Eight Flights, Five Airlines, Two Weeks: How I Got to the Philippines on Avios

If you're reading as soon as this is published, around 8am Saturday 28th February, I will have (hopefully) just taken off from Heathrow (AY1340, track me on Flightradar!) on a bit of a mammoth adventure.

Let me explain what I am doing over the next couple of weeks, the flights I'm taking, the cabins I'll be travelling in, how many Avios I've used, and some tips along the way to help you travel in a similar fashion.

Why just me, and not Helena as well? She was given the offer of a lifetime by her friends for a trip to Botswana. I'm not one to waste my pre-booked annual leave, so for the next two weeks I will be in the Philippines, a country I have never visited before. The majority of my time will be split between the islands of Busuanga and El Nido, with a three night boat trip in between the two where I will be camping on beaches each night.

The island of Coron

But you're likely not reading this to hear about my potential sunburn!

Here are all the flights I will be taking over the next two weeks.

Finnair - Heathrow to Helsinki, Business Class, Airbus A321

Mmmm, grey - Photo courtesy of The Alviator

Starting with the boringly functional (if my past self could see me now describing business class as boringly functional, I think he'd slap me), a two and a half hour flight from Heathrow to Helsinki aboard their Airbus A321 in business class. This is your typical euro-business cabin featuring a blocked middle seat, a meal, and not much else.

If you follow us on Instagram, you may have seen me ask a few weeks ago about your collective experiences connecting in Frankfurt. This is where my trip was originally planned to go via. I will explain why I'm now going via Helsinki in a longer post at some point over the next few weeks.

This flight departs from Terminal 3 at Heathrow. Why is that significant? Terminal 3 is perhaps home to the greatest collection of lounges in the world, and as Finnair is a oneworld member airline I get to choose between the British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and American Airlines business class lounges, and that before I throw in the opportunity to visit the American Express Centurion lounge, which I get access to thanks to my Amex Platinum. I've previously visited the Cathay Pacific business class lounge, and it could be the best business class lounge at Heathrow (review here).

If you are flying between Heathrow and Helsinki, here's one way that you can get a better deal than me. At least once a day, Finnair fly their Airbus A350-900 to London. This is equipped with their long-haul business class product, the same one that I am about to fly on for my next leg. Despite being a vastly superior plane in every way, it costs the same amount of Avios as the boring old A321 that I'm taking. So choose wisely.

For all this luxury I paid 18,000 Avios plus £64.05, which I don't think is too bad a deal. A one-way ticket using cash in business class was in the region of £450, and even if you extended the comparison to economy (with a checked bag), that was around £250.

I'm going to talk a fair bit about value per Avios in this piece, so here's the calculation you need. To work out the value you're getting per point, take the cash price of the flight and subtract the taxes and fees you'd pay on the reward booking anyway, then divide that figure by the number of points required, and multiply by 100. That gives you a pence per point value figure.

Using that calculation, this flight should have been £450, minus £64.05, equalling £385.95. Divide that by 18,000 Avios, the amount I used, 0.0214. Finally, multiply that by 100, and you'll get 2.14p per Avios used.

Given the target when using points for flying should always be at least 1p in value, I achieved double our aim.

Finnair - Helsinki to Doha, Business Class, Airbus A330-300

This lady is showing too much emotion for a Finn

Now we're talking! This six and a half hour flight down to Doha is aboard Finnair's Airbus A330-300 featuring their unique business class design. What's so special about this seat is that there is no recline function. Instead, the idea is that you find a comfortable position as if you were sat on a sofa, using cushions to bolster you as you see fit.

You're maybe thinking "if this seat does not recline, how does it turn into a bed?" Well, instead of the seat sliding down to form a bed, part of the seat flips up to bridge the gap between the seat and the footwell.

This part of the journey forms a single ticket with the next leg. So for Helsinki to Clark, via Doha, this cost me 80,000 Avios plus €201.07, booked on the Qatar website. For this, I transferred Avios from my British Airways Club account to my Qatar Airways Privilege Club account for free on the Avios website by linking my two accounts.

As a cash fare, this was around £3000. Using that price (and a fag packet calculation of EUR to GBP), I'm getting 3.5p of value per Avios spent, representing exceptional value.

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Qatar Airways - Doha to Clark, Business Class, Boeing 787-8

This is another new one to me, sort of. You see, I haven't flown this exact aircraft of Qatar's, but we have flown on Qatar's A380 in business class on our way to New Zealand (you read how we booked that trip here), and both of these aircraft use the same seat design, so it sort of counts (you can read our A380 review here). As you can see from the picture above, Helena found the seat very comfortable, and it wasn't even in bed mode!

Whereas we travelled in the middle two seats aboard the A380, I will instead by in 1A, a bulkhead window seat. If you are ever fortunate to travel aboard one of Qatar's 787-8's, this is the seat to get. Yes, its nearer to the galley (and thus the potential for noise), but because its a bulkhead and there is no one in front of me, the cubby hole where you feet slide into when you sleep is much larger than one of the other business class seats on this plane.

As I mentioned for my Finnair flight, this was a single booking from Helsinki through to Clark via Doha, and since I've spoken about the pricing already, I'm not going to bore you with that again.

Cebu Pacific - Clark to Busuanga (Coron)/El Nido - Manila, Economy Class, ATR 72

Some of you may shudder and go full "NOPE!" at the mere sight of a plane like this.

There's nothing too exciting about these little ATR prop planes, but the view outside promises to be outstanding. So you'll find my face firmly pressed against the window. I promise to clean it afterwards.

I will aim to review one of these two flights, for posterities sake.

Qatar Airways - Manila to Doha, Qsuite, Boeing 777-300er

The Qatar Airways Q-Suite in all its glory - photo courtesy of Frequent Miler

Now this is what most people think about when they think of Qatar Airways. The Qsuite is one of the best, if not the best, business class in the sky. It's not that other seats are rubbish, it's just that the Qsuites does nearly everything better than the competition. Even though this seat is coming up to ten years old, it stood the test of time remarkably well.

You can find our past review of Qsuites when we flew back from Auckland last year.

Just like from Helsinki to Clark, this part of the journey forms a single ticket with the next leg. So for Manila to Dublin, via Doha, this cost me 80,000 Avios plus 15436.00 PHP (roughly £198), again booked on the Qatar website having transferred my Avios over from my British Airways Club account on the Avios website.

As a cash fare, this was around £2500. Using the same calculation I mentioned earlier,, I'm getting 2.8p of value per Avios spent. This isn't as good as the outbound leg, but to quote Mastercard's slogan; for two overnight business class flights, priceless.

Qatar Airways - Doha to Dublin, Mini Qsuite, Boeing 787-9

Photo courtesy of The Alviator

Sam, don't you live in Hampshire? Yes. Then why are you flying into Dublin? Because I couldn't find any Avios flights back to London, and Dublin was the next most convenient option.

And it gives me an opportunity to try out two new-to-me aircraft cabins, those being this and the next flight. What can I say, I enjoy this little hobby of mine.

This seat is dubbed the "Mini Qsuite". Why not fit the proper Qsuite? The fuselage (that's the aircraft body) is too narrow to get four Qsuites across in it. So instead they have fitted the "Mini Qsuite", and if they are willing to christen it with the same name as its big brother, surely it's just as good, right? I'll just have to let you know.

As mentioned, this flights forms a single ticket with the one from Manila to Doha, so no need to mention it again.

Aer Lingus - Dublin to Heathrow, AerSpace, Airbus A321

There was method to my madness in picking to fly back from Dublin, honest.

So, Aer Lingus has a number of A321's that are configured to fly over the Atlantic, meaning they are fitted with nice business class cabins. These aircraft typically leave Dublin around midday, fly to North America, and land back in Dublin around 6am. This means that for a good portion of the day they would be just sitting around waiting to fly back over the pond. Instead, Aer Lingus operates their long-haul configured aircraft on short-haul routes. So that's exactly what I am doing, I will be flying one of Aer Lingus' long-haul configured A321's back to Heathrow in business class ... sort of, I'll explain.

The next complication, on short-haul flights, this cabin is not designated as business class, as Aer Lingus doesn't offer business class within Europe. Instead, it is sold as AerSpace, a fancy name for you can have a larger seat and we'll offer you something complimentary from the buy-on-board menu. Fine, whatever.

One final quirk worth knowing: you can't actually use Avios for this seat. Because AerSpace sits in a no-man's land between economy and business class on short-haul routes, there's simply no way to book it through the Avios system. So I paid cash, €155.45 for a Friday 7:30am departure, which I think is fair enough. And there's a silver lining: plenty of you will be eyeing up this same cabin for a transatlantic trip, so consider this an advance scout mission on your behalf.

Final thoughts

You may think I'm mad, but I know there's a little part of you that would consider this fun to do.

I'll be bringing you write-ups of each flight, airport lounge, alongside little tips for you to get the most from your travels in due course.

In the meantime, do make sure you follow us on Instagram, this is where I'll be posting more updates from my trip.

Sam

Points Well Made is a passion project of Sam and Helena with a loyal following. If you like what we do, and wish to help us continue to create the content you love, please consider buying us a Kofi, or subscribing monthly. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.