Finland for Christmas 2017

[little brown dog]

Help please - I want to travel to Finland for Christmas 2017. Can someone please assist with ideas on the most economical way to get there in Business with the family (total 3 seats required). I have 520.000 QFF points. We will be travelling through Europe as well so specific destination is a little flexible. I don't really mind where the stopover destination is. So far my best idea has been to just get return flights in business from Singapore to Europe in Business (with Qantas) and purchase economy flights from Brisbane to Singapore to make up the rest of the trip. Any suggestions would be appreciated and I understand I have been a little vague but I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thank you in advance.

 

[junbugging]

Doing it in the past we managed four J seats on a JL flight from NRT to HEL. Coming back we needed to split up into 2+2 on JL and AY, but the flights were basically at the same time.

So perhaps purchasing tickets as far as NRT would be another option to consider.

This year I'm just flying there on AY from LHR. Next July I'm flying EK to ARN and then taking AY.

 

[greenfish]

Worth checking fares from BKK and HKT - Finnair in particular often have sale business class fares. They have a seasonal service direct from KBI / HKT I believe.

Also check out some assymetric routing e.g. SIN-HEL, HEL-BNE.

 

[NM]

I just spent many hours looking for a single seat to Europe during December 2016 and returning in January 2017. A few available early in December and a few in late January. I was using AA miles, but you will find similar available with Qantas. So finding 3 x business class seats on the same days/flights is most unlikely to happen. I specifically searched for Finnair flights from SIN, HKG and NRT, but while there was some availability for the Asia to HEL, there were no connections from Australia that would make it a through-award ticket.

I ended up with MH via SYD and KUL to LHR (the preferred destination). All but one segment in business class (KUL-LHR is in economy).

So for award flights for Christmas 2017 timeframe, don't leave the booking until August 2017! Plan to make bookings as soon as the seats are released, generally about 330 days ahead. Have the points/miles available and use all possible search engines. I used a combination of AA (using my AAdvantage account), Qantas (using my QFF account), JAL (using a dormant JAL account) and CX Asia Miles (with a dormant Asia Miles account). My booking cost US$362.20 for fees and taxes. Expect considerably higher fees if using QFF points.

If looking to purchase AA miles to redeem for award flights, you will need 85,000 miles per person each way, so a total of 510,000 miles. For QFF points requirements check the QFF site for calculations.

 

[little brown dog]

Thank you all very much for your answers - gives me some new ideas to work through. Enjoy your planned trips.