Get a good Asia business class flight sale on Finnair – fly from UK, earn Avios and tier points

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• Tim says:

  11 Jan11 January 07:32

  LHR-HEL is a very common route for me. While the BA fares are cheaper if you can snag a deal on the 10:20am Finnair LHR-HEL Flight it’s on the new A350 instead of the standard narrow body aircrafts.

  • Doug M says:

    11 Jan11 January 12:08

    European travel as it should be. But Finn food really sucks.

    • Shoestring says:

      11 Jan11 January 12:21

      I was in Finland a few times for jollies (skiing, actually! not that you would associate Finland with skiing but they have some pretty good little resorts) – and hotel breakfast in particular was excellent, very healthy with loads of berries etc – shame if Finnair doesn’t keep to the higher standard

      • meta says:

        11 Jan11 January 12:30

        I don’t agree with Doug. Finns have some excellent food, just need to know what they actually are. Lohikeitto in particular is my favourite dish. Finnair also serves reindeer and I love their offer.

        • ankomonkey says:

          11 Jan11 January 19:34

          Breakfast at Hilton Helsinki Strand was one of the tastiest I’ve ever had. One day I had it in the restaurant and later went and had it again in the lounge for early lunch.

    • AJA says:

      11 Jan11 January 14:37

      The food on Finnair in business class is actually very good IMHO.

      • Stu N says:

        11 Jan11 January 15:34

        agreed, only had it on LHR-HEL but it’s very pleasant.

      • ankomonkey says:

        11 Jan11 January 19:32

        +1

• tony says:

  11 Jan11 January 10:16

  If interested in what’s left of the LX/LH deals, move very fast.

  Saw this on FT yesterday morning but the availability – at least for next summer – vanished fast. Managed to get the whole family out to HK next summer (out on a Friday night, back Saturday night) but SIN & BKK were as good as finished by lunchtime.

  Some very astute married segment business going on too, which makes it even more surprising that they haven’t smashed this all over the place when advertising it. I haven’t even had an e-mail from them.

  Note also that it’s not strictly 2-4-1. So long as there’s >2 pax, you’re fine.

  • Harry T says:

    11 Jan11 January 10:27

    I grabbed two tickets from LHR to HKG for £1079 each yesterday in business, travelling in November. The tickets were disappearing as I searched through every set of dates on Google Flights! Took me half an hour to find some where the price didn’t change as I selected the itinerary. Very very good deal.

    Sadly couldn’t find any First but probably would have been a bit too expensive to justify when I am perfectly happy with business. I will try and get First next year with Lufthansa just to experience the First terminal though.

    • Harry T says:

      11 Jan11 January 10:29

      I should say my tickets are with Swiss. The long segments are on the 777 and we have grabbed one of the sets of paired seats in row 4 going both ways – in the mini cabin! Helpfully they don’t charge for selecting most of the seats (some seats blocked for senator but can still get some very good options).

      • tony says:

        11 Jan11 January 15:19

        Likewise got seats on LX – used LH last summer on a similar deal and was a bit underwhelmed. Unfortunately we have a 9hr layover in ZRH on the return, and that’s a Sunday so not quite sure what we’ll be able to get up to!

        On one leg it would let me bag 2 pairs up front but the fifth seat would either be in the back or come at a £167 premium – and we’d be split across the two sides of the cabin, to boot.

  • Doug M says:

    11 Jan11 January 12:23

    Was looking at Dublin to Florida for October/November time. There were some pretty good prices on Swiss. But in the end managed Dublin to Orlando via JFK for <£1200. That's Delta One on the transatlantic and First down to Orlando. ITA Matrix really is a great tool most of the time.

    • Harry T says:

      11 Jan11 January 12:27

      @Doug M
      I need to learn how to use the ITA matrix! Sounds like you got a good deal, congrats.

      • Doug M says:

        11 Jan11 January 12:40

        Sadly it’s not been developed for a while, as google got involved and push towards google flights. ITA Matrix is really clever, and so feature rich. Flyertalk is full of helpful information. So much can be tailored, if you’re looking for certain fare buckets, connection times, or only specific airlines or alliances.
        With some patience and effort you can combine it with scripts to transfer quite complex itineraries to the airline sites for booking.

• Jon says:

  11 Jan11 January 11:04

  Took my first Finnair trip a couple of weeks ago – very very impressed. Worth downloading their app, especially if you have multiple sectors each way on the same booking. Very nicely thought through in terms of what you need at different points before and during the journey.

• Lady London says:

  11 Jan11 January 11:11

  Plus nice new AY lounge in HEL recently covered by HfP.

  For BA, we have a ‘refresh’ of the zo_ lounges, in T5 to look forward to. At an unspecified moment in 2020. I hope they dump the silly horse thing at the entrance this time.

  • Rob says:

    11 Jan11 January 11:24

    I like them!

    • Ben says:

      11 Jan11 January 11:37

      The horse lamps? If they get rid of them and that’s me done flying with them. I’ve got a good picture of my son riding on one from a year or so ago (encouraged to do so by the staff btw!).

    • Lady London says:

      11 Jan11 January 15:41

      I think this idea of a horse with a lamo sticking out of its head must be an upper class thing. One if those British things I don’t understand.

      • TokyoFan says:

        11 Jan11 January 22:20

        They’re dreadful!

  • Jon says:

    11 Jan11 January 12:19

    Indeed. I spent a couple of hours in the Platinum Wing at HEL on the way back – superb!

• aceman says:

  11 Jan11 January 11:39

  this sale seemed perfect for me, annoyingly though it prices up multicity as double the price of the sale fares… so annoying.

• Doug M says:

  11 Jan11 January 12:17

  Wildly OT. Helsinki is a great airport. Late last year I was arriving from Stockholm and departing to London on a 40 minute connection time. Sat in 1A thinking I’d crush it. Then it got real fun. The flight from Stockholm parked at a non-Schengen gate as it was next being used for the flight to London, ouch. So the plane was unloaded to buses, so we could be taken to the Schengen part of the airport. As it was parked at a jetway it had to be unloaded from the rear. So I was pretty much last off the flight, bused to the Schengen section, walked back through passport control to the Non-Schengen section, and was still back at the gate before boarding had even started. Eventually to be sat back in 1A, the seat I’d arrived on, on the plane I’d arrived on. Helsinki is a really efficient operation and a great airport to connect through.

  • riku2 says:

    12 Jan12 January 07:37

    At this time of year it’s also nice to know that 1cm of snow won’t bring Helsinki airport to a halt and lead to the cancellation of dozens of flights (Heathrow i’m talking about you).

    • Doug M says:

      12 Jan12 January 11:30

      Helsinki has 3 runways and doesn’t operate at anything like the capacity of Heathrow. De-icing does add to the time taken to depart and at an airport running at the sort of capacity of LHR, anything will result in delays.
      Whether LHR should operate at that level is a different argument, if they removed 20% of slots so that in bad times they could closer maintain the timetable would people be happy? Lose 20% of flights on 300+ days of no problems because on problem days that allows some slack?
      LHR is far from perfect, but comparison with airports in entirely different circumstances doesn’t make sense.
      Just expand LHR, give it a third runway, who could possibly disagree 🙂

  • Alex W says:

    12 Jan12 January 11:11

    We had a connecting flight in HEL and they had banned BA pax from using the Finnair lounge. I thought that was against OneWorld rules.

    • Doug M says:

      12 Jan12 January 11:18

      When they were refurbing the lounges they had very limited space at times, and I believe non AY people were sent elsewhere. But I’m not aware of any ongoing issues.

    • Shoestring says:

      12 Jan12 January 11:18

      which Finnair lounge, specifically? there are 2, apparently – and one of them is closed to Finnair Business ticket holders, too – so not surprising if all Oneworld Business ticket holders can’t get in

      • Doug M says:

        12 Jan12 January 11:36

        There’s one in the Schengen side, and then two, business and first, in the non-Schengen side, these are very recently fully opened after refurb. During the refurb last year they sent people to a contract lounge, almost@home. It was rammed and I’m guessing they said lounges closed to this or that ticket holders to manage load.

• Rob P says:

  11 Jan11 January 12:32

  Flying out to Singapore in October and want to make the most of my Hilton Diamond status. Anyone have recommendations for either the Hilton or Conrad? Thanks in advance.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    11 Jan11 January 22:23

    Unless things have changed recently, the Conrad has a mediocre reputation backed up my my own experience. Not a patch on Bangkok, or KL Hilton.

    • Crafty says:

      13 Jan13 January 22:17

      Agreed, we stayed on KLM’s dime because of a cancelled flight, and enjoyed it because of that, but would have been very disappointed had we paid.

• Abhi Vithlani says:

  11 Jan11 January 14:51

  I have a spare HFP Part ticket if anyone wants at face value?

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