London to Dubai under £946 with oneworld’s Finnair
I have recently featured quite a few Finnair flights and overall I’ve been pretty impressed with my experiences on both short and long haul. You can read about their new business class onboard service here.
Flying via Helsinki is also a great way to rack up some tier points as you get 160 tier points return just for London to Helsinki. With this offer, you then get another 280 TPs return for the Helsinki to Dubai part. Currently, it is showing as an A330 to Dubai although this could obviously change. It doesn’t have the newest Finnair seats but they are still decent in a 1-2-1 configuration. For the shorter legs to and from London you should try to get the A350 aircraft.
BA has also recently increased the level of Avios you receive when you credit Finnair flights to your Executive Club. Now you will get 150% Avios of the miles flown in the lower business class fare buckets versus 125% before.
- Book by: 4 days prior
- Travel: after 21 December 2022. There’s not much available except during January Tues, Thurs and Sunday and the odd date in February so don’t hang around if you fancy the deal!
- Minimum stay: n/a
- Transfers: Unlimited
- Stopovers: Not allowed
- Refundable: No
- Changeable: No
- Notes: This is a Light fare which means you need to pay extra for baggage and lounges. However, if you have oneworld status that means you will get your appropriate oneworld status perks such as baggage and lounge access.
You can book direct with Finnair here or find the cheapest online travel agent price with Skyscanner.
Under £1000 to Cancun or Punta Cana
This deal is the first one I will bring in conjunction with Skip from Dutch website Luxury Flight Club. To enable me to bring you the best flight offers more frequently, Skip and I will jointly bring TLFL regular airfare deals from the UK and Europe.
Today’s deal is from multiple locations to Cancun in Mexico and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. If Cancun brings up images of partying Americans, there are also many luxury resorts not far from Cancun that allow you to enjoy the amazing beaches and the nearby historic sites like Chichen Itza. I really enjoyed the Bahia Principe Sian Ka’an adults only hotel on the edge of the rainforest.
Prices vary but to get the flights under £1000 you will need to add in a longer layover. You can add a layover free in Lisbon with TAP. Lisbon is an amazing city so it’s well worth taking the chance to visit if you can.
Flights are with TAP who have a decent business class seat and service but the customer service on the ground and if things go wrong is not always as good as it should be. At the moment the aircraft shows as the A330neo which is the larger of their aircraft and has the latest seats.
You could also book tickets to Lisbon with another airline and start from there as prices are even lower from Lisbon. I’d add in an overnight stop if possible due to the frequency of changes and cancellations to flights currently.
Here are some example fares:
- Heathrow – Cancun £1105
- Heathrow – Cancun with long layover £934
- Gatwick – Punta Cana £1105
- Manchester – Cancun £1098
- Manchester – Punta Cana £1098
- Lisbon – Cancun £853
- Lisbon – Punta Cana £853
Here are the fare rules:
- Book by: 7 July
- Travel: Valid for travel commencing on/after 24 June 22 and on/before 29 October 22.
- Minimum stay: n/a
- Maximum stay: 1 month
- Stopovers: 2 stopovers permitted limited to 1 free and 1 at £75.00.
- Refundable: Per direction charge €200.00.
- Changeable: Charge €250.00 for reissue.
You can book direct with TAP here or find the cheapest online travel agent price with Skyscanner.
10 comments
I’m not sure we should be flying to Dubai via Helsinki to save a few bucks. That’s got to be at least three hours of unnecessary flying each way. Not exactly flying the flag for sustainability are we?
This is a website about travel and flying. So by its nature it’s not exactly about sustainability. Aviation is only around 2.5% of total emissions so I really wish people would stop grabbing onto to that as the one thing above everything that needs to be fixed. Even if we all stopped flying completely it would not solve the issue.
Picking on one aspect of being environmentally aware is naive. Someone that never flies could be buying lots of fast fashion, have 10 children, driving an old large car everywhere and eating lots of red meat everyday which could be far worse. It’s about the total picture of what we do, not one individual thing.
In the same way I try not to politicise the blog and write about destinations without bringing in other aspects of politics, I believe in letting people make their own decisions about what they do.
I do write about sustainability issues when airlines launch those as well.
Wow Michelle I’m just making a point that maybe we should think twice about taking such circuitous routes to get cheap business class fares. Why do you have to shut down any sustainability debate in this way? Have I perhaps hit a nerve?
I’m not shutting down a debate. I’ve replied to your comments which would be the definition of a debate. Putting aside the fact that I’m pretty sure all TLFL readers can work out that flying via Helsinki is longer than direct without needing it pointing out, the way you choose to start that debate “Not exactly flying the flag for sustainability are we?” was more of a confrontation than a debate.
As I’ve said, I believe in people being responsible for making up their own minds on this sort of thing and which countries they want to visit. It’s not the place of TLFL to lecture people on what they should or should not do.
Good reply Michele. The most environmentally damaging thing we can do is have children. The more the worse. Since there is so little chance of avoiding environmental catastrophe anyway, when I look at the consumption of eating and drinking products covered in plastic which is then just dumped in public areas by people under 20 who will be those who suffer most, I wonder why I drive a 65mpg car and walk loads of places since so many simply don’t care.
Talking about sustainability one would have thought that letting the train take the strain would be a better eco option. I thought I’d take a leisurely train journey from London to Lisbon next week instead of flying. I quickly found out that that was not really feasible. Due to Covid (so much being blamed on it!) Spain and Portugal cancelled the night trains (I didn’t get to check French trains). So, for example, no direct trains at any time, day or night, between Madrid and Lisbon. I understand that Portugal is trying to reinstate them but if so that won’t be until next year, apparently. However, should I’ve persisted (by going around the houses across Spain) with up at least 7 changes, the one way leg alone in Eurostar (London-Paris) costs £310 in standard class. I ended up booking TAP (one way £536 to BA £707 business). It makes the fares mentioned above to Mexico etc very reasonable indeed. So I shall be visiting one or two lounges at T2 next week instead.
Ouch that’s expensive. This is one of the issues that I think is very important. We all know that trains are more environmentally friendly but often they can be unreliable, old and dirty and hugely overpriced. If they want people to use them, they need to be better and more affordable particularly in this country. Though I do believe that Eurostar is one of the better options.
Hi Michelle
First of all well said about all this emissions and planet stuff. If RichardTW feels do strongly about the whole issue why is he following on here?
One or two stop fares are always cheaper, as are ex EU. It’s a well known fact and something you report on extremely well.
I’m always following the advice given by you and regulary book the deals you publish.
I must admit I did smirk when you politely socked him one and put him gently in his place.
Good on you!
I’m currently on an Intercity train from Warsaw to Berlin with connections to Koln and Bruxelles..I’m slowly loosing the will here btw.
Ohh btw South Africa deal pllleeeaaaseee…
Forever waiting patentially here..
Thanks Aldo. I’ll see what I can do.
@RichardTW – this might be more to your liking https://www.facebook.com/gretathunbergsweden. Keep up the good work Michele.
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