Originally Posted by miklcct

Flying an extra day before means taking an additional day of leave, which is not a good option for me (I calculate the amount of leaves very carefully, a one-day difference can ruin my year plan completely). If I can't go there hassle-free on a Friday I may choose another competition to join instead.

There is a promotion on KL/AF now, and it offers a flight which allows me to arrive Venice half a day earlier (i.e. a night flight) at an unbeatable price, without taking an additional day of leave.

However, the promotion fare is completely unchangeable, gets 0 miles in my programme, and the promotion ends tomorrow. As there is still some uncertainty in the competition schedule (only the date and the place are known, but not the first starting time), I don't think I can make the determination now, and may let the promotion go away. This competition is also not considered a must-go for me as I can choose a different one on the race calendar, which means if there are better competitions on Saturdays that I can go by taking daytime Aeroflot flights on Fridays I would go those instead of this. (Aeroflot offers refundable flights with lots of miles at cheap price, so I can secure a seat even before I make the determination.)

For example, I did a competition in Prague last month on a weekend, by flying on Aeroflot daytime flights on Friday and arriving in the evening, than going to the competition Saturday morning in near-optimal shape. The same for going to Turku and Tampere: flying on Aeroflot daytime flights on Friday, arriving Helsinki in the evening, and take a direct coach there immediately afterwards. After seeing your reply, going to Trieste is SO complicated from Venice airport so I may rather skip this competition and choose another one instead.