The great fares we have seen recently from Dublin have gone away for a little while, but you can still obtain great value in premium cabins is you can (or will) start in Finland. Helsinki is great little airport. Flights from London are operated by Finnair and British Airways which means you can use your Avios (or OnBusiness) points for your positioning flights.

The fares currently on sale have a wide range of valid travel dates:

• 12 June – 31 August 2015
• 22-30 November 2015
• 23 December 2015 to 2 January 2016
• 19 March 2016 – 3 April 2016

These dates are also valid, but cannot be booked due to the advance booking window:

• 1 July – 31 August 2016
• 19-26 November 2016
• 24-31 December 2016

Examples of the fares are:

£1395 from Helsinki to Los Angeles

You can construct some interesting routings, for example here from Helsinki to Miami and onwards to LAX, whilst returning via Heathrow:

(Note that BA books the MIA-LAX in to Business Class, earning 140 Tier Points, against the 210 earned if you can get them to book it in First)

£1431 to San Diego

But it earns a lot more Tier Points – again don’t book via BA.com as it book in to Business both ways on the US/AA flights sold as the BA codeshare.

£1365 to Seattle. Honolulu comes out at £1603 which is not awfully attractive. Looking at the East Coast of the USA:

£1045 to New York, and £1076 if you book a more complex trip to earn more Tier Points. The Helsinki to JFK flight is guaranteed the flat bed seats according to the Finnair web site.

£1230 to Miami, using a connection in JFK and the direct service back to Helsinki

You can play with more creative routing for extra Avios or Tier Points on the AA web site.

There appear to be flat beds on the Finnair A330’s and some A340’s. The A350’s coming in the autumn of 2015 will have flat beds also. Finnair operates three lounges in HEL, two for non-Schengen flights and one for those leaving to European members to the Schengen accord.

Flyertalk has an excellent guide to transit arrangements in Helsinki.