Netherlands to Greece flights
 

I am planning a trip to Europe in September and need to fly from Netherlands, preferably AMS to Crete, Greece.

I would like to use my Avios (Oneworld) or Krisflyer (Star Alliance) miles. Last option would be to fly with any other low cost airline.

What routes / airlines can be considered? Any help is appreciated.

General pointers:

1. If you are booking far in advance, don't discount cheap direct flights. You should be able to use a popular flight finding site to find them.
2. AMS is a big well connected airport, by comparison Crete is far less connected (although it IS still more connected than many other places). So in terms of identifying options, this is a lesson to work backwards - look at who flies to Crete, and from where.

For using the miles you mention, you will need to connect (unless Krisflyer have a partner I am not aware of).

Avios:
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All the schemes that use Avios points (are they in a BA account? an Iberia account? or a .... account?) price per sector. But they do offer good short haul millage pricing. The question is just minimizing the taxes. (again compare this to the low cost direct flights). But if you are using Avios, I'd want to keep it to two sectors (i.e. single connection).

For Avios, your airlines that could make sense would be:
BA with connection in London (service from Crete is seasonal from LGW)
Air Berlin with connection in various places (all seasonal services)
Meridiana who are a new Avios using partner, not part of oneworld, and who do fly to Crete. Although I'm not singling them out - just mentioning in case not aware. Services again seasonal.

I got this from looking at the wikipedia page for Crete - work backwards if the destination is the smaller airport (i.e. the constraint).
The other starting points would be the crete airport website, or the oneworld.com timetable.


Generally I'd look at BA to BA connection booked from BA Exec Club account, or Air Berlin booked with Avios from a BA account.

Krisflyer:
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I don't know about the redemption rates of Krisflyer. But with star, look at who flies to crete (as mentioned above), that will tell you your options.

Although I don't know krisflyer redemption rates/value for money.

Using Avios you can fly to ATH on
- BA via LHR
- Royal Jordanian via AMM
- Qatar via DOH

Using SQ miles you can fly to ATH on

- Aegean Direct
- Lufthansa via FRA/MUC
- Swiss via ZRH
- Turkish via IST
- LOT via WAW
- Croatian via ZAG/DBV
- Austrian via VIE
- Brussels Airline out of BRU

To CHQ you can fly

LH-Aegean via MUC
Austrian via VIE (seasonal)

LGW would be a more sensible connection, to avoid needing to change airports.


I don't think Aegean do fly direct, but I may be wrong.

I thought BA discontinued their LGW-ATH flight.

They don't seem to fly direct from AMS but they do from BRU.

I wasn't thinking of ATH, but HER or CHQ. (It looks like there are also AMS charters to JSH).

Although it looks like LGW-HER which I had heard of is summer 15, so not suitable for sept 14!


As a general point that is also another good one for the OP, especially if you are going to need to travel to the airport, and want to get direct to crete. It might easier to travel to a different airport at the origin.

Other options would be to take a ferry once in greece.

I'd just fly Transavia to Heraklion from AMS. Otherwise you'd have to go via BRU (Aegean) or DUS (Air Berlin).

"Careful" with JSH. Unless you specifically want to travel around in the East-most part of Crete or you find a ridiculously cheap flight, you should avoid this: It took me, this morning, about 2:30 hours for the trip being in a Mercedes E250 driven bu a pre-suicidal friend of mine, his wife screaming continuously and with hardly any traffic. 3+ hours is more like it to get from Sitia to Heraklion. Mind you, a very scenic road...

Thanks for all the replies!
I think I will take either transavia / corendon from AMS direct or Austrian or Niki from Vienna depwnding on availability and taxes. These seem to be the best options as no flight through LON is available on those dates.