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While Qatar Airways is usually my go-to airline when I’m looking for good Business Class fares between Europe and Asia, Finnair comes a close second in the “who can offer the best fares?” stakes. Right now Finnair has a couple of respectable if not spectacular Business Class fares from Europe to Bangkok and Shanghai starting at $1,580/£1,210/€1,414.
Alongside the fares, routings and flight details I’ll also post details of what you can expect these flights to earn you if you credit them to American Airlines AAdvantage or the British Airways Executive Club.
Finnair Business Class Stockholm – Bangkok From $1,580/£1,210/€1,414
This Business Class fare appears to be just a very well discounted fare rather than a sale fare so there’s no pre-set end date telling us when it will disappear – it could be around for some time or disappear overnight.
Bangkok sunset – courtesy of Mike Behnken via Flickr
Headline Fare Info
- Travel dates: August 2016 – June 2017
- Reservations must be made a minimum of 14 days before departure
- The minimum number of nights you’ll need to stay in Bangkok is 4
- The fare allows one free stopover (in Helsinki) and, if you want a second stopover (again in Helsinki) it will set you back €50.
- Blackout dates are 19 December – 8 January
Fare Availability
The fare is available for travel starting from 14 days from today (so you could still squeeze in an August departure if you need to) all the way through to the end of the current published schedule in June 2017…and it may even continue into July when those dates open up.
The fare is widely available for most months as evidenced by the example screenshots from ITA Matrix below:
September
December
December is by far and away the weakest month for availability but there are still a few dates with the $1,580 fare showing….
January
After a poor December the best fare has good availability again in January (except for the blackout dates at the beginning of the month).
February
And in February things are fully back to normal…..
….a trend which continues on right through to the end of June:
June
Routing & Aircraft
This fare has quite a bit going for it:
- Bangkok is a major destination for Finnair and one to which the airline sends its excellent Airbus A350 (reviewed here).
- The connecting flights to/from Helsinki, on which you don’t get a luxurious Business Class seat, are very short – for most of the trip you’re flying in the comfort of the Finnair A350.
- There are no long and tedious layovers to worry about – often a concern on the better Qatar Airways Business Class fares.
- If you don’t live in Sweden (I suspect most people reading this blog don’t), the departure time from Stockholm should give you enough time to arrive from another European country in time to connect to this fare without having to pay for an overnight stop in a hotel.
Rewards Earnings
Finnair is a member of the oneworld alliance and so is partners with American Airlines & British Airways (amongst others).
The following chart shows what a traveler with no status can expect to earn if he/she credits these flights to either American Airlines AAdvantage or the British Airways Executive Club:
The British Airways Executive Club doesn’t offer its elites any kind of mileage bonus for travel on Finnair but American Airlines AAdvantage does:
This means that an Executive Platinum member, with a 120% bonus, will earn over 28,000 AAdvantage miles with this fare – enough for a Miles SAAver economy round-trip award anywhere within the contiguous 48 U.S. states.
Finnair Business Class Barcelona – Shanghai From $1,849/£1,415/€1,654
While this is definitely not amongst the cheapest fares I’ve seen between Europe and Shanghai it’s still not a bad fare when you consider the mileage earnings you can get from it (shown further on in this post).
Like the fare to Bangkok this doesn’t appear to be a sale fare and so doesn’t have a set expiry date – so it could be pulled at any time.
The rules for this fare are slightly different to those for the Bangkok fare above.
Headline Fare Info
- Travel dates: August 2016 – June 2017
- Reservations must be made a minimum of 7 days before departure
- The minimum stay rules mean that you can spend as little as 1 night in Bangkok if that’s what you’d like to do.
- The fare allows unlimited free stopovers (in Helsinki).
- No blackout dates
Fare Availability
The fare is available for travel starting from 7 days from today (so August departures are very much a possibility should you want a last-minute getaway) all the way through to the end of the current published schedule in June 2017…and it may even continue into July when those dates open up.
The fare is widely available for most months as evidenced by the example screenshots from ITA Matrix below:
September
November
Availability isn’t quite as good in November as in a few of the other months but it’s still not bad.
December
A big bonus of this fare is that it doesn’t have any blackout dates or any other kind of restrictions around Christmas and New Year (of the western kind) which means you can use the fare for a break during the school vacations.
June
At the time of writing this fare is widely available through the end of the airline’s schedules so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see the excellent availability you can see in June extended into July.
Routing & Aircraft
While this route doesn’t have the benefit of extra-short connecting flights too and from Helsinki, it still has quite a bit going for it:
- The Helsinki – Shanghai route is another on which you can try out the Finnair Airbus A350
- There are no overly long and tedious layovers to worry about
One disadvantage of this fare is the 10:15am flight from Barcelona to Helsinki – that doesn’t allow much scope for those wanting to connect from another European country on the day of departure.
Rewards Earnings
This fare may be more expensive than the Bangkok fare but it also involves traveling a greater distance…and that means a few more miles in your chosen rewards program.
For BAEC members looking to earn status the Bangkok fare is the clear winner as it’s considerably cheaper and still earns the same number of tier points (360).
For AAdvantage members this fare will earn almost a third of the necessary EQD for Executive Platinum status (not bad for one trip) and, if you happen to already have that status, you’ll earn over 34,000 Redeemable AAdvantage Miles.
Bottom Line
I quite like both of these fares but the Bangkok route is my favourite simply because it’s so cheap.
Interestingly, if you work out the math on a “cost per redeemable mile earned” basis (or a cost per elite qualifying mile earned basis) the Shanghai fare is marginally better value than the Bangkok fare despite being considerably more expensive.
For BAEC members the clear winner is the Bangkok fare thanks to how BA structures the tier point earnings but the Shanghai fare isn’t bad if you’re looking for a trip over the Christmas/New Year vacations.
