Positioning Flight Calculator | Is It Worth Flying From Another City?

1 Direct flight from your home airport

Total cost (fare + taxes)

Avios needed

Taxes & fees

2 Positioning flight (the hop to the cheaper city)

Cost to get there (+ bags, transfers)

3 Flight from the cheaper departure city

Total cost (fare + taxes)

Avios needed

Taxes & fees

£ How much is an Avios worth to you?

Value per Avios (pence — used to turn Avios into £ so both options compare)

4 Extra time & hassle

Extra travel time (hours, both ways)

Value your time at (£/hour, optional)

⚠️ Before you book: the real risk of positioning flights

Separate tickets have no protection. If your positioning flight is delayed or cancelled and you miss the main flight, the second airline owes you nothing — no rebooking, no refund, no duty of care across unconnected tickets.
Leave a big buffer. Same-day tight connections are a gamble. Many hackers position the night before, which can mean an extra hotel and its cost.
Bags won't through-check across separate tickets — you collect and re-check, adding time and another failure point.
Schedules change. If either flight retimes or cancels weeks out, you may be left holding a now-useless leg you can't easily refund.
Factor a realistic chance of disruption into whether the saving is truly worth it — the numbers above assume everything goes to plan.

How to use this calculator

Enter what the direct flight from your home airport costs — in cash or Avios.
Add the cost of the positioning hop to reach the cheaper departure city (include bags and airport transfers).
Enter the onward flight from that city — again cash or Avios.
If you use Avios anywhere, set how much an Avios is worth to you so both options compare in pounds. 1p is a common baseline; premium long-haul redemptions often beat it.
Add the extra hours the detour adds and, optionally, what an hour of your time is worth — the tool then gives a time-adjusted verdict.
New to the technique? Compare the best UK Avios credit cards to build a balance worth positioning for.

The pre-filled numbers are an illustrative example, not current prices. Replace them with your own quotes.

Positioning Flight Value Calculator