6pax with Avios. UK to Asia – which airline would you recommend?

[squishsquash]

Hi
We would like to fly myself, husband 2 kids and my parents to Bangkok in Business class.

We currently have 750k Avios across 2 ba accounts.

What airline would you choose?

As we are up North Manchester is the best airport for us but could travel to London. This also means it’s not too stressful to go into Europe from Manchester first for a night.

I know we won’t get 6 business class seats on same flight unfortunately so my parents would fly after or in advance.
Is that possible if we are using our Avios for them?

Should we wait and save another 150k Avios and book Qatar. We would love to try the 4 seat middle on a qsuite (hopefully on one of the journeys) but found very little availability for one of the directions in February.(We are a little flexible on dates)

Or would you go Finnair for 750k?

I really can’t decide.

We do have 2 x 2for1s for BA too but they seem hard to use for this route.

Any advise appreciated
X

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

2-4-1s can only be used on BA,IB and EI operated flights

Yes it’s possible for you your avios for your parents flights.

[Jon]

If you were to go Finnair MAN-HEL-BKK… I’m sure I read somewhere recently (but hopefully someone else can confirm or not) that if you have a 24+ hour transit then you only pay shorthaul UK APD, thus avoiding the much higher international APD. For six of you that would be quite a hefty saving I imagine, probably enough to more than cover a few hotel rooms for the night, or an apartment even. Helsinki’s a nice place to spend a day or two. Or if that appeals anyway, can always book the two parts separately – eg if you wanted to save some Avios, go economy to Helsinki, then business from there to Bangkok.

[memesweeper]

Try and use one or two of the companion vouchers on BA MAN – LON – BKK (or the reverse, can be used one way inbound).

For the rest of the party I’d look at Cathay, Qatar and/or Finnair from Manchester, if you’re mixing up the airlines check out a multi-carrier award. This may (or may not) be cheaper than just booking the flights individually through BA.

An identical itinerary, even one using some BA flights, may price up differently on Qatar, Finnair or BA’s systems. Avios can be moved from account to account to exploit this.

Starting in Helsinki, Dublin, Madrid – or anywhere else served by OneWorld that isn’t subject to UK APD – will save a slug of taxes at the potential cost of inconvenience and risk of misconnection.

[Dave1895]

Re Qatar Q-Suites: I’ve been searching for our family of four for a while and I’ve never seen more than 2 Qatar business redemptions available on the same flight. It would be great to hear if anyone else has secured, or even seen 4 Ys on a Qatar redemption?

Re Finnair when I looked recently the schedule for LHR-HEL-BKK involved a minimum 14hr layover… So if the 24hr layover tax trick works then Def worth looking at that since you’d be there for so long anyway.

Also when I recently booked Finnair SIN-HEL-LHR T-360 days (Finnair release T-360 rather than T-355 like BA) most of the time 6 to 8 Business class redemptions were available… So worth doing a few checks on FinnairePlus website as you may be able to get all on one plane. The availability did disappear pretty quickly on the day of release usually, but doing a few searches will give you an idea of availability and how quickly they go. Not sure how this will apply to BKK though.

You can search FinnairePlus by just signing up to their scheme, no need to transfer any Avios to search. The Finnair website is actually pretty good for searching redemption availability as they have a +/-3 day search, so you can view a whole week at a time.

Once I found the availability I wanted on Finnair website (at T-360) I phoned BA Exec club and booked with them (even though not on BA.com yet the agents can book). The plus side being it’s booked with BA T&C’s (cheaper cancellation) and for some reason there is a known glitch which means the taxes/charges are actually cheaper on Finnair redemptions that the same redemption on Finnair.

I hope that helps!

[BBbetter]

The biggest problem is availability. Qatar and Finnair rarely release more than 2 seats and these are snapped up really quickly.

BA has loads of availability to Bengaluru. If all else fails, that’s your option. Connect from there to BKK, which is 3 hours doable on economy.

[DonLee]

BBbetter wrote:

The biggest problem is availability. Qatar and Finnair rarely release more than 2 seats and these are snapped up really quickly.

BA has loads of availability to Bengaluru. If all else fails, that’s your option. Connect from there to BKK, which is 3 hours doable on economy.

If you search using Finnair’s own site, much more availabilities than searching on BA. I just booked 3 seats for SIN-HEL-MAN for next summer. There are plenty of days that you could book 4 seats on same flight

[NorthernLass]

Have you tried searching with the 241 vouchers MAN-LHR-BKK? Regional departures sometimes have extra availability, Rob has done a number of articles on the ins and outs of the companion vouchers. You would need to make separate bookings for 2 people each if you find this specific type of availability, so a voucher holder would have to travel on each.

A major issue here is that you’ve left it quite late to book for February, which is peak season for long haul travel, especially if you’re looking at the half term week.

[LD27]

@BBbetter. That’s helpful. Haven’t looked at Bengaluru, but there’s also a lot of availability to Delhi early next year. However it’s about 4 hours to BKK.

@DonLee. Thanks for that info. Will look at Finnair. Trying to get to BKK/SIN/KL/HK early next year but couldn’t find anything, hence been looking at India. Have got an unexpected flight to Helsinki at Christmas – BA flight to Oslo has been cancelled so have been rerouted via Helsinki. That should mean more tier points!

[DonLee]

@LD27 Should be eay to find reward seat from London to BKK via HEL next Feb and Mar. Even chaeper if you don’t mind start from CPH

[LD27]

@DonLee. That’s really helpful. Quite happy to go back to Copenhagen and spend a few days there. We don’t actually want to go to Thailand but hoping to go to the Philippines, South Pacific islands and NZ. So looking at all ways of getting there and if need be spend a week around Delhi or elsewhere en route.

[zapato1060]

I’ve been keeping an eye on Finnair searches extensively as I booked for next year.
1 SIN does indeed give 6 seats per release. BKK and HKG only 2x. HKG and SIN to HEL is evening flight departure. BKK departs at 7:55am to HEL.
2 Fees taxes are much higher on Finnair website (£120 approx) at 360 release but much cheaper on BA (£30 approx) at 355 days out. But there in lies the problem, by the time you wait 5 days to get them on BA they could be gone.
3 you can fly to and from zone 1 i.e. Warsaw, Stockholm, Oslo, cph,GOT for free in J. CPH-HEL-SIN
4 no peak off peak pricing which is brill
5 check Finland/Scandinavian school hols (there’s is june-august summer hols) as that could be beneficial to fly out of those dates

[BBbetter]

DonLee wrote:

@LD27 Should be eay to find reward seat from London to BKK via HEL next Feb and Mar. Even chaeper if you don’t mind start from CPH

Interesting. Was always looking at HEL and forgot about CPH. You learn something every day!

@LD27, unless you need to fly to DEL for some specific reasons, connecting or stopping over at BLR might be better. Small, neat and clean airport, no air pollution like in DEL (obviously only if you get out of airport). Also there’s a bit of overcapacity on BLR route with 3 airlines flying daily, so it could be quieter in the premium cabins.

[Dave1895]

@zapato1060 re your point 1… Currently the T-360 is showing 6x business from BKK, but naturally this may not be the case consistently.

Re your point 2… You can book Finnair at T-360 via BA to get the cheaper fees, but you have to call their phone line not bookable online. They might try to charge the £15 telephone booking fee, but should waive it when you explain you had to call due to the dates. They did for me at least.

Great info re your point 3, thanks

[zapato1060]

@Dave1895 regarding 1. For the months and months I checked SIN was 6x consistently. I wanted to gather as much info for myself. Also BKK/HKG are 2x per flight regardless. I do not know why SIN is 6x.
2. I booked one way for them at 1am 355 days out on BA. CPH-HEL-SIN for 3x people. Lower taxes via BA. Same for HKG-HEL-CPH but only 2x for obvs reasons I mentioned.

[LD27]

@BBbetter. Thanks. Will certainly look at BLR. At the moment considering all options. Have done India in the past, so not desperate to go back – only if need to for flights. Even looking at going via US and Hawaii. Trying to avoid Australia, but might need to go there is one direction.

[Hbommie]

@LD27 are you the OP or piggy backed on the thread? Nothing wrong with this of course, just want to clarify.

[DonLee]

@zapato1060 I also noticed SIN has more seats released. Also PVG and ICN if anyone interest

[zapato1060]

@DonLee note that PVG is full taxes and fees like Japan destinations with Finnair. ICN is low like SIN/HKG.

[squishsquash]

Sorry I lost this thread somehow.
Thank you for all the suggestions some really helpful info.

The husband thinks we should just use avios for my parents only and we go in economy. As he thinks we should all travel together and getting 6 redemptions will be near impossible (would need it to cover some school holiday period but not all as we don’t mind taking them out of school for 4 days)
And we (husband and I) use Avios for us only on a business trip (buying in Bangkok)
With that in mind I believe we can’t use a 2for1 defo as the husband isn’t 1 of the upgraded passengers.

[zapato1060]

On BA 6 will be tough but not on AY btw, on release its 8 on J and a lot on Y. Note that with the Barclays Avios card you can upgrade anyone you like. As you said the owner of the 241 has to be one of the pax with BA voucher.