OneWorld

Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH

Posted on November 23, 2024 by 2btravel

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

Why I Booked This Flight

This was a continuation of my quest to reach Copenhagen to kick off our annual international trip. To reach Helsinki I’d booked an American Airlines flight from Memphis to Dallas-Fort Worth and, on a separate ticket, two segments on Finnair: DFW to Helsinki and this flight, Helsinki to Copenhagen.

How I Booked This Flight

I booked this flight and the connection from DFW as a single ticket, using 70,000 Alaska Air Mileage Plan miles plus $25.20, which included Alaska’s $12.50 booking fee. If I’d paid cash at the time of booking the two legs of this flight would have cost me $1908. If I value Alaska miles at 1.5 cents each then this 2-segment flight cost me $1050, so I came out ahead using miles.

Finnair E190 (photo credit: Aviation Source News)

AY 953 (HEL-CPH)
Embraer 190
Seat 1F (Business Class)
Depart: 11:55 AM EEST (actual 12:03 PM)
Arrive: 12:35 PM CEST (actual 12:44 PM) Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL

Posted on November 22, 2024 by 2btravel

Why I Booked This Flight

Our big international trip was to Scandinavia and you can’t get much more Scandinavian as an airline than Finnair or SAS. But I’d flown SAS before so I wanted to try an airline I’d never flown. I found award space on a Saturday out of DFW to Helsinki (the Finnair hub) and onward to Copenhagen. It was too bad I couldn’t find it on the same days my friends were flying (Sunday) but if I’d taken this flight on the next day they’d have had to wait around at the airport for a couple of hours for me to arrive. (And as it turns out, the flight doesn’t even operate on Sundays!) I didn’t mind going a day ahead and it also let me review another hotel. Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW

Posted on November 21, 2024 by 2btravel

I typically don’t review domestic flights but thought I’d give it a shot this time. This is a short flight, blocked at 1 hour, 39 minutes so I didn’t expect much above a beverage service and maybe a snack. It unexpectedly became a lesson in trip planning!

AA 2559 MEM-DFW, Aircraft N885NN

Why I Booked This Flight

I’d found business class award space from Dallas-Fort Worth to Copenhagen on Finnair so I had to get from Memphis to DFW. At the time I booked my long-haul flight there was no saver-level award space between Memphis and DFW. When I’m booking separate tickets I always like to ensure there’s a way to get to my international gateway should something go wrong with my positioning flight. That often means I arrive at the gateway more than four hours before my international flight and sometimes airlines will not allow a connection of more than four hours. And then there’s the restriction Alaska Airlines has: when flying on a ticket purchased with their frequent flyer miles, if two airlines are involved, one of those airlines must be Alaska Airlines. That’s tough for me because Alaska does not even fly to Memphis but I found a good price from DFW to Copenhagen using Alaska’s miles. Continue reading →

Categories: American Airlines, Award Travel, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: American AIrlines, Award Travel, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago

Posted on January 6, 2024 by 2btravel

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago

Booking the Flights

While I have preferred airlines and like to try ones I’ve never flown before, often I find that the best airline to fly is the one with award space for what I consider to be a reasonable price. To that end I booked an early morning flight from Venice to Chicago via Madrid on Iberia for just 49K British Airways Avios + $181.65 in taxes and fees. It’s possible I could have transferred the Avios from BA to Iberia and saved a little on the taxes and fees but I was lazy and didn’t even consider it.

Ordinarily it would have made sense to try to connect with an American Airlines flight to get me from Chicago to Memphis but often there’s no award space on that leg except for the first flight of the day. As United is generally my airline of choice I decided just to purchase a cash ticket for the final leg and I won’t be reviewing that here.

Iberia 3249 VCE-MAD A330-300
October 28, 2023
Boarded at 0540 for a flight at 0625
Registration: EC-NTO
Seat: 3A (Business Class)

Venice to Madrid

My return trip started very early in the morning with a 2 AM wake-up call as Viking wanted to deliver us to the airport by 4:30 AM for my 6:30 AM flight from Venice to Madrid and we were docked in Chioggia, which was about an hour by motorcoach from the airport. I was a little confused when we arrived at the airport as our luggage was unloaded from the bus but was then loaded on to a smaller van. From what I could piece together, the large buses are not allowed up close to the terminal. To make it easier for us, Viking arranged to have our luggage put in some vans and brought right up to the curb across from the terminal, where we picked it up after a 3-4 minute walk. I’m not sure it was entirely necessary but given the average age of Viking cruisers it was probably a good idea.

The day started very early…

Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Flight Review, Iberia, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Flight Review, Iberia, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

2023: The Year in Travel

Posted on December 31, 2023 by 2btravel

Another year has passed and I’m just thankful I got through this one without injury. I cracked my tibial plateau while on my European trip in 2022 which meant I didn’t get to ski but for a few hours this year but I still went on the trips I had planned and had a very good time anyway.

The Year in Travel – 2023

January

My first trip of the year was a visit to Winter Park, Colorado, a place I hadn’t visited in nearly 30 years. I was so looking forward to it because I really couldn’t remember much about it and had only been skiing a year when I visited last time. Sadly I spent an hour each day rehabbing my knee instead of skiing though I did get to go tubing one day.

I enjoyed a quick non-stop flight from Memphis to Denver on United and we took a bus right to the lodge. We stayed slopeside at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge where the location of your room can make a big difference.

Zephyr Mountain Lodge Slopeside Building
photo from Planet of Hotels.com

Continue reading →

Categories: American Airlines, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Condos, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, North America, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, Tours, UNESCO World Heritage Site, United, United States, Viking, Winter Park, Year in Review | Tags: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Croatia, Greece, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking, Viking Neptune, Winter Park, Year In Review | Leave a comment

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Posted on December 18, 2023 by 2btravel

When we returned home from our October 2022 European trip that included a Viking River Cruise on the Seine, I received the standard follow-up phone call from our sales rep to ask how the trip had gone. Of course the other part of his job was to try to get us to sign up for another cruise. My travel companion and I discussed it and tried to get some other friends to come along on a 2023 cruise but it just wasn’t working out. So instead of taking another river cruise, we thought we’d try one of Viking’s ocean-going vessels for a Mediterranean cruise. By completing our payment before the end of 2022 we were eligible for $200 of shipboard credit that could be applied to anything from spa treatments to shore excursions. That sounded like a good deal to us so we booked a tour on the Viking Neptune, which was only put into service in November 2022. While we had done a western Mediterranean cruise in 2008, only two ports of call overlapped with the Neptune’s itinerary.

Even though the cruise began in Athens, it did not include any time in the city itself unless you paid for the $599 pre-trip extension. I had spent time in Athens in 2007 on a Greek islands cruise but my friend had never been there and we knew we could do it more cheaply thanks to hotel points. So we left the US on a Tuesday, arriving in Athens on Wednesday and had two full days in the city before boarding the cruise ship on Saturday.

Booking the flights

As usual, we booked our own airfare using our airline miles. While we typically leave from Chicago, where my traveling companion lives, in November 2022 we found connecting airfare on United through Newark directly to Athens for just 33K miles in economy. While my friend had a number of ORD-EWR flights to choose from, the only MEM-EWR flight available at this price left Memphis at 6 AM and then had an 8+ hour layover in Newark. You can imagine I was not excited about that! It also broke the promise I’d made to myself not to cross oceans in economy. My friend was ok with it as she’s retired and trying to conserve her miles. We went ahead and booked the flights because they were so cheap and I could not find any business class flights on our travel day for what I considered a reasonable price.

Fast forward to July 2023 and I found flights on Lufthansa out of Charlotte for 70K Aeroplan miles. I transferred 70K American Express Membership Rewards points to Aeroplan and paid taxes and fees of $74.66 USD/$98.30 CAD.

Now my problem was getting to Charlotte. There is no non-stop United flight (a Star Alliance partner of Air Canada and Lufthansa) between Memphis and Charlotte so trying to get to Charlotte on the same ticket would have meant changing planes – assuming I could even find domestic award space. But there is an American Airlines non-stop and while I often cannot find saver award space between Memphis and DFW or Chicago, I had multiple saver-level options to Charlotte. But rather than using 25K American AAdvantage miles I opted to use just 15K British Airways Avios + $5.60 to get me to Charlotte in domestic first class. I also made sure that there was another MEM-CLT flight after mine, just in case of delays, and I’d still have time to get my bag checked in for my Lufthansa flight.

So our outbound flights were as follows:

10/17 1151 ORD – 1510 EWR on UA 2471 in economy
10/17 1750 EWR – 1010+1 ATH on UA 124 in economy for 30K United miles + $5.60 (a bargain!)
These flights are shown in red on the map.

10/17 0925 MEM – 1209 CLT on AA 1790 in domestic first class using 15K Avios + $5.60
10/17 1830 CLT – 0915+1 MUC on LH 429 in business class
10/18 1110 MUC – 1435 ATH on LH 1752 in intra-Europe business class for 70K Aeroplan miles + $74.66
These flights are shown in green on the map.

As you can see, my friend was due to get to Athens 4+ hours ahead of me. Before changing my booking I double-checked with her that she didn’t mind hanging out at the airport and she said she didn’t so I went ahead and changed my flights.

Our flights included travel on United Airlines, American Airlines, Lufthansa and Iberia Airlines

Continue reading →

Categories: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Star Alliance, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: Ancient Olympia, Athens, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Corfu, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Greece, Italy, Katakalo, Kotor, Marriott, Montenegro, Murano, Ocean Cruise, Olympia, Trip Report, Venice, Viking, Zadar | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Qantas B787-9 Brisbane – Los Angeles

Posted on February 7, 2020 by 2btravel

Trip Report: Two Weeks Down Under
Flight Review: Qantas B747-400 San Francisco – Sydney
Lounge Review: Qantas Business Class Lounge, Sydney
Flight Review: Qantas A330-300 Sydney – Auckland
Lodging Review: Holiday Inn Auckland Airport
Lodging Review: The Pavilions Hotel, Christchurch
Our Time in Christchurch
Lodging Review: Hilton Queenstown Resort & Spa
Our Time in Queenstown including Doubtful Sound Tour
Lodging Review: Avani Metropolis, Auckland
Our Time in Auckland
Lodging Review: Oceans Mooloolaba
Our Time on the Sunshine Coast
Lodging Review: Brisbane Marriott
Flight Review: Qantas B787-9 Brisbane – Los Angeles

It was time for our flight back to the US. As I mentioned in the intro to this trip report, this was the leg I booked first, simply because we found 3 business class tickets on the same flight. And I got to give the birthday girl the present of a business class flight when she usually chooses to fly economy.

Our bird for this flight

Qantas 15 BNE-LAX
Boeing 787-9
Seat: 7A (Business Class, Window)
Scheduled Departure: 1010 (Actual: 1019)
Scheduled Arrival: 0545 (Actual: 0535)
Scheduled Duration: 12h 50m

Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Flight Review, OneWorld, Qantas | Tags: Flight Review, OneWorld, Qantas | Leave a comment

Lounge Review: Qantas Business Class Lounge, Sydney

Posted on January 16, 2020 by 2btravel

We arrived into Sydney about 0620 and followed the signs for transit security. It seemed a little strange that we had to go through that again when we’d never left a sterile area. I thought perhaps I could bring the water bottle given to us on the plane but, nope, that had to go into the recycle bin. The vast majority of passengers on our flight were not transiting and the line was quite short so it didn’t take long at all to clear it. That completed we took the escalator up to the main floor of the airport.

From there we took a second escalator up to the next level where we passed by the Qantas First Class lounge and entered the Qantas Business Class Lounge.

We were greeted warmly and efficiently. At that early hour the lounge was quite empty which was nice after being on a plane with a lot of people for 14 hours! We were also fortunate that it was a sunny day and we had nice views outside. We could have taken an earlier flight to Auckland but our friend who was joining us from LA wouldn’t have been able to catch that flight, so we ended up with a 5+ hour layover in total. Our friend was arriving about two hours after us, so we probably spent about 2.5 hours in the lounge since she didn’t have access.

The lounge is quite large and stretches in both directions from the entrance. There’s loads of seating in many different forms. It was a bit surprising that not all seats had electrical outlets. I assume next time there’s a refresh that will be rectified.

Qantas Business Class Lounge Seating

Continue reading →

Categories: Airline Clubs, Australia, Oceania, OneWorld, Qantas | Tags: Airline Clubs, Australia, Lounge Review, Qantas, Sydney | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Qantas A300-300 Sydney – Auckland

Posted on January 14, 2020 by 2btravel

We finally arrived in Auckland on Qantas flight from Sydney. Normally I wouldn’t review a 3-hour trip but our A330-300 was in an international configuration with lie-flat seats so I thought I’d include a brief overview.

Qantas 145 SYD-AKL
Airbus A330-300
Seat: 4E (Business Class, Aisle, Center Section)
Scheduled Departure: 1135 (Actual: 1150)
Scheduled Arrival: 1640 (Actual: 1647)
Flight time: 3h 7m (Actual: 2h 57m)

We boarded through door 2L. We’d originally had two seats in the center section, but as on the previous leg, when my friend changed the first leg of her journey from an American flight to one with Alaska Airlines, her seat assignment was lost. Fortunately she was just across the aisle.

We were offered our choice of pre-departure beverage: champagne, still water or sparkling water. As I didn’t select it, I’m not sure if the champagne was the Duval-Leroy Brut or the Jacquart Brut Mosaique.

The cabin felt so fresh compared to the one we’d just flown on the 747, but that’s to be expected. I imagine the daylight helped the cabin to feel much airier as well.

QF145 A330-300 Business Class Cabin

Continue reading →

Categories: Flight Review, OneWorld, Qantas | Tags: Flight Review, OneWorld, Qantas | 1 Comment

Flight Review: Qantas B747-400 San Francisco – Sydney

Posted on January 12, 2020 by 2btravel

For the first leg of this adventure I exchanged 80,000 American AAdvantage miles and $28.20 in taxes for 10,676 miles of flying. If you value those 80K AA miles at 1.4 cents each, that’s just under $1150 in value when you add in the taxes. Compare that to the $4800+ that American wants for similar flights next October and I think that’s a pretty good deal!

As I mentioned in the first post of this series, we’d found our return flights first and about two weeks later we found two business class seats on Qantas from San Francisco to Auckland via Sydney. From Memphis the only flights American made available in business class were on the regional jet via Phoenix. My friend flying from Chicago could not even get a business class (domestic First) ticket on a non-stop to San Francisco so she paid for an extra legroom seat.

Initially AA had me leaving Memphis around 2:30 PM and arriving around 6:30 PM before the Qantas flight left around 9:30 PM. In September, SFO airport was re-paving runways which meant closures and delays. Though I knew they were supposed to be done well before my trip, it made me nervous. Couple that with how often fog causes delays into SFO and I decided to take advantage of American’s generous change policy on award tickets: as long as the origin and destination remain the same, you can change the routing or the dates. So I left home about 7:30 AM and made it to Phoenix on time, a little after 8:30 AM. And there the delay kicked in. SFO ATC would not let us take off due to fog in the area so we were 49 minutes late leaving Phoenix and we arrived 39 minutes late. While a delay of that length would not have made a difference should I have kept my original flight times, I felt my decision to go earlier was validated because there might have been a lengthier delay later in the evening.

Another factor in making the switch was that my friend flying from Chicago could change to a domestic First class seat on the Alaska Air non-stop. It cost $100 to make the change to the award ticket since Alaska is not part of oneworld but they refunded her extra legroom seat and it was definitely worth it to her for the four hour flight as she’s tall and is much more comfortable in the larger seats, just like I am.

The early arrival meant we had a lot of time to kill at SFO and we even kicked around the idea of going out to a movie but ultimately decided just to wander a bit, have a decent early dinner and get to the lounge as soon as was reasonable. This was our first time connecting to an international flight at SFO and we were disappointed to learn we’d have to re-clear security. At least the line was far less crowded than it was two years earlier when I was departing on my China trip. Since we didn’t have to wait for the Qantas counter to open so we could check our bag, we weren’t in the security line with dozens of others at the same time.

Qantas flyers can use both the Air France/KLM lounge and the Cathay Pacific lounge. We spent a little time in each and, perhaps due to the times their flights depart, the Cathay lounge was a lot less crowded.

Qantas B747-400
(image courtesy qantas.com)

Continue reading →

Categories: Flight Review, OneWorld, Qantas | Tags: Flight Review, OneWorld, Qantas | Leave a comment

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OneWorld

Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH

Why I Booked This Flight

How I Booked This Flight

Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL

Why I Booked This Flight

Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW

Why I Booked This Flight

Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago

Booking the Flights

Venice to Madrid

2023: The Year in Travel

January

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Booking the flights

Flight Review: Qantas B787-9 Brisbane – Los Angeles

Lounge Review: Qantas Business Class Lounge, Sydney

Flight Review: Qantas A300-300 Sydney – Auckland

Flight Review: Qantas B747-400 San Francisco – Sydney

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