upgraded
Sep 16, 11, 12:26 pm
In later August our family of 5 adults went from Helsinki to St. Petersburg via train and flew LED-HEL-ORD home.
1. The US Rail Europe site would not allow me to book second class tickets. The website forces you to buy 1st class tickets. I called them and they sold me the 2nd class tickets with no additional fee for not booking online. 2nd class was more than fine.
2. Transfers from the train station and to the airport were booked with Taxity. They were great. The cost is 1/3 less if you call and book the transfer instead of doing it online.
3. I got the visas from VisaHQ. Service was great and there was a discount for booking a group- the 5 of us.
4. We stayed at the Kempinski Hotel. Got a great deal from select-a-room.com. Much better rate than the hotel's site and breakfast was included. Free visa suppport when you book through them.
5.The flight from LED-HEL was about $750 if I addded it onto the ticket with AA. If I booked through Finnair it was only $450 but if I bought the ticket from Rossiya the exact flight (operated by Finnair) was $112. The only catch was that we couldn't check our bags through to ORD. But it was a breeze to recheck the bags ourselves to save all that money.
I really appreciate all the information that others posted that helped me plan this trip. Thank you
1. The US Rail Europe site would not allow me to book second class tickets. The website forces you to buy 1st class tickets. I called them and they sold me the 2nd class tickets with no additional fee for not booking online. 2nd class was more than fine.
2. Transfers from the train station and to the airport were booked with Taxity. They were great. The cost is 1/3 less if you call and book the transfer instead of doing it online.
3. I got the visas from VisaHQ. Service was great and there was a discount for booking a group- the 5 of us.
4. We stayed at the Kempinski Hotel. Got a great deal from select-a-room.com. Much better rate than the hotel's site and breakfast was included. Free visa suppport when you book through them.
5.The flight from LED-HEL was about $750 if I addded it onto the ticket with AA. If I booked through Finnair it was only $450 but if I bought the ticket from Rossiya the exact flight (operated by Finnair) was $112. The only catch was that we couldn't check our bags through to ORD. But it was a breeze to recheck the bags ourselves to save all that money.
I really appreciate all the information that others posted that helped me plan this trip. Thank you