Airlines Los Angeles to London; Return via Paris

I am ready to book my flight to London; and return from Paris to Los Angeles for a trip coming up in five months. I have a couple of questions:

First if an airline has a flight that is operated by another airlines (For example British Air operated by American Airlines) does that mean I will be flying on an American Airlines plane at AAs terminal?

There is only one non-stop flight offering both ways and it is sold by Delta and operated by two different airlines (Air France and Virgin America). Is there anything I should be concerned about booking this type of flight?

Is it best to fly non-stop or, should I, would I, appreciate a few hour stop/break to split it up. From LA its about 11 hours going and 12 returning if non-stop.

Any other suggestions or airlines recommendations for that flight?

thanks

cp73 said:

I am ready to book my flight to London; and return from Paris to Los Angeles for a trip coming up in five months. I have a couple of questions:



First if an airline has a flight that is operated by another airlines (For example British Air operated by American Airlines) does that mean I will be flying on an American Airlines plane at AAs terminal?

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If it's a code-share, then you may have a BA flight number and flying on AA equipment, or vice versa, for example. BA and AA have non-stop flights from LAX to LHR.

There is only one non-stop flight offering both ways and it is sold by Delta and operated by two different airlines (Air France and Virgin America). Is there anything I should be concerned about booking this type of flight?

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Well, they aren't the only non-stops, but perhaps they are the most affordable on your dates. It's common to see differing prices for the same flight via a codeshare. You would accrue frequent flyer miles on the airline your ticket states, not the airline you fly.

Is it best to fly non-stop or, should I, would I, appreciate a few hour stop/break to split it up. From LA its about 11 hours going and 12 returning if non-stop.

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I've done this route several times. I like the convenience of non-stop when possible, but often when heading to Europe I choose an itinerary with a stop since I prefer to arrive in the mid-afternoon rather than the morning.



Keep track of your return itinerary and fees. If you return via London you will pay more in taxes than direct to the States via another country. So, I'd try for Air France or Delta, AA, etc from Paris to the US vs a potential BA flight via London. Have fun!


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Ken555 said:

Keep track of your return itinerary and fees. If you return via London you will pay more in taxes than direct to the States via another country. So, I'd try for Air France or Delta, AA, etc from Paris to the US vs a potential BA flight via London. Have fun!
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Thanks for your comments Ken....I have read others mention the fees on flying back through London. However I don't seem to notice those fees when I look at airline flight quotes on Kayak. I thought when you use the flight search sites those fees include all the taxes....How much more are we talking about?? Is it $50 per ticket or $200 per ticket....Maybe its not that big to be noticed?

thanks again..

cp73 said:

Thanks for your comments Ken....I have read others mention the fees on flying back through London. However I don't seem to notice those fees when I look at airline flight quotes on Kayak. I thought when you use the flight search sites those fees include all the taxes....How much more are we talking about?? Is it $50 per ticket or $200 per ticket....Maybe its not that big to be noticed?

thanks again..

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Be careful when booking on Kayak. The lowest price looks like Kayak's, but they don't sell tkts, they route you instead to airfare.com a large reseller. I've read bad reviews about them, but they seem to be okay, as long as you don' t need to make ANY changes. Also no mileage credit . Still much much better ,if the fares are not too much different, to book from the airline site. I fell for thinking Kayak wouldn't steer me to a ticketer with bad reviews. Haven 't taken my flights yet, but think they'll be fine.

If not flying back non-stop, and transferring in US, give yourself extra layover time to go thru customs. You'll have to pick up luggage and go thru screening again for domestic flight.

cp73 said:

Thanks for your comments Ken....I have read others mention the fees on flying back through London. However I don't seem to notice those fees when I look at airline flight quotes on Kayak. I thought when you use the flight search sites those fees include all the taxes....How much more are we talking about?? Is it $50 per ticket or $200 per ticket....Maybe its not that big to be noticed?



thanks again..

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Fare comparison sites should include all associated fees, so going thru London may not be a bad idea all things considered. Sorry for the worry, this is usually an issue with award travel, but not so much with retail purchases.


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dsmrp said:

Be careful when booking on Kayak. The lowest price looks like Kayak's, but they don't sell tkts, they route you instead to airfare.com a large reseller. I've read bad reviews about them, but they seem to be okay, as long as you don' t need to make ANY changes. Also no mileage credit . Still much much better ,if the fares are not too much different, to book from the airline site. I fell for thinking Kayak wouldn't steer me to a ticketer with bad reviews. Haven 't taken my flights yet, but think they'll be fine.

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You're confused. Kayak, along with hipmunk and other price comparison sites, do a great job of finding fares. It's up to you to determine where to actually purchase the tickets. Blaming kayak for the fault of a third party purchase site is just silly. And, many - if not all - of such sites will include mileage credit for travel, since it's typically not a charter flight, etc. I'd guess you had a single bad experience with Kayak and now think they are evil...


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We've given up flying long haul with any US airline as we have had such bad experiences with them. When flying to the States we use BA or Virgin and usually book via their sites, usually the price is the cheapest that way. I've also looked at flying from Paris or Dublin to avoid the high taxes but on every occasion the prices have differed very little and it certainly wasn't a viable option.

Ken555 said:

You're confused. Kayak, along with hipmunk and other price comparison sites, do a great job of finding fares. It's up to you to determine where to actually purchase the tickets. Blaming kayak for the fault of a third party purchase site is just silly. And, many - if not all - of such sites will include mileage credit for travel, since it's typically not a charter flight, etc. I'd guess you had a single bad experience with Kayak and now think they are evil...

Sent from my iPad

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What I don't like about Kayak now is that when you find a fare and itinerary you like from a search, they a good part of the time list themselves in the list of ticket sellers, such as:

Kayak
Orbitz
Travelocity
<Airline name>

But when you click on the "Kayak" link, they'll re-direct you to a 3rd party re-seller. In my case it was airfare.com, which was noted on the page, but fairly small and easy to overlook. Depending upon the itinerary Kayak could re-direct to Vayama, airfare.com or somebody else. Sure I should have looked more carefully, but judging from sampling of complaints I read online, a lot of other people in past years were mis-lead too. I wish Kayak would be more transparent and list all the ticket sellers, and not try to appear as a seller themselves.

I was searching on Kayak for international flights to Europe which OP was doing too. I've seen airfare.com thru Kayak link on a lot of itineraries, so was cautioning him about the Kayak "seller" link.

airfare.com is a ticket consolidator, and buys at discount from airlines. Their cancellation policy is much stricter than major airlines: only up to midnite Eastern time of the day of purchase.

We have friends that live in Las Vegas. Instead of flying from there they'll hop to LAX and take Virgin ATLANTIC to London. I will fly them from Miami if I can also. Non-stop! You can fly from Paris to London (or take the train) to get them going home.

cp73 said:

First if an airline has a flight that is operated by another airlines (For example British Air operated by American Airlines) does that mean I will be flying on an American Airlines plane at AAs terminal?

There is only one non-stop flight offering both ways and it is sold by Delta and operated by two different airlines (Air France and Virgin America). Is there anything I should be concerned about booking this type of flight?

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You'd be flying on a codeshare flight on AA. If this is the case, you should look up the departing terminal ahead of time because even though it's an international flight, BA flies out of Tom Bradley and I believe that some AA international flights do not. This matters a ton at LAX since there's no easy way of going from terminal to terminal (walking, the bus).

There's no problem with flying 2 different airlines, other than luggage allowance differences. I personally prefer flying Air France compared to Virgin. Virgin Atlantic has amazing entertainment selection (they own the licenses to a ton of music & movies) but Air France has bigger coach seats and better food. Air France also has more check in counters at CDG and it may cut down on your wait time on your return flight. I've also had VA flight attendants pull me aside to measure my CARRYON (after check in, prior to getting on the jet way) since they have smaller allowances and it was a PITA.

After watching the fares and looking at all the different combos of flights and airports available I finally decided on the a direct flight to London from LAX and a direct return home from Paris. This flight was really my first choice when I started looking back in January. However I then started considering all sort of different variations from different airports included John Wayne in OC. In the end my wife said lets go direct if possible and it was done. One interesting thing I noted was during this entire time the fares never seemed to move regardless of what time of time of the week, including weekends since January. I kept hoping they would come down some but it never seemed to happen.

We will be fling Virgin Atlantic to London and returning on Air France. It seemed like Air France was the only choice direct to LA from Paris. The ticket was sold through Delta.