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Hello all, I hope someone can assist. I have a flight booked to Japan next month and am trying to get redemption options for 4 passengers flying back to the UK. Have some avios, small amount of virgin points, with some Marriott to transfer to airlines. Looking at various reward tools and programs I can’t seem to find any PE or Business class seats that are reasonably priced. Willing to be flexible to take short flight from a nearby airport. Want to avoid Shanghai as there seems to be some negative feedback about the experience at the airport. AA offer some economy flights via Middle East but want to avoid economy if possible. Else cash would be better. Thank you in advance for any tips.
How much is “some” Avios? Four back from S E Asia in Business requires quite a lot!
Likewise how many Marriott Bonvoy?
I don’t think it’s the amount of Avios required which is the main issue here.
Redemption availability for 4 people in PE/Business from East Asia in the next month will be almost impossible to find.
Unless of course there is another BA IT error again like on Tuesday
Thank you for your response.
Some avios is around 200k, same with marriot and also 200k Amex. I guess it was to see if could utilise what I have across the programs.
Yes shame I missed that from Tuesday.I’m not sure if this will be helpful or not, but one quirk that I’ve noticed that could be relevant if you cannot find a reward flight is that one-way PE flights from Seoul often seem to be relatively reasonably priced (as far as one-way long-haul flights go) and often seem to be fairly flexible with decent change/cancellation terms (not sure if this is due to Korean laws). One caveat is that I am typically searching for flights to GLA or EDI and not at such short notice, but this could be worth a look, as it is a short jump between Japan and South Korea (we’ve often paired these together on the same trip). JAL often has Avios availability between Tokyo and Seoul too (HND-GMP) to help with positioning.
There seems to always be some availability from Shanghai. Have you tried all routes with OW with one or two stopovers. There should be plenty although I’d say more like 1-2 weeks out. You need to be fully flexible both in terms of days, times, stopovers and airports.
Shanghai airport was pretty nice we thought. One of the better lounges available on the PP.
Yea Shanghai’s Pudong airport isn’t as bad as what some people say it is.
Last time I went, no queues at security/immigration, the BA gate was only a couple minutes walk after immigration, and there’s a brilliant Cathay lounge to use if you’re flying business.
There seems to always be some availability from Shanghai.
It’s not as widely available as it once was. Only 2 biz seats and one PE seat across the entire month of August.
@ RK228 Thank you. That is actually the backup plan.
Re OW routes, I haven’t got a Finnair account so cannot check from there, but BA, Qatar are not showing anything and Iberia is showing it via USA which I don’t wish to transit through.
Thank you for the feedback about PVG, I may give it another chance. I had hoped Virgin wouldn’t have dropped it as there was always reward availability.
The other option is to go via Middle East but actually stop over there for 1-2 days. Travelling with toddlers may help give them a break.Might be helpful to have some rough idea of return dates? Next month going is quite wide? You can search ba for Finnair that tend to release closer to the dates but thinking maybe only two weeks or less out.
Yea Shanghai’s Pudong airport isn’t as bad as what some people say it is.
Last time I went, no queues at security/immigration, the BA gate was only a couple minutes walk after immigration, and there’s a brilliant Cathay lounge to use if you’re flying business.
There seems to always be some availability from Shanghai.
It’s not as widely available as it once was. Only 2 biz seats and one PE seat across the entire month of August.
Who is talking about BA? There are at least three other OW airlines flying from Shanghai to Europe (with stops as I said)
@ annabh I have flexibility for the last few days of 29th August to 2nd September
I’ve been trying to plan getting myself back from either Japan or China in the coming weeks.
I have found last minute availability with Finnair in PE (not showing on BA, so get yourself a Finnair account), Finnair in J, and Japan Airlines in F from Shanghai or Tokyo to Helsinki. From there Avios flights to London are very easy to get.
Virgin availability from Shanghai with Air France in J to CDG and Vietnam to Europe via Hanoi has also popped up with less than four weeks to go, plus one seat on KLM to AMS in J.
I booked Air France, then cancelled in favour of Finnair, as this enabled me to be on the same flight as my travelling companions.
I would not be transferring Marriott if you only have 200k — you need more.
I would recommend booking the first thing that you see that is vaguely acceptable, and be ready to cancel and rebook if something better crops up — however, Finnair Avios refunds can be slow, which if you need to release the Avios for another booking is problematic.
Alerts from seats.aero are fantastic for this purpose.
Have you looked at availability to Helsinki?
We flew out of Pudong last week and it was completely fine. Bit of a queue
but not unbearable. We were on Priority Pass, and lounge 77 was more than adequate.As another poster says, one-way cash prices might be worth it. We tend to do Avios
out and cash back from SEAsia each summer. Economy is usually around GBP300 and PE 600
(ex BKK).No surprise – there are a lot of cheap Air India flights around at the moment.
Thank you everyone. I think as @kevinchoi mention earlier, it’s the lack of availability for 4 seats with various programs. And yes with toddlers I wouldn’t think of taking different airlines.
@memesweeper thank you for the tip about Finnair, I have now joined so would hopefully be handy in the future but nothing showing for me.
Virgin Delta KLM Air France are not showing anything for me unfortunately.
Air India is showing availability on a lot of programs but again like the US don’t wish to transit through.
Thank you @Michaelc for another vote of confidence for PVG.
I think cash tickets may be the way.Out of interest which reward tool is most useful outside of Avios & Virgin? A lot of them seem to show phantom availability.
@ annabh I have flexibility for the last few days of 29th August to 2nd September
That’s not flexibility. It’s only five days. Book economy/premium economy as a back up and keep checking, you might get lucky.
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