“I’m off to Lebanon and Syria,” announces Jeroen van Marle casually. (I should stress that the Foreign Office warns against travel to parts of the former and all of the latter). After his visit he will be heading from Damascus to Berlin.
“While planning travel I came across offers for ‘self-transfer’ tickets that were attractively priced,” Jeroen reports. “The best flights were from Damascus via Istanbul to Berlin on Turkish Airlines. But booking through companies like Mytrip and Gotogate was much cheaper – if I was prepared to accept the hassle of checking in again at Istanbul.”
While I am not the greatest fan of online travel agents (OTAs), I have booked through both Mytrip and Gotogate without undue problems; Mytrip refunded a cancelled flight swiftly and in full.
Such OTAs exist because airlines want additional sales power. In a perfect world, Turkish Airlines would sell all its tickets direct. But that is not how the aviation business works. The carrier wants to be relevant in the intensely fare-sensitive part of the market, such as people who search on Skyscanner and other price-comparison sites.
In the absence of any direct flights between the Syrian and German capitals, the obvious connecting point is Istanbul: partly because it is a huge hub, and also because it lies directly on the route.
After Jeroen contacted me, I made a test booking from Damascus via Istanbul to Berlin through Turkish Airlines on 8 October. The fare quoted is £532. The two online travel agents Jeroen mentions both quote almost £200 less – for someone prepared to take the risk that the first flight will be late. There is a connection window of one hour 55 minutes, which should be sufficient.
Jeroen continues: “I’m curious how it will go, and if they’ll require me to go ‘landside’ and back through security at Istanbul.”
With cabin baggage only, and having checked in ahead on Turkish Airlines, Jeroen should be able to follow the transfer procedure at Istanbul: going through a security check and then heading straight for the gate for the flight to Berlin while remaining airside.
This is just as well, because last time I was in Istanbul getting through passport control took nearly an hour.
Online travel agents often sell “guaranteed” self-connect, offering some degree of cover for a new flight if you miss the connection. But looking at the Mytrip guarantee, for example, “extreme weather conditions” and strikes are not covered. In my experience these are two of the most common causes of a missed connection.
Much better to build in a buffer and make the most of Istanbul – one of the world’s greatest cities. I happen to be flying from Beirut to Bucharest in a couple of weeks; I have booked a “self-connect” via Larnaca on Cyprus Airways and Wizz Air, but with an overnight stay on the island built in.
Why, though, the difference in fares? It is rare indeed in aviation for a ticket from A via B to C to be more expensive than the sum of flights from A to B and B to C. So I dug deeper.
The deal through Turkish Airlines is for a fully flexible ticket (with a full refund if you ask for one) and a checked baggage allowance of 30kg. It also comes with a guarantee that if the first flight from Damascus to Istanbul is late and you miss the connection, Turkish Airlines will look after you – rebooking you on the next available flight to the German capital.
If you can travel with cabin baggage only and are tempted with self-connecting to save cash, beware a couple of pitfalls: first, you must be properly documented for the intermediate airport.
For example, a self-connect from the UK to Kathmandu in Nepal via Delhi would not work unless you have an Indian visa. Even though you will stay “airside”, the airline flying you on the first leg needs to know you are have permission to enter India.
And if things unravel, with a missed onward connection, rescuing the trip can prove extremely expensive – as I discovered in Singapore earlier this year, when my British Airways-Jetstar self-connect fell apart and I ended up spending the equivalent of £1,000 on business class on Emirates, the only flight I could find.
