Hullut Päivät

[Iseult]

AFAIK nothing. Blue1 serve the same sort of cold breakfast to the UK as we had on Finnair to Manchester last Friday.

We didn't get anything from Blue1 when we flew from London to Helsinki on Boxing Day, or on the way back. They did have food you could buy though, but since I was duly fed on the previous Blue1 flight, I wasn't prepared for that and missed out.

[aniorek]

No free food on Blue1 in my experience either (Helsinki-Warsaw), it's SAS afterall.

[sinikala]

That is strange.

The only airline I have ever had to buy food on is Ryanair.

[hanj]

Aer Lingus, you pay for food too

[simon]

Just had blue1 on a return from arlander. You only get food in the economy extra or business

[sinikala]

Bizzare, I must be using a different Blue1 to everyone else.

I must have flown with them 8-10 times, I've never used their higher price bracket tickets, always bog standard, but I could swear they have fed me every time. I must pay more attention to this next time.

Have to say though, irrespective of whether Blue1 feed you or not, it's hard to see how a free cheese roll and a cup of tea could be the clincher in deciding which airline to use.

[sinikettu]

Have to say though, irrespective of whether Blue1 feed you or not, it's hard to see how a free cheese roll and a cup of tea could be the clincher in deciding which airline to use.

Copy paste from my Finnair Electronic tickets seems to indicate more than a cup of tea.

Helsinki/London/Dept 14.05
Fare type :Economy Restricted
Aircraft :Airbus Industrie A320-100/200
Baggage :20 kilogram(s) per traveller
Meal :LUNCH

Rtn
London/Helsinki Dept 1610
Fare type :Economy Restricted
Aircraft :Airbus Industrie A320-100/200
Baggage :20 kilogram(s) per traveller
Meal DINNER

[sinikala]

Have to say though, irrespective of whether Blue1 feed you or not, it's hard to see how a free cheese roll and a cup of tea could be the clincher in deciding which airline to use.

Copy paste from my Finnair Electronic tickets seems to indicate more than a cup of tea.

Helsinki/London/Dept 14.05
Fare type :Economy Restricted
Aircraft :Airbus Industrie A320-100/200
Baggage :20 kilogram(s) per traveller
Meal :LUNCH

Rtn
London/Helsinki Dept 1610
Fare type :Economy Restricted
Aircraft :Airbus Industrie A320-100/200
Baggage :20 kilogram(s) per traveller
Meal DINNER

I flew Finnair to Manchester last friday, returned monday ... a tad under €300 return (booked 3 months in advance). Outbound I got a breakfast of cheese roll, a blueberry soup carton, a cup of tea and a small diet Coke.

Return flight was a cold couscous salad, a small tub of water, a cold bread roll, 2 fazer blue chocolates, a cup of tea and a small diet Coke.

Good job I stuffed my greedy face in the lounge in Manchester; what they fed us on the plane would have barely satisfied a starving budgie. There is nothing wrong with the quality, but I'd be surprised if that feast cost them much more than €5.

If we were talking business class 4 course dinner fair enough, but a tiny snack has zero impact on my choice of airline.

[bevanrl]

Lufthansa have pretty cheap flights to the UK. They not only give you free food but the ticket is changeable too (for about 50e).

This year i've bought Birmingham for 150e return (including taxes), Munich for 69e and Nice for about 150. They even had new years tickets to UK for 150euro. These are all booking class T.

If they don't have cheap flights all the way from Finland you can do end-end ticketing. Such as helsinki-munich return + munich-athens return for about 180 euro. The same flights bought as helsinki-athens return (via munich) costs 245e.

To save some money with lufthansa it's cheaper to book on the lufthansa uk site instead of the lufthansa finland site. Then there's no booking fee. They don't care if you have a finnish credit card but you should not login with your miles & more number+password. Otherwise it redirects you to the finland page and charges the booking fee.

Someone else said it's ok not to give your frequent flyer card until you check in - but if you do that and they're doing upgrades to business class then you'll be at the back of the queue since they might choose who to upgrade early.

Richard

[Rosamunda]

Lufthansa have pretty cheap flights to the UK. They not only give you free food but the ticket is changeable too (for about 50e).

This year i've bought Birmingham for 150e return (including taxes),

Is that HEL to Birmingham direct ? I didn't think Lufthansa had any direct flights to UK from HEL.
Last time I flew Lufthansa was on SAS airmiles I think and I had to change in Munich on the way out and Frankfurt on the way back. And, of course, my luggage didn't take the same route. Personally I find flying to the UK to be such a major headache that having to stopover anywhere would only make it worse...

But that is cheap....

[sinikala]

Lufthansa have pretty cheap flights to the UK. They not only give you free food but the ticket is changeable too (for about 50e).

This year i've bought Birmingham for 150e return (including taxes),

Is that HEL to Birmingham direct ? I didn't think Lufthansa had any direct flights to UK from HEL.

They don't it's via München or Frankfurt. It seems to be a reasonably short journey ... 5-6 hours, but I've never seen anything like €150. Was it a promotion?

I usually fly Hki Manchester, but have occasionally checked Hki-Brum prices to see if it's any cheaper (just means a bit longer on a train). At least when I've looked, the quotes have usually come out just as dear as flying with Finnair to Manchester and I noticed that SN Brussels usually gives lower quotes than LuftH.

Just did a search of LuftH's UK website, to fly when I'd next want to go to the UK (end of July) HEL-BHX-HEL would be £383 return = €479

Last time I flew Lufthansa was on SAS airmiles I think and I had to change in Munich on the way out and Frankfurt on the way back. And, of course, my luggage didn't take the same route. Personally I find flying to the UK to be such a major headache that having to stopover anywhere would only make it worse.

Pretty much why I stick to Finnair / Blue 1 / Ryanair when going to England. It would have to be a pretty cheap deal to tempt me to fly via the continent or I would have to be going to a specific UK regional airport, only time I've done that was to get direct to Bournemouth (happily Ryanair via Dublin was pretty cheap).

[bevanrl]

The cheap fares on LH are not a special offer, they're valid all of 2008 but they don't have many seats at those prices so you need to book early (esp for weekends). I didn't check all of july but they have
HEL-BHX 22.08, return 28.08,29.08,02.09,03.09 for 158euro.

you can find these prices through LH finland page and then top offers. BHX is in the pull down list for cheap european fares.
The results are shown as a price matrix. once you drill down and get the flights you can then go to LH UK pages and book it there.
The LH offers page is a bit strange right now - it says things like "paris from 251e" but when I checked helsinki-paris in september they had return for 154e. It did the same thing for HEL-NYC last year, offer price was about 360e but the search engine returned 260e - but only for a couple of days. Generally if the search engine goes wrong and you can confirm the booking then you get it at that price !

These fares are booking class T so you can check with seatcounter.com as well to find availability.

>>Last time I flew Lufthansa was on SAS airmiles I think and I had to change in Munich on the way out and Frankfurt on the way back. And, of course, my luggage didn't take the same route<<

i've done about 30 transfers in munich and frankfurt in the past year and my luggage never missed the connection. Tightest was 15mins in munich for helsinki-munich-hong kong. Not only did a mini-bus take me direct to the HK flight but my suitcase made it too.

LH have a new route to bristol too but I haven't checked fares there, BHX is closer to my dad's house. I pretty much rule out all other airlines to UK now since not only are LH cheap but I get 40kg luggage allowance with them.

[Rosamunda]

LH have a new route to bristol too but I haven't checked fares there, BHX is closer to my dad's house. I pretty much rule out all other airlines to UK now since not only are LH cheap but I get 40kg luggage allowance with them.

WOW WOW WOW.... if there is a flight to Bristol then I am seriously capable of changing my mind about the stopover thing (I really did lose my bagage in Germany last year, but I also had a problem in CDG and another in CPH - it was just a string of bad luck I was having maybe, I now have a new suitcase, old one got broken in LHR at Easter, maybe that will help )

I will play around with the timetables and see what I can find.

THX
P

[sinikala]

The cheap fares on LH are not a special offer, they're valid all of 2008 but they don't have many seats at those prices so you need to book early (esp for weekends). I didn't check all of july but they have
HEL-BHX 22.08, return 28.08,29.08,02.09,03.09 for 158euro.

you can find these prices through LH finland page and then top offers. BHX is in the pull down list for cheap european fares.
The results are shown as a price matrix. once you drill down and get the flights you can then go to LH UK pages and book it there.
The LH offers page is a bit strange right now - it says things like "paris from 251e" but when I checked helsinki-paris in september they had return for 154e. It did the same thing for HEL-NYC last year, offer price was about 360e but the search engine returned 260e - but only for a couple of days. Generally if the search engine goes wrong and you can confirm the booking then you get it at that price !

Nice one, thanks for taking the time to type that.

Checked for HEL-MAN for October... €153! Normally I'd prefer to fly direct, we just paid €280ish per head for Finnair Hel-Man direct, but if it's possible to save €250-300 I'll be giving it some serious thought about going via Hermany.

[mrjimsfc]

Just got home from Stockmann's and I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent there! NO people and aisles fully stocked with stuff.

You're not supposed to go there between the hours of Midnight and 2:00 AM. That's called breaking and entering.