I've been digging around a bit on various websites for travel from Switzerland to the UK. I'm just wondering what other suggestions anyone else has.
So far:

Rail: Rail Europe / SBB / SNCF sites
Air: Swiss Intl Airlines / BA / Air Berlin / Queasyjet / Ryanair
Bus: There isn't one ASAIK

The rail option gave a total of CHF 570 for a return from Bern to London, which makes me puzzled as to why rail companies wonder why they're losing out to airlines...
The airlines give the usual range of figures from CHF150, depending on how many decades/millenia in advance you book and whether you want to take anything with you. Of course, kids under 2 don't get a seat or baggage allowance (because nappies and clothes take up no room, eh?), but the charges add up to about the same as an adult ticket. Additional to this are the train fares to the airports at either end, which can add about he same cost to a ticket. At least Ryanair and queasyjet have the decency (albeit forced on them) to give the full price, whereas BA still do the 'oh your flight only costs CHF 220 plus the 220 in fees and charges'.
As for the bus, Eurolines are the people who cover most of Europe through their network of partners, but the Swiss partner doesn't go to Blighty.
So apart from hitchhiking, levitation or the advent of matter transport, what's left?

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SleazyJet, Basel to Liverpool
BMI, Zürich to Edinburgh

Depends on where you're going...

Sarf East has more options than t'Northern climes

I'd guess you're one of those who think there be dragons north of Watford Gap or West of Heathrow...

Nah, then those places would be interesting...
[ducks]

(lived in Glasgow for a spell and in-laws in the West Country...)

It's just that we wanted to get back for one of the reenactment shows, but the only ones we can do are in the school holidays, so the flight prices are already huge. We didn't know when we'd be able to get a passport for Mk. 2, so we didn't book anything too far in advance, either.
Not only that, air travel ain't too much fun for the minions, sorry, children. Especially since Queasyjet started the 'priority boarding' bit.
I'd better start digging a tunnel...

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New book out now: European Bird Names: A Translation Guide.
www.tonykeenebirds,co,uk - photos, paintings and drawings of Swiss, Australian, NZ and British birds

I presume that you want a return but I have been having to do single journeys and have been booking a return from the UK to get the single ticket from Geneva -London as it is working out cheaper. |I booked a return last week £83 return a single was more than double. I will not use the return but booked it for a couple of months in the future just in case.

The other month my husband had to get to the UK and he had to pay £250 on the train!!! £50 CH to Paris but a whopping £200 Paris -Ashford -even the girl at the SBB questioned the price.

Booking as far in advance as possible with the budget airlines or being prepared to fly at odd hours is usually the way to go to get a cheap price.

I do not envy anyone flying with a baby / small child on a plane. It dam hard. especially when it is a short haul flight London / Geneva and it gets delayed for a total of 3 hours. Two of which we were sat on the plane waiting for take off slot. No toilets, food, entertainment and a screaming kid.

Good luck.

Just bought a return ferry ticket at the end of July for EU90 www.aferry.ch

I explored flight options and the most reasonable prices are from easyjet. They will have even cheaper fares in June.

http://www.easyjet.com/en/book/step1.asp

Tt is quite common that trains are more expensive.

BA gives the full price of a flight on its website and has been doing so for a couple of years - well before Ryanair, I think.

For airlines, there's also Air France that flies from Zurich to London City Airport. You just pay about £3.50 to get to the centre of London via DLR/tube, and the journey is quite quick. The prices don't vary much, so I often book my flights 2-3 days before going.

Starting at: 203.-chf. (source)

When I looked today, the taxes, etc, weren't added until the last step.
I also get very annoyed at their 'recalculating'. If you book a cheaper flight outbound, then it comes up with a screen saying 'recalculating return fares' and as often as not, the cheapest return fare disappears. So even though I used to fly ID90 on them, I won't fly with them unless work pay for it (ha ha ha, yeah, right...).

Boris, I managed to get a return from Zurich to London City for 202chf all in last week for travel tomorrow. If you fly outside of business hours, you will manage a nice discount.

www.speedferries.com (again) from euro38 return for car and up to 5 passengers...

"Lowest adult price including taxes, fees, charges and surcharges."

This is shown on the first page!

We did the rail option over Easter a couple of months ago. You are correct, the full price option worked out to be close to 600 CHF (this was for Lausanne - London plus a regular train to take us one hour beyond London). If you book far enough in advance, normally about 3-4 months, then you can get it for as little as 300 CHF. We were booking about 6-8 weeks in advance for Easter weekend, and we still managed to get a price about half way between these two figures and travel times that were very reasonable. The total time from door to door was about 10.5 hours, taking the Easyjet from Geneva to Stansted normally takes about 6 hours door to door, but is not nearly as interesting or environmentally responsible.

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[quote=Colonelboris;224338]I've been digging around a bit on various websites for travel from Switzerland to the UK. I'm just wondering what other suggestions anyone else has.
So far:


Bus: There isn't one ASAIK
/quote]


I went onto Eurolines (www.eurolines.com) and if you use the Swiss (Alsa Eggmann - they do the Eurolines service in CH) site it shows no connection but if you use the UK site (National Express) it shows a connection every other day via Brussels. Takes 15-17 hours and costs about GBP100. (220 Chuffs) You would probably have to book via an agency. Alsa have one near the Sihlquai bus terminus (trans 4 or 13, I think you get off at Limmatplatz)

For a good explanation of rail travel from the UK to Die Schweiz try here http://www.seat61.com/Switzerland.htm

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Another one to consider if you're in Bern and the south coast is handy- I'm pretty sure FlyBe fly Bern-Southampton as well.

FWIW, last christmas I flew back to Bristol from Basel via Dublin on Ryanair. Total cost one way was about 50 quid, including luggage. A cheap return journey with decent connection time on Ryanair wasn't possible though (Train then BA single from Heathrow).

I normally find that Swiss to London City works out the cheapest and/or most convenient, once you take into account transfers from the airport to your destination...

You can also consider going a bit outside, Ryanair go from Friedrichshafen (FDH) and Karlsruhe Baden (FKB - 2x/day) to Stansted.

Also consider connections - I can quite often pay a lot less going on Lufthansa to Edinburgh over Frankfurt than taking the direct BMI service - not really surprising as BMI only use a baby plane.

We have travelled on the ferry with the kids - I would do it again as they loved it - just a bit of pain travelling up to the coast to catch it - but you have the car / car seat etc with you and as much as you can smuggle back in on the return journey (thinking more things like food & drink rather than the hard stuff here....). If you take this option I want a bouncy castle for my pair so I'll give you some cash to bring it back for me