Advice to help me get to Germany in J

[Clive005]

Hi everyone I'm after any general advice/tips, to get myself my wife and our 12 year old son to Germany in around July - September 2019. Flying in J for a 6 week dream holiday. We are based in Adelaide

I have 500,000 velocity points atm looks like I will need 300,000 more and probably will transfer over to Kriss Flyers and fly with SQ. any tips on getting more points apriciated
My wife and I have the Virgin high flyer cc as well as the Velocity Amex cc

The availability in J with SQ seems ok the return seems more difficult. Should I also consider the possibility of Qantas as a option?

We really want to spend time in Hamburg, Berlin, get over to Switzerland and Amsterdam and still researching other places,

Most of the availability with SQ seems to be too and from Frankfurt is this correct?
Or is there a better option

Any advice on the best time to go
Route and places to see
Would be a big help to us,

Thanks in advance
Clive

 

[cove]

Where are you based?
Have you seen the St George Amplify CC offer thread which is $139 for a net 45,000 Kris Miles?
Getting to Singapore and then Frankfurt on SQ should be ok.

 

[Clive005]

Where are you based?
Have you seen the St George Amplify CC offer thread which is $139 for a net 45,000 Kris Miles?
Getting to Singapore and then Frankfurt on SQ should be ok.

I'm based in Adelaide and that does look good, for only $139 thanks Cove

 

[cove]

Usually you can get 2 Saver redemptions so be prepared to split into a two and a single maybe 12 or so hours apart.
We did get 4 redemptions on one flight recently but 2 were using standard miles.

 

[JessicaTam]

I have found that availability into CDG is better than FRA. It would also be worth checking AMS.

 

[Deleted member]

Advise or advice?

 

[cove]

Yes my brother goes fairly often to CDG for two on Saver Miles and it is pretty open in business whereas I go to LHR and LAX up front.

 

[RooFlyer]

Germany - I have only general tourist knowledge, but would suggest you look at:

Berlin - of course
Mainz and the Rhine NW up to Koblenz for historic castles etc
Black Forest

Have a look here for Trip Reports by AFFers on Germany. Destination Trip Reports

 

[bertflyer]

Given that you are considering Hamburg and have a 12 year old son you absolutely have to visit the largest model railway in the world: model building - model railway Hamburg | Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
It is truly amazing and well worth it for adults too!
They also have an amazing airport with ‘flying’ planes etc.
Hamburg is also a very nice city to spend some time in.

 

[marki]

Business on Qantas is matter of economy ticket and then use points to upgrade to J on a full fare it will be 110K oneway.

 

[Berlin]

On a very general note, I wouldn’t worry too much about which airport you land into and fly out of. Compared to Australia, Germany (or more even, the entire Central-West part of Europe) is rather small and both train and road availability is excellent. I do this all the time and very often it can be well worth flying into ports like Frankfurt, Düsseldorf or Munich and then just travel onto your actual destination. Trains are fast, easy to book and exceptionally cheap if you book well in advance though I personally prefer renting a car and taking it for a 300km/h spin on the Autobahn- whatever floats your boat. I’ve noticed that TAs (and online booking systems) usually slavishly search for whatever destination you are searching for which in case of, say, Berlin might get you rather adventurous and/or expensive routings while you could as well fly much easier and cheaper into Frankfurt and then take 4 hour train ride.

 

[SuzieQ68]

Also have a look at Munich. We flew from ADL-SIN-MUC last year in J (2 x Saver Award on SQ). We booked prior to SQ removing the 15% online redemption discount, so next time will need a few more points, but well worth it!

Maybe you can also look at mixing it up a bit with the award bookings. Maybe ADL-SIN return on QF (or partner airline) and SQ for the SIN-Europe return leg. May just have to overnight in Singapore?

 

[daft009]

Given that you are considering Hamburg and have a 12 year old son you absolutely have to visit the largest model railway in the world: model building - model railway Hamburg | Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg
It is truly amazing and well worth it for adults too!
They also have an amazing airport with ‘flying’ planes etc.
Hamburg is also a very nice city to spend some time in.

Yes this place with your son is a must! I did a quick day trip from Berlin to Hamburg on the train and not sure where 6 hours in that amazing venue went!

Also the VW factory in Wolfsburg is worth a look if you have the time

 

[marki]

Business on Qantas is matter of economy ticket and then use points to upgrade to J on a full fare it will be 110K oneway.

Actually 66k much less

 

[casanovawa]

Other option is just to fly economy on some of the shorter legs and fly SQ in business on some of the longer legs...

 

[Clive005]

Ok getting close to the time to book, so far thinking flying SQ from Adelaide to Frankfurt leaving around 12th Sept 2019 and SQ Paris to Adelaide six weeks latter (may return Via Perth to save on points required and fly back on a paid flight to Adelaide?)
3 of us in J
looking at catching trains and staying in the following so far
Frankfurt ( several days)
Berlin ( week or so)
Hamburg (10 days or so make it a bit of a base)
Amsterdam ( 4-7 days)
Switzerland (several Days)
Paris (several days)

also like the idea of Norway, but we don't want to be too rushed

any suggestions greatly appreciated on were to go stay and do
and if I should book with Virgin or SQ, points are going to be tight need a few more yet

Starting to get exited about the whole thin

Clive

 

[daft009]

Not much in Frankfurt apart from flying in, unless you have work there?
Perhaps consider Heidelberg to stay?
A nice castle there, also the tech museums at sinsheim are close by.

Stuttgart has the awesome Merc museum and the so so Porsche museum.

Anyway that's what I did, take from it what you may

 

[jase05]

Not much to see in Frankfurt, I tend to give it a miss. I much prefer to fly into FRA, pick up a rental car and head into the Rhine region. Boppard is our choice of location but there are plenty of small towns along the river that are excellent aswell. I know it’s more expensive but I’d always choose an extra day or so in Switzerland if possible

 

[cove]

One in my family booked Qatar on Qantas points to Madrid and then used SQ Kris Miles to get home from London.
This past week I booked flights into London and back on SQ Miles as it was for a flight to Europe during school holidays so bugger all availability elsewhere.
The cost into London is a bit higher but there seems to be plenty of availability.
Flights out of Heathrow to cities in Europe are fairly inexpensive.

 

[Clive005]

Yes havent dismissed flying into Heathrow, just thinking of Frankfurt because of availability, if not a lot there will only spend a couple of days,
Any recommendations on accomodations in Switzerland, on a bit of a budget so nothing over the top.
Heidelberg sounds like a great suggestion