Travel&Vacation

Have you ever been tempted to take one of those cheap flight options from your place to somewhere famous with the hitch being that you had to stop and drive to and from Timbuktu to get there?

If you have, I'd like to hear about it. If you haven't yet had the (mis)fortune of doing so, I'd like to recommend that you give serious consideration to that proposal before you enter your credit card number and sign away a few hours of time and convenience.

There are good airlines that are, indeed, cheaper fare companies who do provide a standard service and grade-A flight options. There's little debate on that topic with choices aplently both foreign and domestic — utrikes eller inrikes, in my case.

However, what I'm wrapping my hands around today are the grade-B flights which take an arm and a leg for you to reach your destination — the ones which also charge you to store your luggage under their massive people moving air machines.

Choosing a budget airline isn't as easy as accepting the lowest fare in the price wars. There are some airlines you may want to avoid those at all cost, no matter how "low" their prices may drop.

I recently got lured into taking a "bargain flight" from London Stansted to Stockholm — a trip which lasted two hours and 12 minutes in the air, and two hours 30 minutes on the ground. It wasn't the worst of times, but I could have done better on many fronts with a bit more preparation and assiduousness on my part.

Actually, I can't blame anyone but myself for booking that particular route, and can't quite say that I didn't see the long list of inconveniences lurking over the horizon– each one lined up to surprise me when I was most tired, most irritated and most wanted to get home.

I did in all actuality with purpose and intent hit "enter" on my laptop and printed out the boarding card and itinerary right smack in my own home, so I can't shift responsibility to anyone but myself for a less than convenient flight — the second of two on that particular airline.

I'd dummied up and selected one of those "terrific" Ryan Air specials — you know, the ones from here to there for €0,01 plus tax — or €69,00 once it's actually time to book your ticket. I've never quite figured out why Ryan Air doesn't simply advertise the final ticket price after tax, but then again, they'd likely no longer be known as the low-price, on-time airline – simply the low budget one. But that's another story altogether.

This was a particularly tiring trip, as I'd packed a van full and traveled on a Friday from London Heathrow to Harwich during the rush hour of the day, traveled 12 hours by DFDS Seaways from Harwich to Esbjerg, Denmark, and drove the remaining eight hours 39 minutes past Copenhagen, over Öresundsbron into Sweden and then the split junction from Helsingborg to Stockholm.

Five days and four different hotel stays later I had reversed course and traveled the same route all the way back to London Heathrow.

In all honesty, I should have ponied up and punched a ticket on SAS direct to Arlanda from Heathrow instead of taking the "inexpensive" route.

Unfortunately, as fate and lower stacks of money would have it, I jumped on Ryan Air instead – though not first without having to fork out £21,50 for the 562 National Express bus between airports, £7,00 for a taxi to my hotel, and £89,00 for seven hours of room space plus breakfast before my 3-kilometer journey back to Stansted Departures.

That was an additional €143,00 forked out simply to save a few euros to get to Stockholm – which is really Stockholm Skavsta Flygplats, some 100 minutes from Stockholm Central Station.

That bus route cost SEK 100,00 or a whopping €10,00 single.

By my calculation, those few extra steps one-way cost me €72,00 more than the outrageous one-way price SAS wanted to charge me of… drumroll… €71,00.

Yep. Chalk that one up to quick planning and no foresight whatsoever.

I did make it from one location to the other eventually, but the cost of the ticket — when weighed against the price of expedience and convenience — was entirely too low.

Yes, you read that right!

I've flown on 32 flights over the past 13 months, all short-route trips here in the EU. From Sweden to England, to Denmark and Hungary my balance sheet says that business trips are winning against pleasure, 28-4. Of the four so-called "pleasure" trips, one each were to Palma and Alicante, one was to Dublin, and the final one my recent adventure from Stansted.

My recent expedition was the fourth time in three consecutive trips that I'd booked the popularly priced option, but the first one which wound up nibbling at my checkbook and exhausting my patience. I succeeded in procuring a low-price ticket, but I got what I paid for – a lower-scale experience on the convenience chart.

I'm not against traveling the budget airline from time to time if you're carrying relatively few items, don't necessarily care where you are seated, and don't mind paying for your own drinks a mile in the sky. You do have some say in where you are seated as there are priority boarding cards for purchase. However, they tend to lose their luster when 30 people in the special queue in front of you also possess the same seniority rank.

I've twice had a similar experience on Easy Jet as I did on Ryan Air in having to board a bus to fly to a London airport — in those cases the departure airport being London Gatwick. I last had to camp a few hours on an uncomfortable chair with my feet up on another one and my jacket over my head between the time I arrived at 01.23 and the time I awoke to check in at 04.00 for my 05.25 flight.

That experience also had its inconveniences, but the actual airtime and local travel to and from the airport were hardly worth complaining here. And, that ticket was low, but not lower than the advertised cost posted for the Ryan Air flight traveling a shorter distance and more frequently.

Ryan Air does provide advantages in offering 2:1 ticket options where special terms and conditions apply. However, my experience with Ryan Air is that you are getting what you are paying for, and the price of those low tickets equates to cattle rounding and long trips between downtown civilisations.

Perhaps my prolonged time on the roads leading up to the trip played a small part in my having alienated Ryan Air and its service. Could be. However, I've also flown half-awake at a god-forbidden time on a comparable airline and didn't have to pay for a service which should be complimentary on a trip, namely checking in luggage. Moreover, I didn't have to walk a thousand miles – excuse the hyperbole – to reach the gate as has been the case with Ryan Air. Twice.

Yours may be a completely different experience with budget airlines – Ryan Air in particular – and you may tend to disagree with the entirety of my experience and opinion.

Do you believe the price of convenience in having a reduced cost ticket more or less valuable than the premium paid on arriving to your destination quicker?