flights to Brazil

A question about : flights to Brazil

I have been looking at booking flights to Rio in November 2015. Because of my back and knee I want to fly business

BA charge is Ј2,438 return from Heathrow

TAP via Lisbon looks the cheapest. I then entered into Skyscanner Lisbon to Rio. The cheapest response was with BA via Heathrow. It was a total of 2,079 euro. This converts to Ј1,574.

Amazing, but confused

Do you think there would be any problem if I booked this but I did not use the Lisbon-London London-Lisbon leg

Its Ј1,000 cheaper. Typical example of british consumers being ripped off

Best answers:

• It's not mad at all (I know you didn't say it was!). People generally prefer to fly direct instead of having connections - ergo indirect flights are generally cheaper than direct ones. Particularly on routes with little competition like London - Rio.
  I can't help any further without actual dates, but returns from Amsterdam to Rio start from Ј1350. You can fly from London to Amsterdam very cheaply on a separate ticket.
  Though I'm absolutely sick to death of people whinging about "rip of Britain". It shows a rather large level of ignorance of the wider world and basic economics - hopefully your travels will open your eyes a little bit!
• The difference in price is primarily the different market pricing as described above (only BA flies direct to Rio from London currently, to my knowledge) but also partly the fact that with the flight originating outside the UK, BA does not have to charge you the UK govt APD. This probably accounts for approx Ј100 of the price difference in this case.
  As bagand96 correctly points out, you could not miss the first LIS-LHR sector without losing all your flights (there is a recent thread about someone who learnt that the hard way on a flight from Colombia to London). However, you could in theory miss the final LHR-LIS sector, but it is only guaranteed if you were travelling with hand luggage. This is because airlines are much more reluctant to "short check" baggage these days, partly to prevent people taking advantage of different market pricing in this way.
  Having flown to Brazil several times in business class, I would say that the BA direct fare you found is pretty competitive for that route (relative to what is normally available, "value" is your decision). You can of course get a better price by routing indirectly, as mentioned above.