First ever trip report, Babymoon#2 MEL-HKG-CDG-KEF-HEL-HKG-MEL
Aug 8, 2018, 6:30 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Melbourne Australia
Posts: 47
First ever trip report, Babymoon#2 MEL-HKG-CDG-KEF-HEL-HKG-MEL
Hi All,
Thought I might give this Trip Report thing a go, and see if I’m any good as a writer. Maybe it’ll inspire me to write more, or tell me I should stick to my day job. If nothing else I guess this will serve as a bit of a diary and reminder for myself as to how much effort planning this holiday took.
Part 1 - The Decision.
A bit of background first. I’m married with a 2YO daughter. 2018 hasn’t been kind to my wife - she lost her grandma in January, then her father in May. She’s been under a lot of stress and after my father in law’s passing we decided we should try for a second child. Long story short, she’s now 9.5 weeks pregnant. We found out at the 4 week mark and decided we should go on a trip to celebrate, let my wife relax and hope the excitement of a holiday and new child will wash away the sadness that has befallen her for the most part of the year.
I had a stack of QFF and Amex MR points I could use and I preferred to travel for MEL to HKG first as a kind of stop over/home base and visit my friends and family before then flying onwards to our holiday destination. I always had in my mind that I could treat the wife to J tickets on our flights to HKG and back. I could also try and fit in my cousin's wedding which was to be held at the end of Sept in HKG.
Choosing a holiday destination became a chore. I wanted to fly in award seats and wanted child friendly resort style relaxation. Wife didn’t want to go Sth East Asia because of Zika or Tokyo because of radiation and inability to eat raw fish.
My next preference was Okinawa, Japan, and I actually found heaps of QF award space MEL-SYD-HKG in their J seats on the A330. I also found PEY to NRT on CX and J from NRT-MEl on JL. But as I wanted to stop over in Tokyo, this was still banned....by now I was pretty much tired of having my ideas banned.
One of her friends suggested Paris, because they were going around the same time, and also had a child roughly the same age. For some strange reason my wife thought this would be a great idea.....I guess the thought of two kids running around underneath the Eiffel Tower would be a great memory. Anyway, so it was up to me to see if such a trip was feasible, at least from a financial perspective.
Thought I might give this Trip Report thing a go, and see if I’m any good as a writer. Maybe it’ll inspire me to write more, or tell me I should stick to my day job. If nothing else I guess this will serve as a bit of a diary and reminder for myself as to how much effort planning this holiday took.
Part 1 - The Decision.
A bit of background first. I’m married with a 2YO daughter. 2018 hasn’t been kind to my wife - she lost her grandma in January, then her father in May. She’s been under a lot of stress and after my father in law’s passing we decided we should try for a second child. Long story short, she’s now 9.5 weeks pregnant. We found out at the 4 week mark and decided we should go on a trip to celebrate, let my wife relax and hope the excitement of a holiday and new child will wash away the sadness that has befallen her for the most part of the year.
I had a stack of QFF and Amex MR points I could use and I preferred to travel for MEL to HKG first as a kind of stop over/home base and visit my friends and family before then flying onwards to our holiday destination. I always had in my mind that I could treat the wife to J tickets on our flights to HKG and back. I could also try and fit in my cousin's wedding which was to be held at the end of Sept in HKG.
Choosing a holiday destination became a chore. I wanted to fly in award seats and wanted child friendly resort style relaxation. Wife didn’t want to go Sth East Asia because of Zika or Tokyo because of radiation and inability to eat raw fish.
My next preference was Okinawa, Japan, and I actually found heaps of QF award space MEL-SYD-HKG in their J seats on the A330. I also found PEY to NRT on CX and J from NRT-MEl on JL. But as I wanted to stop over in Tokyo, this was still banned....by now I was pretty much tired of having my ideas banned.
One of her friends suggested Paris, because they were going around the same time, and also had a child roughly the same age. For some strange reason my wife thought this would be a great idea.....I guess the thought of two kids running around underneath the Eiffel Tower would be a great memory. Anyway, so it was up to me to see if such a trip was feasible, at least from a financial perspective.
Aug 8, 2018, 7:31 pm
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Melbourne Australia
Posts: 47
Part 2 - The Booking Process.
Funnily enough, I found plenty of J/F mixed class award from HKG-CDG on EK. Flight times were weird with a 4 hour layover in DXB in the middle of the night but hey, its EK F on an A380 and my wife had never flown F so that’s what we chose. My wife being overcome with morning sickness, didn’t seem to care, but she felt that Paris (and whatever we could do after) was a much better option than Japan (and all it’s scary radiation).
Jumped onto QF website and booked that J/F mixed class seat for 2 adults and a child (still charged full fare award for the child...). Got charged as if I was flying the whole 2 legs in F, but ah what the heck. YOLO right? My booking was F from HKG to DXB, then J from DXB to CDG.
Kept monitoring QF site as I was hoping eventually more EK F availability would turn up for the DXB to CDG leg. Prayers came true about 1.5 weeks after my booking. Departure was for one day earlier and it couldn’t be seen in a simple HKG to CDG search. For some reason the 3 F seats from DXB to CDG would only show up using the “multi city” function. Called QF as quickly as I could and had my original flights changed. Cost me an extra 5k in points per ticket but I think it was worth it.
I'm so excited about EK F, i've already got my chauffeur booked, confirmed with EK that the caviar served in F is pasteurized (apparently pasteurized/heat treated caviar is ok...edit: disclaimer - i'm not a doctor and this is not pregnancy advice. See your own doctor/obstetrician for specific advice - don't want to get sued lol)
Now to get back from Europe to Hong Kong as I needed to attend a wedding there on the 29th Sept. CX award was non existent with almost all cities flying back to HKG on wait list. For some strange reason, flying EK award back to HKG would cost me about 1200 euro (roughly 1900 aud) for 3 people in taxes. As a comparison, the HKG-CDG F tickets cost $1100HKD (188 aud). Unsure of the reason why as I wasn’t even looking to depart from London Heathrow...ex BCN or AMS was all $1200 euro.
I Googled where else OW partners flew out of Europe back to HKG and found Finnair! And it was as if the award redemption god was smiling upon me as I found 3 J seats HEL-HKG departing 26th Sept and arriving 27th! Perfect!
Had as a bit of a saga booking this leg because I found the flights at work on Asia Miles website and kept seeing them there for 2-3 days and asking my wife if she wanted to do a Northern Europe tour after Paris. Took her a while to make up her mind but eventually we agreed to do it.
I needed to transfer points across from various credit cards and AM couldn’t hold the seats. Transferred the points which would take 2-3 business days but by the time the points hit my AM account, the flights had gone! OMG!
Stressed to the max, I realized I had lost those seats, and that I’d have to maybe book J via EK and pay that 1200 euro tax. So back to the drawing board......and for a few more days I kept my eyes on that AM/QF site just to see whether those seats would reappear. I mean, they were there for about 4 days and no one had touched them. It couldn't be that much of a coincidence that as soon as I wanted them, they would be gone right? RIGHT?!?!
As it turns out, the 3 AY J tickets reappeared magically one night. Armed with a boatload of AM miles (not really, those one way flights back to HKG only cost 50k AM points - which seemed like a bargain, considering CX wanted 65k points one way from any European city back to HKG), I tried to book the tickets online but the website wouldn't allow me to so I had to call the AM call centre. Being a MPC Silver member, i naturally called MP thinking i'd get better service. I was so wrong...... The lady on the phone looks up the booking and says to me that AY won't allow one way award redemptions, sorry it can't be done. I asked her if that was the system throwing the error message at her, to which she replied "i cannot put it on the system because the rules won't allow it". This implied that she didn't even try to book it! I saw no value in arguing as she was adamant the rules were as such, however I wasn't about to give up. If those were the rules, then the AM website shouldn't have been showing that one way award ticket as available! I decided to try my luck again.
I called AM this time and the lady who I spoke with initially said the same thing, AY awards cannot be booked one way....but wait...she looked into it further and advised that there had been a rule change in June 2018 (I was calling in about mid July 2018 at the time) and I could now book the ticket! So she went to search for the award ticket, but they had disappeared!!!!! AGAIN!!!!! I blame the MPC lady!!!
Anyway, this time I had a feeling the award availability would come back as it seemed this was some kind of system glitch. So I checked again the next morning and sure enough, there they were! Called AM again, and the operator saw the availability. I was going through process of verifying details for the booking then the phone dropped out!! Nooooooooo!!!!!! Called back straight away, but the tickets had disappeared from inventory! My guess was that they hadn't been released back yet, so I had to call back later.
Half a day later the AY J seats reappeared, and I called AM again, but by the time I got through the seats had gone! Knowning now that this was a glitch, I kept the AM operator on line and asked for her to search CX flights departing any other European airports. As she was in the midst of putting me on wait lists all around Europe, the tickets reappeared! I literally yelled into the phone at the operator to grab those AY tickets ASAP! Finally had them secured!! Geez that was as epic as it will ever get for me in booking award space. I felt like I was a in mad rush against the rest of the world to compete for these 3 J seats!
Anyway, the rest of the booking should be pretty mundane. Been looking to depart 5/6/7 Sept on CX or QF flights to HKG, but nothing appearing in J or PEY after checking every day and night for 2 weeks. Then suddenly, 2 nights ago, bam! 3 J seats appeared on CX134 departing MEL to HKG a 0735. Called AM again (not calling MPC anymore!) and had those reserved immediately!
Almost there! So only one more award ticket to go, which is HKG to MEL. Given my understanding of how the CX system works now, i'll probably be looking at close to end of August before any further CX award space is released for end of Sept. This is going to be cutting it close as I generally like to have everything booked months before scheduled departure. Such a first world problem.....
In the meantime, I've booked CDG to KEF (cash flights, don't have points with IcelandAir) - going to see if we can see Northern Lights. I'm not sure the 2YO will be happy with leaving Melbourne cold winter, for Arctic autumn haha, but she has no choice.
As we're going to HEL, we thought we might as well visit Santa, so booked short 2 night stay in Rovaniemi also. Thinking here is, if we missed the NL in Iceland, we could also try here!
That's it for the moment until I can book that HKG to MEL award, but i'm really looking forward to that EK F!
Funnily enough, I found plenty of J/F mixed class award from HKG-CDG on EK. Flight times were weird with a 4 hour layover in DXB in the middle of the night but hey, its EK F on an A380 and my wife had never flown F so that’s what we chose. My wife being overcome with morning sickness, didn’t seem to care, but she felt that Paris (and whatever we could do after) was a much better option than Japan (and all it’s scary radiation).
Jumped onto QF website and booked that J/F mixed class seat for 2 adults and a child (still charged full fare award for the child...). Got charged as if I was flying the whole 2 legs in F, but ah what the heck. YOLO right? My booking was F from HKG to DXB, then J from DXB to CDG.
Kept monitoring QF site as I was hoping eventually more EK F availability would turn up for the DXB to CDG leg. Prayers came true about 1.5 weeks after my booking. Departure was for one day earlier and it couldn’t be seen in a simple HKG to CDG search. For some reason the 3 F seats from DXB to CDG would only show up using the “multi city” function. Called QF as quickly as I could and had my original flights changed. Cost me an extra 5k in points per ticket but I think it was worth it.
I'm so excited about EK F, i've already got my chauffeur booked, confirmed with EK that the caviar served in F is pasteurized (apparently pasteurized/heat treated caviar is ok...edit: disclaimer - i'm not a doctor and this is not pregnancy advice. See your own doctor/obstetrician for specific advice - don't want to get sued lol)
Now to get back from Europe to Hong Kong as I needed to attend a wedding there on the 29th Sept. CX award was non existent with almost all cities flying back to HKG on wait list. For some strange reason, flying EK award back to HKG would cost me about 1200 euro (roughly 1900 aud) for 3 people in taxes. As a comparison, the HKG-CDG F tickets cost $1100HKD (188 aud). Unsure of the reason why as I wasn’t even looking to depart from London Heathrow...ex BCN or AMS was all $1200 euro.
I Googled where else OW partners flew out of Europe back to HKG and found Finnair! And it was as if the award redemption god was smiling upon me as I found 3 J seats HEL-HKG departing 26th Sept and arriving 27th! Perfect!
Had as a bit of a saga booking this leg because I found the flights at work on Asia Miles website and kept seeing them there for 2-3 days and asking my wife if she wanted to do a Northern Europe tour after Paris. Took her a while to make up her mind but eventually we agreed to do it.
I needed to transfer points across from various credit cards and AM couldn’t hold the seats. Transferred the points which would take 2-3 business days but by the time the points hit my AM account, the flights had gone! OMG!
Stressed to the max, I realized I had lost those seats, and that I’d have to maybe book J via EK and pay that 1200 euro tax. So back to the drawing board......and for a few more days I kept my eyes on that AM/QF site just to see whether those seats would reappear. I mean, they were there for about 4 days and no one had touched them. It couldn't be that much of a coincidence that as soon as I wanted them, they would be gone right? RIGHT?!?!
As it turns out, the 3 AY J tickets reappeared magically one night. Armed with a boatload of AM miles (not really, those one way flights back to HKG only cost 50k AM points - which seemed like a bargain, considering CX wanted 65k points one way from any European city back to HKG), I tried to book the tickets online but the website wouldn't allow me to so I had to call the AM call centre. Being a MPC Silver member, i naturally called MP thinking i'd get better service. I was so wrong...... The lady on the phone looks up the booking and says to me that AY won't allow one way award redemptions, sorry it can't be done. I asked her if that was the system throwing the error message at her, to which she replied "i cannot put it on the system because the rules won't allow it". This implied that she didn't even try to book it! I saw no value in arguing as she was adamant the rules were as such, however I wasn't about to give up. If those were the rules, then the AM website shouldn't have been showing that one way award ticket as available! I decided to try my luck again.
I called AM this time and the lady who I spoke with initially said the same thing, AY awards cannot be booked one way....but wait...she looked into it further and advised that there had been a rule change in June 2018 (I was calling in about mid July 2018 at the time) and I could now book the ticket! So she went to search for the award ticket, but they had disappeared!!!!! AGAIN!!!!! I blame the MPC lady!!!
Anyway, this time I had a feeling the award availability would come back as it seemed this was some kind of system glitch. So I checked again the next morning and sure enough, there they were! Called AM again, and the operator saw the availability. I was going through process of verifying details for the booking then the phone dropped out!! Nooooooooo!!!!!! Called back straight away, but the tickets had disappeared from inventory! My guess was that they hadn't been released back yet, so I had to call back later.
Half a day later the AY J seats reappeared, and I called AM again, but by the time I got through the seats had gone! Knowning now that this was a glitch, I kept the AM operator on line and asked for her to search CX flights departing any other European airports. As she was in the midst of putting me on wait lists all around Europe, the tickets reappeared! I literally yelled into the phone at the operator to grab those AY tickets ASAP! Finally had them secured!! Geez that was as epic as it will ever get for me in booking award space. I felt like I was a in mad rush against the rest of the world to compete for these 3 J seats!
Anyway, the rest of the booking should be pretty mundane. Been looking to depart 5/6/7 Sept on CX or QF flights to HKG, but nothing appearing in J or PEY after checking every day and night for 2 weeks. Then suddenly, 2 nights ago, bam! 3 J seats appeared on CX134 departing MEL to HKG a 0735. Called AM again (not calling MPC anymore!) and had those reserved immediately!
Almost there! So only one more award ticket to go, which is HKG to MEL. Given my understanding of how the CX system works now, i'll probably be looking at close to end of August before any further CX award space is released for end of Sept. This is going to be cutting it close as I generally like to have everything booked months before scheduled departure. Such a first world problem.....
In the meantime, I've booked CDG to KEF (cash flights, don't have points with IcelandAir) - going to see if we can see Northern Lights. I'm not sure the 2YO will be happy with leaving Melbourne cold winter, for Arctic autumn haha, but she has no choice.
As we're going to HEL, we thought we might as well visit Santa, so booked short 2 night stay in Rovaniemi also. Thinking here is, if we missed the NL in Iceland, we could also try here!
That's it for the moment until I can book that HKG to MEL award, but i'm really looking forward to that EK F!
Last edited by dark8; Sep 2, 2018 at 8:21 pm Reason: typo with 3YO - she actually turns 3 during this trip! how exciting! Also edit - disclaimer :)
Aug 12, 2018, 9:53 pm
#8
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Melbourne Australia
Posts: 47
Thanks for the reading guys, although it must be kind of boring right now without any photos and I actually even left the country yet. T-25 days now before departure. No i'm not really counting.....
Just for the record (and my own keepsake), I had a slight issue with booking a hotel in Iceland, but they have since been resolved.
We will be staying in a hotel in the south eastern town of Vik for a night. The OTA stated on their website during booking that an additional bed for a 3YO was free of charge (it was free up to 6 YO). I received separate confirmation from the same hotel via their Facebook message that an extra bed can be provided free of charge if I requested it in the booking. I therefore booked the room via the OTA as it was a cheaper rate, and added an additional request for extra bed for a 3 year old. First email i received was from the OTA for confirmation. Second email was from the hotel telling me a "Crib" was free, but extra bed for 3YO (including breakfast) was an extra 9800 ISK (roughly $120 AUD) a night. Given my one night stay only cost $400AUD a night, this felt like a bit of a "try-on".
I responded back with screen captures of the conversation with their hotel via Facebook and also the OTA booking t&cs. Hotel responded by graciously adding the extra bed free of charge. Not going to name the hotel here, as to their credit, the issue was resolved after 2 emails. Guess it serves as a reminder for me that I need to be extremely mindful in the future when booking hotels for an extra child.
Note to others travelling to Iceland with a kid and booking with an OTA, remember to check the T&Cs, It could save you a bit of money.
Just for the record (and my own keepsake), I had a slight issue with booking a hotel in Iceland, but they have since been resolved.
We will be staying in a hotel in the south eastern town of Vik for a night. The OTA stated on their website during booking that an additional bed for a 3YO was free of charge (it was free up to 6 YO). I received separate confirmation from the same hotel via their Facebook message that an extra bed can be provided free of charge if I requested it in the booking. I therefore booked the room via the OTA as it was a cheaper rate, and added an additional request for extra bed for a 3 year old. First email i received was from the OTA for confirmation. Second email was from the hotel telling me a "Crib" was free, but extra bed for 3YO (including breakfast) was an extra 9800 ISK (roughly $120 AUD) a night. Given my one night stay only cost $400AUD a night, this felt like a bit of a "try-on".
I responded back with screen captures of the conversation with their hotel via Facebook and also the OTA booking t&cs. Hotel responded by graciously adding the extra bed free of charge. Not going to name the hotel here, as to their credit, the issue was resolved after 2 emails. Guess it serves as a reminder for me that I need to be extremely mindful in the future when booking hotels for an extra child.
Note to others travelling to Iceland with a kid and booking with an OTA, remember to check the T&Cs, It could save you a bit of money.
Aug 13, 2018, 7:16 pm
#9
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: PHL
Programs: AA EXP, HH Diamond, Owner of 2,000 TWA shares
Posts: 812
While I didn't stay in Vik I will say the highlight of my trip was the Black Sand Beach and the views from Dyrholaey lighthouse. Be careful not the waves (don't turn your back on the ocean and don't let the little one get too close). Have fun.
Aug 30, 2018, 6:43 pm
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Melbourne Australia
Posts: 47
Quick update here....
I just found 3 J seats on QF30 from HKG to MEL on 1st Oct. Hastily booked it, thinking all A330 in QF fleet have been upgraded with that new J suite. How wrong was I? The seat maps of the A330-200 were showing seats for old Skybed II, so I've got the old angled flat beds (again! - was on these seats in a 747 last year! d'oh!). I've been wanting to try the new A330 QF J seats for a while now but seem to have squandered that opportunity this time. Been reading online that there are only 2 A330-200 that have not had the refurb yet, and its just my luck that I get one of these birds flying ex-HKG......sigh....
For now i'll hold onto these seats and see how my waitlist on CX J turns out. If those come to fruition I'll obviously cancel my QF booking. I'll have to cop the points charge for cancellation but at least I've found return flights and I'm safe knowing if all else fails I can still return to Melbourne.
T-8 now for MEL to HKG. Starting to get super excited now!
I just found 3 J seats on QF30 from HKG to MEL on 1st Oct. Hastily booked it, thinking all A330 in QF fleet have been upgraded with that new J suite. How wrong was I? The seat maps of the A330-200 were showing seats for old Skybed II, so I've got the old angled flat beds (again! - was on these seats in a 747 last year! d'oh!). I've been wanting to try the new A330 QF J seats for a while now but seem to have squandered that opportunity this time. Been reading online that there are only 2 A330-200 that have not had the refurb yet, and its just my luck that I get one of these birds flying ex-HKG......sigh....
For now i'll hold onto these seats and see how my waitlist on CX J turns out. If those come to fruition I'll obviously cancel my QF booking. I'll have to cop the points charge for cancellation but at least I've found return flights and I'm safe knowing if all else fails I can still return to Melbourne.
T-8 now for MEL to HKG. Starting to get super excited now!
Sep 1, 2018, 2:25 am
#12
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: JNB
Programs: Flying Blue, Miles and Smiles, Hhonors, ICHotels
Posts: 1,307
Amazing planning. I know how difficult it be getting just two seats on award availability, but for three....... Glad it is working out, so looking forward to your updates.
Safe Travels.
Safe Travels.
Sep 2, 2018, 8:12 pm
#13
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Melbourne Australia
Posts: 47
Thanks for reading everyone.....
Just checked QF website and equipment is now A333. I'm guessing it was supposed to be a 333 all along, but IT issues caused it to change? Either way, the seat maps have changed and I've been able to secure 3 window seats in the new QF J business seat
woohoo!I'm guessing 3 people thought they were flying on the 332 with old J layout and decided to change/cancel their flights which opened up the award availability.
So for now, my trip is planned as follows:
MEL to HKG on CX J (A359) - award ticket
HKG to CDG on EK F (A380) - award ticket
CDG to KEF on FI Y (B757) - cash ticket
KEF to HEL on FI Y (B757) - cash ticket
HEL to RVN on D8 Y (B737) - cash ticket
RVN to HEL on D8 Y (B737) - cash ticket
HEL to HKG on AY J (A359) - award ticket
HKG to MEL on QF J (A333) - award ticket
No luxury hotel stays, just AirBNB and some 3-4 star hotels all up. Staying at the Cordis in Langham Place in Hong Kong, which is about as much I can afford in terms of splurging on a hotel.
Found some good deals in Helsinki with the Hilton and also used my Amex travel credit for a night's stay in Reykjavik.
T-4 now. I'm not counting.....
Last edited by dark8; Nov 27, 2018 at 4:59 am Reason: Added flight route map
Sep 3, 2018, 11:16 pm
#15
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Canada, USA, Europe
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 31,452
I think OP was making the point that some people advise pregnant women not to eat raw fish, drink milk, etc etc. The radiation concern is maybe a bit much but refers to the power plant meltdown a few years ago. (But you knew all that, didn't you? 
)
)