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AA premium cabin availability trans-Atlantic
I’ve been looking for 2 one-way redemptions from HEL to NYC in the first week of October and surprisingly there’s zero premium cabin availability, even via LHR on BA metal, which is quite surprising. Ideally I’d been looking for the direct AY flight to JFK, or at least AA metal, but…nothing at all. Even on Iberia. Any idea what may be going on here? I’ve never seen it that dry before for off-season travel.
AA has been holding back.
They want to sell them first and foremost… And October is still 3 mo out.
[QUOTE=”Benjamin_N, post: 65631, member: 4473″]AA has been holding back.
They want to sell them first and foremost… And October is still 3 mo out.[/QUOTE]
My flight over will be EWRCPH with a positioning flight to HEL. I don’t want to book that and not have a plan for return. The disconcerting part is that I’ve been looking at both outbound and inbound for months and there was a ton of availability on AA for the return, even including First from LHR to NYC, but nothing EWRCPH. Now it’s the other way around. There’s availability (limited, but there) outbound but nothing except coach back.
[QUOTE=”NJRadioGuy, post: 65634, member: 4571″]My flight over will be EWRCPH with a positioning flight to HEL.[/QUOTE]
You say you are positioning to HEL – are you actually visiting Helsinki? Why not look at other cities from which to depart? Or if you are visiting Helsinki why not just fly coach (not ideal) to LHR (3 hours) and then grab an award seat for the longer transatlantic leg?
We’re visiting Helsinki for an overnight. Once we have the award trans-Atlantics in the bag we’ll figure out the paid short-hops, but that idea sounds reasonable. For months I was seeing all sorts of J availability so I never thought it would be a problem…until now that it is.
[QUOTE=”NJRadioGuy, post: 65645, member: 4571″]We’re visiting Helsinki for an overnight. Once we have the award trans-Atlantics in the bag we’ll figure out the paid short-hops, but that idea sounds reasonable. For months I was seeing all sorts of J availability so I never thought it would be a problem…until now that it is.[/QUOTE]
Cool. I want to fly FY sometime and do exactly what you are doing. I am thinking about flying it JFK – HEL – PEK for a biz trip. On a paid ticket I had an itinerary that had a 22 hour layover, I think.
Why don’t you look for FY awards from anywhere EUR – HEL – JFK? You may have luck with that.
Sorry, what’s FY? I was thinking of AY (Finnair) but they have zero availability in any premium cabin all year. That was my number one preference. We flew them JFK/HEL return on paid tickets in 2017 and they were absolutely wonderful in premium economy. All I can find is straight coach (occasionally). We both fell in love with Helsinki and Tallinn.
[QUOTE=”NJRadioGuy, post: 65650, member: 4571″]Sorry, what’s FY? I was thinking of AY (Finnair) but they have zero availability in any premium cabin all year. [/QUOTE]
My bad – meant AY. Combined Finnair with AY to get FY. Long week. Two cross-country roundtrips. 🙁
Yeah, kinda figured that’s what you meant but I wasn’t sure. Like I said, if I could find PE or J I’d do it in a flash.
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