More Widebody fun with Finnair
Doing it for the Tier Points
- And once again, welcome to the Tier Point Enrichment Centre
- What can you do with about three hours and a bit of sleep? (Coach, Heathrow Airport and Lounge)
- Finnair AY1332 London Heathrow to Helsinki (Business Class/A350)
- Planes, Trains, Boats and Trams – Into Helsinki and slightly beyond
- Crowne Plaza Helsinki
- A Morning walk around Helsinki
- Back to Vantaa, Finnair Non-Schengen Lounge
- Finnair AY1337 Helsinki to London Heathrow (Business Class/A350)
- Heathrow wows, Euston moans, and Rugby looks pretty
- 320 Tier Points, Done
Editors Introduction
Well, it is so good to see you again so soon. On this trip, I am going to continue to add to the frequent flyer balance with another trip to Helsinki.
Yes, this trip mirrors the previous one in terms of places visited, but it is also a chance to dive into the passenger experience a little more, seeking the one thing I look for in the air – consistency.
Compared to the last trip report, this one is a little more compressed – mainly because fewer points are going over and over – it is easier to make it a little simpler.
Whilst I am using Grammarly a lot more than I should (dyslexia is a pig and gets me most days of the week), my usual detractors who moan about my spelling and grammar can read this press release I wrote a few years ago about this inconstancy and how I deal with it.
Enough of the preamble. Onto the main event.
And again, Welcome to the Tier Point Enrichment Centre
(Bonus points for those who get the reference).
With long-haul travel to Asia (my preferred way of earning masses of tier points for sitting in an airline seat) still a little harder than I would like (for now), I was looking for more “local” ways of earning tier points during Summer 2022.
Finnair was offering some reasonable fares that offered good earning potential (and I should have got a third fare for fun – that is beside the point now).
Now, you have read the first trip report (if not, this is the perfect time to catch up). That fare was easy to find. This one? A little harder.
The fare had disappeared from Crystal Travel (who had managed to get everything right – from frequent traveller information to seat assignments) when booking the tickets.
However, a little digging in Kayak came up with the fare being available again – This time at TravelUp.
From here, it becomes a simple case of finding flights I like. And because I like flying on widebody aircraft on narrowbody routes, I selected the 10:10 out and 16:30 return as they operated with Airbus A350-900 aircraft. By a total coincidence – which was the same flight numbers I chose on my previous trip.
Anything for a chance to try out their new business class seat.
Alas, if Crystal Travel was seemingly ok to book with, TravelUp’s site made me feel… less confident, to put it mildly.
How so?
Hotels that price out to “infinity”. Whilst Guru Josh might like songs about infinity, I prefer numbers that kind of make sense in various plains of existence.
And then when going through the booking process – the frequent flyer details. If you have never seen a hot mess like this before… we will play a game – how many of these Frequent Flyer programmes exist?
Nothing like a hot mess, eh?
I did a little search through my blog and found that I wrote about this issue in 2016. Not a lot has changed, sadly.
The money was taken from my account (which was fine), and a booking reference came up (which surprised me). I punched the booking reference number into Finnair.com and crossed my fingers.
Then started unpicking the mess that TravelUp had left behind, with data in the wrong fields. It was annoying to the point it took a month for seat reservations to open up on the Finnair site.
In the end, what can you do? It is one less reason to use that company in the future.
As for hotels, I dropped the ball on this – to put it mildly. Due to a few mishaps and wrong dates, my original choice was not available. Instead (and rather lazily), I lumped for the Crowne Plaza Helsinki around three days before I was due to depart.
Yeah. my life has been more than a little complex recently.
To get to Heathrow, I would rely on National Express as always. Well, it was a choice of that or £35 for a train and £150+ for a hotel for the night before. I will pay £25 for the coach and pretend to be happy.
Hmm. Maybe I’ll get a hotel before tommrows flight. Checks hotels… 3am coach it is. pic.twitter.com/slQgWCad5g
— Kevin – Economy Class & Beyond (@EconomyBeyond) August 12, 2022
As for the return from London – I left that much more open. Judging by how delayed I was on the previous trip getting out of the secure area, let alone into London, I decided to leave my options wide open for returning to Birmingham.
Because you never know what adventure awaits you.
With everything set up for this trip – it is time to go and rack up some Tier Points whilst I am at it.
Next: Sleep? What is that concept? Anyone? Anyone?
Welcome to Economy Class and Beyond. Your no-nonsense guide to network news, honest reviews, featuring in-depth coverage, unique research, as well as the humour and madness I only know how to deliver.
Follow me on Twitter at @EconomyBeyond for the latest updates! You can follow me on Instagram too!
Also, remember that we are part of the BoardingArea community, bringing you the latest frequent flyer news from around the world.
