niksal

kanamurva , in F I have only ever seen 1 seat by CX. However, they may have occasionally 1 seat per flight on several flights same day. Also consecutive flights. What's funny/odd is that I had to explicitly search for LHR-SIN awards to get the CX flights to show. Only looking LHR-HKG didn't give nearly as much availability. CX is the carrier I have been mostly focusing on. Also JL, but that seems to be very rare that they release F awards, at least not months out. Business availability seems actually quite easy to find for multiple seats.

FFlash thank you for those points! Very helpful, good points.

Starting to get really, really tempted by this. Would be a perfect 40th birthday gift for me (ok, a few months in advance, but still).

mhle

Sounds like a great trip. A couple of additional comments. Finnair's rule about the distance-based oneworld awards says that one needs to include 2 or more oneworld carriers. There is no need to include flights from Finnair, i.e. you can also use BA between HEL-LHR. And you can have as many carriers as you like. I once booked an oneworld award with 6 different carriers.

The second comment is related to having a stop-over twice in the same city. According to the rules, you can have a stop-over only once per city. This means that if you intend to visit Singapore twice, the other stop cannot be longer than 24 hours. I don't know how strict they are about this but the rule says so.

I also think that the two attractive things about Kuala Lumpur are the good prices on high-quality hotels and the interesting culture (especially food).

intuition

Yes, my bad.
I was sure I read it to be exactly two, but checking the rules now it clearly says 2 or more. So there you go! With the suggested LH route at 25000km there is 10 000km left in that award category so you can go around europe on OW carriers on your way to LHR!

WilcoRoger

Indeed. It was the only place I could afford the Ritz Carlton (suite upgrade while Marriott Plat) and similar very high end brands. Your run of the mill JW, Grand Hyatt, etc are also very reasonable priced.

Insider tip - the best view of the Petronas Towers is from the top bar of the Trader's Hotel

Tapio

I can agree with that - as I lived in the KLCC two year some years back. Area has been changing (more tall buildings around the part!) all the time.

You could also consider to enjoy a lunch at the KL Tower where they have a rotating restaurant. Also recommend to take KLIA Express train from the airport to KL Central and train from there to KLCC.

WilcoRoger

Comparing my photos from 2013 and 2019 the change is amazing. My local friends tend to take a sceptic view of the tower-building craze...

KLIA Express is a very good deal - buy it on the app (10% off) and pay by MasterCard (10 MYR off) makes it a steal. From Sentral I usually grab a Grab

niksal

So, I tried to book the award HEL-FRA-HKG-KUL-SIN-HKG-LHR-HEL. I checked both aa.com and ba.com, found availability, put it all in a nice email to AY Platinum to avoid misunderstandings. Reply: They don't see availability. I suspect the problem is that they look segment by segment, whereas I looked at e.g. FRA-KUL which then offered me a connection in HKG. If I looked FRA-HKG, I agree there wasn't any availability.

Should I simply call them? Is there actually a different agent that looks at the mails compared to calls?

I'll donate my 1 million AY points to some charity soon - impossible to use them for anything good.

mhle

My experience is that booking complicated awards by email does not work very well. Calling them is a better option. One can resolve problems and misunderstandings easier directly by phone than in an email chain, with the agent changing between each response.

FFlash

Go for it niksal! Call them and let us know. Dont give up, first First is thing Thing

niksal

It took a call of almost an hour, but now I have something that is almost what I wanted. I have a HEL-FRA(AY C)-HKG(CX F)-KUL(KA C)-SIN(MH C)-HKG(CX C)-LHR(CX F)-HEL(AY C) booked. 3 days in KUL, have to spend nights in SIN and LHR.

Lesson learned 1: AA.com and BA.com cannot be entirely trusted. Even if you see something there, doesn't mean Finnair can book it.

Lesson learned 2: As availability could only be seen when looking for FRA-KUL (no availability FRA-HKG only), you have to take the next possible connection HKG-KUL. I couldn't book the later and probably nicer MH flight.

Lesson learned 3: The LHR-HEL is 16.10 flight. No availability earlier, and since this is a OW award, AY priorities etc don't really count

Lesson learned 4: Ticketing in 24h, so I will only know tomorrow morning what this actually will cost. I'm a bit afraid of the stop in LHR and what that does to the price

Probably more lessons learned, can't think of them now.

But yes, first first booked! Now let's just hope CX stays alive until September when this trip takes place.

And yes, the agent thought I was a complete idiot. He even called back to ask whether I really only wanted to stay 3 days in KUL...

lkrt

Oh! Sounds like of one of my normal friends.....

mhle

I have also similar experiences of AA.com not predicting the availability correctly. I have gotten 100% hit rate with the combination of Qantas and BA tools.

miamiflyer8

I've had the same experience, BA found an F seat on LHR-ATL but wasn't visible on AA or Alaska MileagePlan.

I'd be more concerned about them cutting F to FRA as they did to Chicago (easy route for awards) and almost cut 12 out of their 18 daily seats to JFK but decided not to.

deissi

Re 3: Ask them to waitlist the earlier LHR-HEL flight, it has a good chance of clearing as a plat.
Re 4: I would suggest pricing the itinerary in Matrix (in segments) so you can calculate the taxes yourself. AY are notorious for miscalculating taxes.

NoWindowSeat

LHR should be avoided where possible for J/F awards, high taxes but then again it’s BA’s hub so not easy..