Via Santander on FlyerTalk, Finnair has some amazing business class fares to Europe this winter/spring.
They have published $1,500 all-in roundtrip fares to Moscow (SVO), Tallinn (TLL), and Riga (RIX).
The fare has a five day minimum stay (which I suspect is a killer for some of us), and is valid for travel through late April as far as I can tell.
Per searching on ITA Matrix there seems to be availability just about every day.
Here’s a sample routing to Moscow:
This is about as low as I’ve ever seen business class fares to Europe with the exception of around Thanksgiving, so if you’re eying a spring trip to Europe, this is an offer that’s tough to beat. Keep in mind that Finnair belongs to OneWorld, so you can accrue miles with any partner airline, including American. Also, American gives you elite bonus miles even for travel on partner airlines, so you’d earn just as many miles as if you were flying on American.
I’m really tempted by this because I’ve heard Tallinn is just about the coolest place on earth. That being said, I’m not sure I’d want to spend five days there except in the peak of summer…
Loading ...
January 4th, 2013 at 4:39 am
Wouter said,
You don’t have to spend 5 days in Tallinn, EG take a helicopter to Helsinki and spend some days there (http://www.copterline.com/) – have you ever written a trip report about a helicopter flight?!
January 4th, 2013 at 4:48 am
Jerry said,
I recall AY’s business class product is even worse than LH?
January 4th, 2013 at 4:51 am
Euan said,
Super-fast ferries will take you to Tallinn from Helsinki. You could also visit St Petersburg quite easily from Helsinki as well but may not be the best time of year to visit there.
January 4th, 2013 at 4:54 am
lucky said,
@ Jerry — They have a new business class product, though it only seems to operate the New York to Helsinki flight for certain periods of time over the coming months, at least per the seatmaps.
January 4th, 2013 at 4:58 am
Jerry said,
@lucky- Thank you!
January 4th, 2013 at 5:23 am
Andrew said,
Looks to be an all out attack on Iceland Air fares…Air Europa just joined the game at 2k to Paris JFK-MAD-CDG
January 4th, 2013 at 5:34 am
Bruce said,
I’m assuming Finnair *doesn’t* fly out of SEA…
January 4th, 2013 at 5:37 am
Carl said,
If you optimize the routing rules, perhaps you can do 23 hour stays at New York and Helsinki and 3 nights in Talinn. It’s usually that the return has to begin 5 days after departure from the origin. And the overnight from USA counts as a night too.
Please tell us if UA/LH match the fare!
January 4th, 2013 at 5:40 am
Carl said,
Bruce, this is well before Lucky’s time, but AY used to fly out of SEA – about 2 or 3 times a week, perhaps even 5 times weekly in the summer. They used DC-10′s. To date this, it was when PA was flying 747-200′s SEA-LHR, and TG flew 747-200′s on a DFW-SEA-NRT-BKK routing
January 4th, 2013 at 6:38 am
HansGolden said,
“If you optimize the routing rules, perhaps you can do 23 hour stays at New York and Helsinki and 3 nights in Talinn. It’s usually that the return has to begin 5 days after departure from the origin. And the overnight from USA counts as a night too.”
I don’t know for sure about OW, but with *A (and more generally, as I’ve read many fare rules), the minimum stay counter start ticking with the first TATL/TPAC/cross-TC flight.
Lucky, I’d be curious to know what their old product is like. Also, you don’t need to go to Talinn. You could go anywhere in Europe easily with Avios, us AY or AB or BA.
January 4th, 2013 at 6:54 am
Grandf said,
Old-town Talinn is worth a day to wander around – very old-school cobblestone Europe, but also full of tourists. Helsinki is good for a day too, though it can be very cold – I went last year in late Feb and was sloshing through the snow for most of the time.
The ferries from Talinn to Helsinki are small cruise ships and very comfortable since the entire cruise ship (minus bedrooms) is available to wander. Take any seat you want, and concessions and duty free shopping open onboard. Its about a 2-3 hour trip each way.
If you also take the ferry trip to St. Petersburg and stay for a couple of days, you should be able to fill up the 5 days pretty easily. Just dress warm.
January 4th, 2013 at 7:07 am
Carly said,
Does flying this get me AA miles if I enter my rewards number? Thanks!
January 4th, 2013 at 8:44 am
Mile Bucket said,
Hmmm! I might actually look into this one! I really, really want to go to Latvia. I think there is only a couple of days of things to do in Riga, but the outlying area has lots of things to do as a day trip.
January 4th, 2013 at 9:08 am
mspswede said,
I’ve been looking at attending a conference in CPH in early March, and ideally adding a meeting in HEL as well. I had been looking at taking the $1500 fare to TLL or RIX and doing my intra-Baltic travel from there (maybe burning Avios for those short-distance flights), but AY has fares of $2000 r.t. from JFK to CPH and HEL destinations. May be worth it for less running around.
January 4th, 2013 at 11:17 am
EthanSF said,
Old town Talinn is cool, but I didn’t feel as if there was five days worth of activities to do there. Granted I was only there for like six hours. I guess nature is always an option in Estonia, but not in March (unless you like snow).
I have to say as far as hip and cool – I got that vibe much more from Helsinki (which is a one hour ferry ride away). St. Petersburg -is also not far away – and is truly fascinating. There is at least three days worth of sightseeing there, if not more. And let’s face it anything to do with Russia is always an experience. Also, Riga and Vilnius are within easy reach of Talinn (have never been, so can’t comment, but have heard great things).
Finnair always has fascinated me, especially when sitting in Terminal 8 at JFK, listening to the departure announcements and hearing Helsinki get announced. I have imagined their service to be like SAS – which had a decent J experience.
January 4th, 2013 at 11:24 am
Santander said,
If you want to maximise mileage, NYC-HEL-SVX (Yekaterinburg) works for the same fare. However, like many of you I’m more interested in TLL. I might book a couple of these myself to rack up some cheap Tier Points on BA.
January 4th, 2013 at 11:29 am
lucky said,
@ Carly — Yes, you earn full EQMs/RDMs.
January 4th, 2013 at 12:15 pm
Ed said,
flew Finnair on both their new and old J products this past Oct.
The old J product was decent, nothing to write home about. Food was good and service was excellent. On the slanted seat, still managed to get 8 hours or so of sleep flying SIN-HEL
The new J product is your typical standard flatbed product. Its comfortable to lounge in and sleep wise its solid. You won’t get any mattress pads or comfy blankets as you would on CX or other asian carriers, but FWIW, its still a solid product. Almost akin to BA F, since like Lucky mentioned, its a glorified J product really. did the new J on HEL-BKK.
If it’s $1500, i’d jump on it right away if I needed to be in Europe, bearing in mind you can redeem avios to get to the rest of Europe on S7, if you fly to Moscow .
January 4th, 2013 at 2:35 pm
Jung said,
Tallinn is really cool… for a day or two at the most. Stopped there on a cruise and had a great time wandering around. Could have easily done so for two days. And the super fast ferries are pretty cool. But be ready for lots of seasickness.
January 4th, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Talha said,
Would these are count during my aa plat challenge and if so then 1 trip is enough to meet the challenge?
January 4th, 2013 at 3:27 pm
lucky said,
@ Talha — For the challenge only American marketed flights qualify, so this would not since it’s a Finnair flight number.
January 4th, 2013 at 3:40 pm
ShaneInTulsa said,
Russian visa’s are a major PITA to get (unless what I was told is wrong).
Would love to do USA-ARN or USA-HEL during that time of year but if I plug that into IATA, I’m seeing $2,000 for J.
January 4th, 2013 at 3:44 pm
ShaneInTulsa said,
Correction on that. Estonia (TLL) doesn’t require a visa.
The negative is: this is an ATR flight between HEL and TLL. It’s only a 30 min flight though
January 4th, 2013 at 6:01 pm
Santander said,
@lucky – Actually, AA changed the terms of their challenge so any flights marketed by AA, BA, JL, QF or IB count. However, AY is missing regardless.
@Talha – I think AA has some relatively cheap business class fares to South America right now(I’m thinking LPB but I may be wrong) from the US. If you want to do a status challenge “in style”, that may be the best way to go.
January 4th, 2013 at 8:53 pm
HELyes said,
Their new J cabin on A333 is great for a solo traveller, several private window seats available. SWISS have similar flat bed seats.
It looks from JFK the new J cabin is available most days in April, their site gives codes for the different J cabins: 333=old,330=new.
January 4th, 2013 at 10:32 pm
Carl said,
would love to see you do this trip, review a new carrier, weather should not be too awful in April. You would earn about 14k eqm, not counting your gateway flight from SEA, so ppm is kinda high.
But as a professional travel writer, i assume you take a tax deduction for at least a portion of your trips and the trip reports should drive incremental views to your blog, driving up your ad sales and credit card referrals.
January 5th, 2013 at 8:05 am
Rich A. said,
Tallinn is a beatiful city in the SUMMER.
Add A Comment