Tips for late May/early Jun QF redemption Oz-Europe

[drcam]

Dear all,

I currently have a booked redemption on Finnair for PVG-HEL-LHR on 5 June next year (in time to go to the Lounge Crawl next year). I have 82k QF points left, the only redemption I can meaningfully use to get to PVG is on CI from BNE-TPE-PVG for 75k points in J - on May 30.

Currently there are redemptions available for EK first class from HKG-DXB-AMS on May 28/29 and it would be easy to get from AMS to LHR. Should I cancel my Finnair redemption and do this instead (I would have sufficient points in total)? Taxes and charges are less than ex Australia, does this experience (and the Dubai F lounge) trump all others? (I have flown in SQ old suites before)? Is it even worth me having to do the positioning flight to HKG in whY (or at best PE)?

Many thanks

 

[Matt_01]

Just my 2 cents worth as I have just gone through the same process for HND-DXB-LHR (I should also be at the the Lounge Crawl). I would suggest that you do a couple of dummy bookings and see if you can get to the payment page. I could see a lot of availability out of HND, NRT, HKG however when I was doing dummy bookings the QF system would error. I called QF and asked what they could see and received answers of 'yes it is available' for some some flights and on others they could not see the flights, the one commonality was that I never got the same answer more than once. I already have bookings to LHR and also sufficient points to also book on EK prior to cancelling my existing flights. It may be better to change your existing booking (you will have to call QF) and if the EK flights are not available at least you will still have your current flights. If you plan on going down this path and you are happy to fly to EU then to LHR I would be looking for the routes that EK tend to use the 'game changer on'. There is a chance they may swap to the standard 777 but it is worth a shot.