The mirror image of what Clark recommends for Europe

Travel
1

I’m thinking of flipping Clark’s advice of “take a discount US carrier to JFK, ORD or other gateway, then fly to Europe”.

The trouble is Santiago de Compostela has no N. American flights. The Google Flights routing requires two stops (Houston, Dulles or Miami, Madrid, Santiago). The elapsed times are awful… like 17 hours. But I can get from Houston to London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris non-stop. So I’m thinking of doing that, then taking a discount EU or UK flight to Santiago. I could chop one stop off, and maybe overnight in the European gateway to be safe, and for diversion / jet-lag adjustment.

Does anyone have any “interesting” tales about doing that? I guess if I miss my luggage after the first flight, they will just throw it into the wood chipper rather than send it on, no matter what the luggage tags say (I always put my destination address on my tags… not my home). But no one loses luggage on a non-stop, really. The connections are where they get lost.

2

I often do something similar. Last year, we went to Spain but RT tickets were pretty expensive. I found a sweet deal RT to Dublin, so we decided to stay there a couple of days and then flew Ryan Air to Barcelona. Then back to Dublin from Madrid and home. And I never check a bag.

3

It’s easy for me to not check a bag even on a two-week trip… can’t say the same about the Mrs., however…

4

Fortunately my wife also travels light so we both carry-on. We did get new bags last year since the discount euro airlines have smaller luggage size limits than US airlines, but enforcement of said limits seems to be hit and miss.

5

I did some more research… My idea doesn’t work. Not enough flight frequency from Santiago to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris. London only works by taking the one hour coach between Gatwick and Heathrow. I tried!

6

High speed rail from Madrid to Santiago is an option