Is the Netherlands easy to navigate near to Christmas?
Simon Calder looks at Amsterdam for Christmas, travelling during rail strikes and indirect flights
Q A group of nine of us will be travelling from Amsterdam Schiphol airport to Maastricht on 15 December, returning two days later. What are our best options for transport?
Isla W
A How lovely to be travelling to the southernmost city in the Netherlands shortly before Christmas. The direct distance between Amsterdam Schiphol airport and Maastricht is just 110 miles. The AA recommended road route forecast is two hours and 20 minutes for a 133-mile road journey, via Utrecht and Eindhoven. You could rent a couple of cars for around €130 each for two days; add in the cost of fuel and it looks to me like €300 in total, which is about £37 per person.
I recommend, though, that you go by train. The rail connection from Schiphol airport’s own station (just follow the signs from arrivals) takes two hours and 45 minutes, with departures every half-hour and a comfortable 14-minute connection at Eindhoven between platforms two and three. The full fare is €29.40 one way and can be paid easily by touching in and out with a contactless card. The total for the return trip is €529.20, or around £52 each.
Fortunately, by travelling in a group you qualify for the Groepsticket Daluren – the group off-peak ticket. This is an online ticket that offers travel between any two stations in the Netherlands for a flat rate; buy in advance at the Dutch railways website, ns.nl. The time condition: from Monday to Friday, you cannot travel between 6.30am and 9am or 4pm and 6.30pm; there are no restrictions at weekends. You are travelling out on a Friday and back on a Sunday, assuming you can comply with the restrictions on the outbound trip.
While the number of people covered by each group ticket is between two and seven, you can simply buy one ticket for four people and another for five travellers. This will cost a total of €160 (£139) return, or just over £15 each.
For completeness, there are no longer any direct flights between Amsterdam and Maastricht.
Q We are booked into a hotel in York this Saturday, which we arranged weeks ago. We went for the non-refundable and non-changeable rate, which was cheaper. We were planning to spend the weekend there from Edinburgh, which normally is an easy journey by train. But as you know, there’s a rail strike on Saturday. We now have the choice of going the previous evening and paying for another night, or chucking away the money we’ve already paid – unless you can suggest anything else?
Tracey F
A Since national rail strikes began in June 2022, many travellers have come to regret having committed to trips more than two weeks ahead – that being the minimum notice of a walk-out that the rail unions must give. Yet, in the case of the line from Edinburgh via Newcastle to York, it won’t be the strike by train drivers belonging to the Aslef union that gets you. LNER, the leading train operator on the East Coast main line, has been running regular strike services, and on a “normal” stoppage day you would have been able to choose from trains every couple of hours. But scheduled Network Rail engineering work means the main line is closed all weekend between Edinburgh and Newcastle. The diversion used over the past weekend, via Carlisle, takes three hours – more than twice as long as normal. LNER will not assign its limited resources on so slow a trip, so effectively the Edinburgh-Newcastle rail link is suspended on Saturday. There are some rail-replacement buses, but these will be slow.
From experience, Friday evening services will be extremely crowded. Personally, I would take the 11.05am Megabus from Edinburgh to Newcastle on Saturday, timetabled for a generous two-and-a-half hours, and confidently book the 1.59pm LNER train from Newcastle to York, which takes less than an hour.
Before you do this, though, consider simply calling the hotel and explaining the predicament created by the strike. You won’t get a refund, but you might be offered the courtesy of postponing.
Q A puzzle for you. How can British Airways direct flights from London Heathrow to Las Vegas be £800 return, but flying from Geneva to Las Vegas via Heathrow on the same transatlantic flights be £300 cheaper?
David J
A I agree it looks bizarre. Let’s call the Heathrow-Las Vegas direct flights X and the add-on between Geneva and Heathrow Y. If X costs £800, and Y represents two additional flights, how can X + Y be only £500?
Yet, strange though it may seem, charging less for flying more is perfectly normal in aviation. That is because a non-stop flight from Europe to Las Vegas is valued by passengers more highly than a one-stop service.
In a perfect world, British Airways would sell every seat on flights from west London to the Las Vegas strip at a premium to passengers who want simply to travel between the two cities. On some intercontinental routes, BA and other carriers sometimes get close to that ideal. But much more commonly, network airlines such as British Airways depend on connecting traffic to fill their planes. And that means facing intense competition.
Searching on Skyscanner for Geneva-Las Vegas return flights in November, for example, one-stop options start at below £450 return on KLM via Amsterdam. Connecting fares around £500 return including Lufthansa via Frankfurt, United via Newark or Washington DC and Air Canada via Montreal. To fill seats that would otherwise go empty, British Airways must keep its prices competitive. In addition, the £87 Air Passenger Duty for passengers beginning transatlantic journeys in the UK does not apply.
The natural next question: can you book a Geneva-Heathrow-Las Vegas ticket but throw away the first leg and board in London? Certainly not: as soon as you “no show” for the first segment, the rest of the itinerary will be cancelled without refund.
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