Russia - Travelling to Russia, HEL->SPB vs SVO.

I apologize in advance if this doesn't belong in this forum, or if the question makes little sense.

Here's my dilemma. My wife and I are planning to be visit my family in Russia next May. Leaving from JAX The tried and true route we've taken is JAX-ATL-SVO on Delta. I have a skymiles card and the miles have been slooooowly trickling in so, I'm hoping to "pay with miles" and save a couple of bucks on tickets. Which makes them at least manageable financially.

But... I had this idea... Advised by many friends in Russia I wanted to explore an option of flying to Helsinki and taking a newly launched ferry (http://www.stpeterline.com/en/) from there to SPB and flying back to US from SVO. That way I get to show my wife one of my favorite cities.

Alas, Delta does not allow "paying with miles" if Helsinki is in the itinerary. Even though the tickets are a little cheaper for the 2nd option, I won't save any $$, because that I'd have to pay full price+the cost of a ferry (which I planned on). So I kinda resorted to going through the ol' SVO. And in this last ditch effort, I was wondering if there was a way I could save some scratch on the second option, perhaps by flying to SPB directly, or some other way... Again, my apologies if it's the wrong thread.

Any nudge in the right direction is greatly appreciated.

Welcome to FT!

If this Forum does not suit your needs, you may think about requesting the thread be moved to the Delta SkyMiles Forum <link (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-skymiles-665/)> since you are paying with DL miles. The way to do this is to click on the http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.flyertalk.com/get/forum/images/buttons/report.gif below your name and filling out the form - the form gets sent to all moderators in a particular forum, or to the senior moderators if there is no assigned moderator. We can then move the thread to wherever you would like (assuming it is appropriate to the topic).

JDiver, Senior Moderator

Not sure if it was a mistake but I figured it might be the wrong thread and reposted to the Delta forum, may be it'd get some traction there.
In any event, Thank you.

The first question I have is, do you want to visit St. Petersburg in addition to Moscow? If not, then I would probably just get to Moscow in as direct (and low cost) a routing as possible.

Also, I run a travel company focused on Russia and the former Soviet Union. Based on 7+ years experience in this market, I would never recommend that you plan the entire trip around the availability of a trans-national ferry. I've seen several routes fail. There is always the alternative of a train from Helsinki to St Petersburg, though.

For those clients who want to visit both Moscow and St Petersburg and not backtrack, we usually recommend flying Air France (Skyteam) through Paris, Lufthansa (Star) through Frankfurt, or AA/BA through London or Finnair through Helsinki (Oneworld). Another alternative is taking Aeroflot to Moscow, as the Moscow-St Petersburg portion is often very low priced.

Also, there is no guarantee that Delta will have the ATL-SVO routing next year. You should make sure that you could, if necessary, go JAX-JFK-SVO in case the ATL-SVO is not, or no longer, offered.

So, if I understand it correctly, the OP want to use "pay with miles" option from the use of Delta Gold, Platinum or Reserve Amex card in order to save some $$ on a ticket purchase at what is essentially $0.01/mile cost. If this is the intent, then flying to either HEL or LED is not an option since it only allows Delta and/or Delta Connection® flights (neither of those go to HEL or LED).

If OP wanted to book an award ticket solely with Delta miles (try finding 60,000 award redemption next summer!), then you could fly to either HEL or LED on Air France or Alitalia or Aeroflot via SVO or Czech via Prague (not all of them fly to both destinations).

Now, the cheapest cost for 2 on a ferry that I could find was 197 euros = ~$250 and as others have stated who knows whether it will run next year and on what schedule. While the ferry goes overnight, train from either HEL to LED or SVO to LED could be faster and cheaper. And of course, the fastest option could be fly from SVO to LED, although not the cheapest.