Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia

Welcome to my next trip report! This year’s big international trip was to Scandinavia, which was the choice of one of my two main traveling companions. We spent about a week in Copenhagen, Denmark and in southern & central Sweden before going to Stockholm where we were joined by our German friend. We spent a few days there before winding up our trip in Oslo, Norway.

We were gone for two weeks and covered a lot of ground so I have lots to share! It was also a lesson in trip planning and how to adjust on the fly.

Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia
Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW
Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL
Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH
Lodging Review: Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn
Our Time in Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Best Western Hotel Hebron, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Next House, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Story Hotel Studio Malmö
Our Time in Malmö and Ystad, Sweden
Lodging Review: IKEA Hotell, Älmhult, Sweden
Our Time in Älmhult, Sweden and High-Speed Train to Stockholm
Lodging Review: Motel L Älvsjö, Stockholm
Our Time in Stockholm
Flight Review: SAS A320neo Economy Class, ARN-OSL
Lodging Review: Comfort Hotel Grand Central, Oslo
Our Time in Oslo
Lounge Review: SAS Lounge, Oslo airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A320-200 Business Class, OSL-FRA
Flight Review: Lufthansa 787-9 Business Class, FRA-MSP
Flight Review: Delta B737-800 First Class, MSP-MEM

On this trip I only got to try one new-to-me airline but stayed at several new-to-me hotel brands. I had two positioning flights in US domestic first class, two two-segment international flights in business class and one short international segment in economy.

I’ll review Finnair’s A350-900 long-haul business class as well as their Embraer 190 short-haul business class along with Lufthansa’s A320-200 short-haul business class and long-haul B787-9 business class. I’ll also review a short SAS A320neo economy flight.

As far as hotels, we were all over the place on this one. We ended up using points for some hotels and paying cash for others due to various factors.

I had intended to review five lounges on this trip but that did not work out as expected and I’ll have just one lounge review.

Why Scandinavia?

I have a couple of friends I often travel with and we have a deal that whoever has a birthday ending with a “0” or a “5” gets to pick the destination for that year’s big trip. This year’s birthday girl picked Scandinavia as the destination. Our next task was to narrow down the things we could reasonably see in a two-week period. We realized that we wouldn’t be able to see all of the region so unfortunately we’ll have to save Finland for another trip. As we plotted things out we realized that Copenhagen and Oslo would be our starting and ending points, we just had to figure out which direction to travel. And that was based on finding award space.

Air Transportation

As it turned out, my friends – who were flying in economy – found great award space on Sunday, August 25 from Los Angeles and Chicago to Copenhagen, but I couldn’t find a good business class price on that day. However, I did find a good price on an airline I hadn’t flown on the day before. Since that was a Saturday and wouldn’t cause me to take an extra vacation day, I decided to go a day early and review a different hotel.

As is usual for me, it’s tough to get saver-priced award space from Memphis to a hub so I have to book positioning flights. In this case I first booked my flight from DFW to Copenhagen via Helsinki on Finnair, an airline I’ve never flown, using 70K Alaska Air miles + $25.20. I later used 15.5K American Airlines miles + $5.60 to get to DFW (thanks, Dad!).

My outbound flights were:
24 AUG AA 2559 Memphis to Dallas-Fort Worth departing at 11:05 AM and arriving at 12:44 PM
24 AUG AY 20 Dallas-Fort Worth to Helsinki departing at 4:50 PM and arriving at 10:45 AM the next day
25 AUG AY 953 Helsinki to Copenhagen departing at 11:55 AM and arriving at 12:35 PM

Finnair A350 (credit: finnair.com)

While we took the train to get from Copenhagen to Malmö to Älmhult to Stockholm, it would have been a 5+ hour train ride from Stockholm to Oslo, and we decided a 1-hour flight on a SAS A320neo was a better use of our time. It was only $77.70 anyway.

04 SEP SK 483 Stockholm to Oslo departing 9:25 AM and arriving at 10:25 AM

On the return flight I was hoping to try a different airline but the first thing that was available at a decent price was Lufthansa to Minneapolis-St. Paul via Frankfurt. While I initially wasn’t excited about flying Lufthansa again vs. an airline I’d never flown, I realized that I’ve not flown their 787s nor have I experienced any of their business class products that are not 2x2x2, so this would at least be a new business class product for me.

But Lufthansa only got me as far as Minneapolis-St. Paul, so I still had to get back to Memphis. I found award space on a Delta Boeing 737-8. While I initially booked this flight as premium economy – because that’s all the Delta miles I had in my account – I later remembered I could have transferred Membership Rewards points to my Delta account to boost my total. I was checking to see if I could cancel my existing ticket and then I’d re-book it as a domestic first class award when I saw an upgrade offer in my account that meant I’d need to transfer fewer miles than I originally expected. So I spent the $9 require to transfer 15K Amex Membership Rewards account to my Delta account and upgraded.

My return flights were:

08 SEP LH 865 Oslo to Frankfurt departing 6:35 AM and arriving at 8:40 AM
08 SEP LH 482 Frankfurt to Minneapolis-St. Paul departing at 11:10 AM and arriving at 1:15 PM
08 SEP DL 2713 Minneapolis-St. Paul to Memphis departing at 3:30 PM and arriving at 5:24 PM

Lufthansa 787 (credit: lufthansa.com)

My entire flight path was:

My flights: MEM-DFW-HEL-CPH outbound, ARN-OSL mid-trip, OSL-FRA-MSP-MEM return (made with gcmap.com)

The only lounge review I’ll have is the SAS Lounge in the Oslo airport, used by Lufthansa business class passengers as the Lufthansa lounge near the Z Gates in the Frankfurt airport and the Escape lounge in the MSP airport were both quite busy and I couldn’t get good photos.

I had expected to review a couple of lounges on my outbound journey but things did not go to plan….

I won’t be reviewing my friends’ flights, but they flew from their respective home cities of Los Angeles and Chicago and met in Philadelphia, where they caught the same flight to Copenhagen, all on American Airlines. They each paid 30K American Airlines miles + $5.60. 30K points is worth about $450 and their flights would have cost $630 from LA or $529 from Chicago, so that worked out well for them.

On the return, my LA-based friend found a great deal on Air France: Oslo to Paris to Los Angeles for just 20K Flying Blue miles that she transferred in from Chase Ultimate Rewards.  There were also taxes and fees of $171.38.  If we value those points at about $260 (or 1.3 cents apiece) plus the cash, her ticket cost about $431.  That same ticket that would have cost $1142 in cash at the time we booked!

My Chicago-based friend paid 30K Alaska Airlines miles (a $450 value) + $78.60 in taxes and fees for a Finnair flight that flew from Oslo to Helsinki to Chicago, a ticket that would have cost over $2900 in economy when we booked. But a few months after we booked she was notified that her reservation had been transferred to British Airways and she’d be connecting in London instead. We always try to avoid flying through Heathrow not only due to the layout but also due to the ridiculous “fuel surcharges” that British Airways imposes. But since her ticket was originally booked on Finnair via Helsinki, she fortunately did not have to shell out any additional cash. The good part was that her new routing got her home much earlier in the day.

My friends flights: outbound LAX/ORD-PHL-CPH, mid-trip ARN-OSL, return: OSL-CDG-LAX and OSL-LHR-ORD

When all was said and done my LA-based friend flew the farthest, about 13,100 miles, while I was second at 12,200 miles and my Chicago-based friend flew only 9,500 miles. Of course our German-based friend only had to fly into Stockholm and out of Oslo and didn’t even have to change time zones!

Ground Transportation

We used a combination of trains between our various bases (Copenhagen, Malmö, Älmhult, Stockholm), a day trip to Ystad, Sweden and metro systems within cities. I’ll include comments about these in the “Our Time In … ” posts. We also took a bus from our Oslo hotel to the airport that I will cover.

Hotels

I always try to use hotel points whenever possible as it just makes the trip cheaper. But on this trip we had trouble finding hotels that I could use points that had a room for three people or places that I had enough points to cover all the nights. So in the end we used a mixture of points and cash. On our cash stays, while we could have saved some money pre-paying for the rooms, we decided to pay upon arrival so that we could just split the bill while there (and each earn points that way!) and wouldn’t have to worry about reimbursing each other later.

Since I arrived a day before my friends I took advantage of the annual free night certificate I get from holding the Chase Marriott Premier card. I was able to book the Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn. I had previously spent a few days in Copenhagen on a work trip, so it was nice to reacquaint myself with the city before my friends arrived.

Fairfield by Marriott Nordhavn

The next day my friends arrived midday and we checked into the Best Western Hotel Hebron. Our primary motivation for choosing this hotel was that all three of us could share a room while each having our own bed and it was reasonably priced. We paid cash for this hotel and were able to split the payment when we checked in.

Best Western Hotel Hebron (credit: Agoda.com)

We thought we had everything aligned but sometimes you can stare at something so long you don’t really see what’s going on! That happened with our hotels and we ended up one night short in Copenhagen but we had a pretty unique experience at Next House, a hostel!

Next House Copenhagen

Our next stop was Malmö, Sweden where we were able to check out the Story Hotel Studio Malmö, a Hyatt property. My friend the birthday girl likes funky hotels and this sure fit the bill. As a bonus it was only 5K Hyatt points per night and I had a free-night certificate as well from my Chase World of Hyatt credit card. We had to get two rooms so it was a total of 15K points + one free-night certificate for our two-night stay.

Story Hotel Studio Malmo, Sweden

Maybe it’s not a funky hotel but the birthday girl really wanted to spend the night at the IKEA Hotell (yes, with two Ls in its name) in Älmhult, so that was our next stop for just one night. She pre-paid cash for that. We also learned that the hotel doesn’t accept reservations more than six months in advance! But we were able to book the family room – with two sets of bunk beds – very shortly after the booking window opened.

Ikea Hotel, Älmhult, Sweden

At one point I had a great many Radisson Rewards points thanks to a Radisson credit card. Then Radisson split into two awards programs: one for the Americas and one for the rest of the world. The program for the Americas got taken over by Choice so now I have quite a few Choice points. There were lots of Choice hotels in both Stockholm and Oslo. However, our German friend had now joined us so we needed two rooms for the remaining nights. We looked at various combinations of combining points and cash but in the end we decided it was cleaner if we could pay cash at one destination and points at the other. We found Motel L Älvsjö in Stockholm for a reasonable price so we paid cash upon check-in (so we could all pay separately) and used Choice points for the Comfort Hotel Grand Central in Oslo.

Comfort Hotel Grand Central, Oslo, Norway

Credit Cards

One note about credit cards.  All three countries we visited were basically cash-free.  I never exchanged a single dollar in currency.  Even the pay toilets accepted credit cards.  American Express was not widely accepted.  I was able to use it at the first restaurant I visited and after not being able to use it at 2-3 more restaurants, I gave up and always used my Chase Sapphire Reserve Visa instead.

In the end

We had a fantastic time and I got to experience several new hotels as well as several new cities and a couple of new countries. I’m excited to share our trip!