Super-commuting between Rotterdam and London

[eek]

I will hazard a guess that you've never flown from LCY. There are no lounge facilities that an airline status member would expect to enjoy. You don't get discount on F&B in lieu of there being no lounge. Even the upcoming refurbishment of the departure lounge, which will turn it into a building site for months, will not provide those facilities.

You'll get Group 1 or 2 boarding but when travelling from an airport that's geared towards the business traveller, you will be just one of many with the same status and so this isn't a tangible benefit at all.

Sounds like my Teesside Amsterdam flights - where at least half of us had priority boarding and they really did operate a Platinum boarding first policy..

[WTFH]

That's not true.

You can leave country A on passport 1 and enter country B on passport 2.

What you should not do is then leave country B on passport 1.

The difficulties arise if you need consular help as the UK Embassy will be reluctant to help you if you enter the country on a non-UK passport.

Yes, you are correct, but the easiest way to avoid it is to use the one passport for each trip. I use one for all business and most personal trips, and the other for more sensitive trips.

[Guest222]

I will hazard a guess that you've never flown from LCY. There are no lounge facilities that an airline status member would expect to enjoy. You don't get discount on F&B in lieu of there being no lounge. Even the upcoming refurbishment of the departure lounge, which will turn it into a building site for months, will not provide those facilities.

You'll get Group 1 or 2 boarding but when travelling from an airport that's geared towards the business traveller, you will be just one of many with the same status and so this isn't a tangible benefit at all.

I have a couple of times, but many moons ago (2011 and 2014). But yes, makes sense. It's like driving on the motorway. The slow lane is often faster than the fast lane due to all the cars trying to go fast in the fast lane. All the business travellers queueing up in the priority queue might be slower than the regular queue. But let's see. I'm not too concerned about using the lounge on the return journey. I just want to get there as late as possible, check in, and get home. But the outbound (from Rotterdam) might be handy to use the lounge for a good brekkie. It only opened this year, so clearly the Rotterdam to London route is seeing some demand.

I did something similar in a previous professional services consulting role (but within the UK - between Edinburgh and London, usually LCY, but sometimes LHR) - it got tedious fairly quickly, even without the flight delays that would happen.

And I wouldn't trust those "how often on time" sites too much. eg, does landing mean on the runway, or the time you get off the plane? Sitting waiting for stairs to arrive typically is not included....

If it was for a short stint, i'd not rule it out, but its not something I'd want to do long term.

I guess Edinburgh is not an ideal airport to commute to/from regularly as it's not a commuter airport, and the times you went to Heathrow (also not a commuter airport) probably degraded your experience and made it more tedious.

If you were commuting only between airports like LCY on a regular basis, would that be more agreeable in your experience?

In my case, this is for either a contract or a long-term permanent position, but more likely the latter. So I would be doing this commute probably 25 times per year. That's accounting for holidays and WFH fully every fourth week (the requirement is 2 days in office on average, so I can do 3, 3, 2, 0).

[northernladuk]

The reason this thread might go south is because, despite it going well up to now, you've decided to chime in with condescending comments and making remarks about my personality and intention, all of which are way off the mark. Because I've responded, it will result in you responding, and other long-timers here, causing the topic to go vastly off-topic, descend into oblivion, and result in the topic being closed... even though it was going just fine until you chimed in. It's a real shame, because no matter what people do on this forum, or what I do to just state my problem and keep to facts, this is how nearly every topic ends up going, and this is why barely anyone uses the forum anymore.

The replies were actually useful for the reasons I just stated in my previous reply. I completely disagree that I have an inability to make a decision. What I have is the ability to set out my choices on a forum, and then make a decision. I have had similar decisions to make throughout my 21-year career so far, and every time, I have successfully made a decision after lots of deliberation and pondering. That's a 100% hit ratio which is opposite to your supposition that I can never make a decision (0% hit ratio). From that perspective, you are 100% wrong in your assertion, but then you only have a microscopic view into the life of me or anyone else on here (just what they write), and not the entire picture which is typically more than 1 million per cent bigger than the view you have.

But thanks for now causing this topic to go south (again).

LOL. I don't know if you remember but I was one of the few that didn't have a pop at you in the other thread. I spent a good bit of time replying o interesting points in your thread. They weren't the question you were asking and they made assumptions that weren't correct. Well I am sorry. But i wasn't the one having a pop in the end. It's a discussion forum. Are you the only one allowed to ramble on and post too much/irrelevant content?

This thread hasn't gone south but last bit of advice. Drop the WWYD bit. You've had plenty of nice and not so nice feedback that it's pointless asking that. Ask for advice and opinions, not what we would do cause we don't know.

Either way I'm done. Tried to help, getting snotty responses so I'll leave you to carry on chatting to the same crowd that gave you such a hard time in the last thread.

Oh and actually on a helpful note. Forums T&C's state

It is against our policy to delete threads after they have replies, so do not ask us to delete threads once they have attracted attention.

so you might be better PM'ing one of the mods to discuss the art of the possible re your profiles.
And if you are struggling finding posts you can use the Google search method. In google type <keywords> site:forums.contractoruk.com . Oddly posting a user name isn't that useful as it will bring back all cached pages showing you were logged in at the bottom so just try remember some of the keywords in the post you are trying to find.

[SueEllen]

And I wouldn't trust those "how often on time" sites too much. eg, does landing mean on the runway, or the time you get off the plane? Sitting waiting for stairs to arrive typically is not included....

Yeah if it snows UK side you are screwed....

Also worth remembering UK infrastructure can't cope with fog, certain storms and many other types of winter weather...

[Paddy]

I've read about super-commuting.

I have some job opportunities that would mean I would fly from Rotterdam (where I live with my wife and three children) to London once a week to stay one night. I would basically fly out early on Monday morning, work two days (staying overnight), then fly back the next evening.

I would basically utilise this time to work extra hours on Monday evening in the London office that I can take back later in the week (e.g., Friday afternoon).

My wife fully supports it as I'm only going to be away 1 night out of 7 each week, and I can manage the time (as mentioned above) to maximise the efficiency of work hours versus time spent at home.

The commute is reasonable. The check-in times at Rotterdam and London City Airport are 20 minutes before departure, and both airports are very close to the endpoints (Rotterdam airport is a bike ride from my house, and London City Airport is a bike ride or short Tube journey from the office). On a perfect run, I could literally be door-to-door in 2 hours, which is not that different to a commute I've had with jobs in the country I live in (Netherlands).

Cost-wise, it's not much. I can get a return flight for £150 or sometimes less depending on dates, and sometimes I can even optimise it with a combination of plane and Eurostar (which is just over 3 hours London to Rotterdam). Accommodation I can get for £50 give or take.

The reason for doing the above is to capitalise on more interesting and financially better options in London that are not readily available in the Netherlands. And also because I prefer the UK work culture to Dutch work culture. My wife has a good job in the Netherlands that requires her 3 days in the office, so moving to London is not an option at this stage (it may be in the future).

What are people's opinions on super-commuting, and WWYD in the above situation, obviously knowing that our personal preferences may be different?

I have done the same route in reverse for three years and then I lived in Rotterdam for a further three years. It's not super commuting. By air there were loads of delays and sometimes being stacked over London for an hour or so.
You won't get cheap flight always, you need to budget for more. You may lose your flight if you check-in less than 45 minutes without luggage.
£50 in London for accommodation is laughable, sh!t holes will cost £100 - £150 pn
Eurostar worked out fine again with aa few delays. The most reliable was driving leaving Rotterdam at 5pm and getting into Dover about 10pm

[WTFH]

As an aside, I'm trying to search my previous posts, and it's very difficult. Given that I am posting exactly the same as I would under my other profile, can you please just delete this profile ('JasonP') and all topics associated with it, and re-enabled my other one? The outcome is identical - I'm posting on the forum. But administratively, it's making it difficult to search for my posts, and perform other actions. Also, this profile was only created to communicate with Anthony Sherick (hence using my real name) whom I'm now communicating with via email, and was not intended to be used for posting. But the presence of my real name in the username is a problem, hence why it would be better to just have this profile deleted and my other one reinstated. It will kill two birds with one stone, and nothing will change in my ability to interact with the forum which was originally the purpose of the ban.

Here, I'll make it easy. If you stay subscribed to this thread, then you can always come to this post which links to one of your old threads....
https://forums.contractoruk.com/acco...n-holland.html

[eek]

I have done the same route in reverse for three years and then I lived in Rotterdam for a further three years. It's not super commuting. By air there were loads of delays and sometimes being stacked over London for an hour or so.
You won't get cheap flight always, you need to budget for more. You may lose your flight if you check-in less than 45 minutes without luggage.
£50 in London for accommodation is laughable, sh!t holes will cost £100 - £150 pn
Eurostar worked out fine again with aa few delays. The most reliable was driving leaving Rotterdam at 5pm and getting into Dover about 10pm

Booked early enough you can get a Travelodge for £75 or so a night Travelodge London Docklands Central - New Hotel

[Guest222]

LOL. I don't know if you remember but I was one of the few that didn't have a pop at you in the other thread. I spent a good bit of time replying o interesting points in your thread. They weren't the question you were asking and they made assumptions that weren't correct. Well I am sorry. But i wasn't the one having a pop in the end. It's a discussion forum. Are you the only one allowed to ramble on and post too much/irrelevant content?

This thread hasn't gone south but last bit of advice. Drop the WWYD bit. You've had plenty of nice and not so nice feedback that it's pointless asking that. Ask for advice and opinions, not what we would do cause we don't know.

Either way I'm done. Tried to help, getting snotty responses so I'll leave you to carry on chatting to the same crowd that gave you such a hard time in the last thread.

Oh and actually on a helpful note. Forums T&C's state so you might be better PM'ing one of the mods to discuss the art of the possible re your profiles.
And if you are struggling finding posts you can use the Google search method. In google type site:forums.contractoruk.com . Oddly posting a user name isn't that useful as it will bring back all cached pages showing you were logged in at the bottom so just try remember some of the keywords in the post you are trying to find.

You do realise that this topic is getting on just fine except for your posts? You are the only one causing any issue here. Why? What are you getting out of it? What's the point? You're just deliberately trying aggravate me and the situation to get a rise to cause the topic to go south. Is this what you want? Does that bring joy to your life to cause drama and then see it play out. It seems to be your MO on this forum, and has lasted for years. Please just leave this topic alone. If it now goes south because of my reaction to you, know that it is a reaction. The root cause you posting controversially in here. It's completely unnecessary.

And the situation with my profiles is unique, and I've been in regular discussion with CUK the past week about it who is trying to help sort it out. So the T&Cs are a little bit outside of this scope given the uniqueness of the situation. I'm fully aware of the Google search method, but that defeats the point of using the site's specific features such as the 'ACTIVITIES' tab on my profile. Saying I can just Google it is a disingenuous solution, and not efficient or exact. I'm relying on search engine indexing and the results they produce in my browser, and not a concrete relational database storing my posts that I can just view in a list. It might sound pedantic, but I run a tight ship in terms of my time and way of working, and the method you're suggesting could cause me to miss information I'm looking for as you noted. The workaround (to "try to remember keywords") is not a deterministic solution for the same reasons. If I just have my usual profile reactivated, and my current profile removed, all problems solved!

[northernladuk]

And the situation with my profiles is unique, and I've been in regular discussion with CUK the past week about it who is trying to help sort it out.

He's a nice guy so I imagine he thinks you are a *** as well.

So the T&Cs are a little bit outside of this scope given the uniqueness of the situation. I'm fully aware of the Google search method, but that defeats the point of using the site's specific features such as the 'ACTIVITIES' tab on my profile. Saying I can just Google it is a disingenuous solution, and not efficient or exact. I'm relying on search engine indexing and the results they produce in my browser, and not a concrete relationship database storing my posts that I can just view in a list. It might sound pedantic, but I run a tight ship in terms of my time and way of working, and the method you're suggesting could cause me to miss information I'm looking for as you noted. The workaround (to "try to remember keywords" is not a deterministic solution for the same reasons. If I just have my usual profile reactivated, and my current profile removed, all problems solved!

That bit at the bottom was a genuine attempt to help you. Didn't really warrant that utter garbage. Tight ship in terms of time and way of working yet you post that. You can officially go **** yourself now.

But, I am always helpful in posts however rude I am being so my advice to you is don't be a prick and get yourself banned in the first place. HTH.