are told it may be an unusually cold winter, so I can stay home with the heating on and the cats on my lap, and make inroads into my stocks of Coonawarra and Limestone Coast vintage reds.

All in all, I dread to think what I may have to pay when I rebook to fly back to Asia in, likely, mid to late August.

Revenge travel - is that the same as refusing to travel to deny the airlines their ridiculously high fares? It all seems like lose-lose to me...

Pollyana

Thats good news! Wonder if I could persuade my family to move to Warrington!! Which site did you use to find a route from Heathrow with no changes - might be handy for me to try instead of trainline

Justcol

I put Warrington because that's where was mentioned. It's only a spit and a jump from there to St Helens.
Trainline.Com

Pollyana

AH well I already use trainline so I guess I'm out of luck. Pretty amazing to have direct trains from LHR though, not many places get those!

Pom_Chch

Hi BEVS, we are flying back for a visit end of May. Return flights Christchurch to London $2700 each. Flight path Chch-Sydney-Abu Dhabi-London, around 32 hours with Etihad. Singapore Air were around $3200.

Certainly not what we paid pre pandemic. We got return flights China Southern for $1400 with only one stop in Guangzhou 😬

BEVS

Thanks . I will look at that. See if it is doable for me. I can't be wiped out for a week.if we go. My ...erm.....fortitude is not what it was at the moment.

Justcol

How were they?
I've considered the Chinese airlines but never used one.

Chocolate eclair

It isn't a direct journey unfortunately Have to change at Paddington for Euston, so not an option for us with lots of luggage.

Tom H

I think you could possibly get a train from Heathrow to Warrington via Reading.

Probably cost a lot more to do that but possibly an option? It would also mean going on a Cross Country train, which is a negative but it may help avoiding the London Underground.

There's also this company that could help move some of your luggage if required. Friends of ours that went back used them and were happy with the price (given they returned to Perranporth *lucky*)

https://www.sevenseasworldwide.com/en-nz/baggage/

I don't think there's as many coaches during the weekends than weekdays. Megabus as an example don't often travel as much on weekend dates as they do on weekday dates.