How War Curtailed My Trip to the Philippines, and What I'm Doing About It

On the morning of Saturday 28th, the United States and Israel launched air strikes targeting Iran. This is occurred whilst I was sitting at Heathrow waiting for my flight to Helsinki, before connecting onto Doha, Qatar, and then onwards to Clark, Philippines. Yes, my route was convoluted (here is my detailed post very excitedly explaining it), but to many of you I am "the Avios man", and I planned my route to show you how you too can use your Avios on a variety of airlines, routes, planes, and cabins.

Seeing the news made my heart sink, not for my trip, but knowing how truly biblical this would be for the region, and for all the innocent people caught up in a war between three reckless megalomaniacs who are not afraid of taking the whole world down with them. For those of you who were merely transiting through one of the big airports in the Middle East, I do truly hope that you are able to return home soon.

Helsinki is cold, who'd have thought!

I boarded my flight to Helsinki with the news ever-present in my mind, assuming that even if my flight to Doha aboard Finnair does get cancelled, then they would be able to reroute me. Finnair and Qatar are both in the oneworld alliance, and thanks to my Flightradar addiction I knew that Finnair's flights to Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, and Seoul all route north of the conflict via Azerbaijan and "the Stans", so that would be my best option for rerouting.

Just like an angry monkey, Iran started lobbing metaphorical faeces back, and so my flight to Doha was cancelled. Fine I thought. Upon landing in Helsinki I went straight to the Finnair transfer desk to get rerouted.

Initially Finnair wanted to reroute me back to Frankfurt, and then onwards to Doha on the 1st. I suggested that wasn't the wisest option given the news. I do not blame the staff at Finnair for providing me with this option. Their computers would have simply said that this option is available, and in normal times this would have been a fine reroute. The staff at Finnair had no issue with me declining this option and worked on the next plan.

Part of the difficulty in rerouting me is that my final destination of Clark is a relatively small airport, meaning the alternative options are slim. I told the staff that I was happy instead to fly into Manila, only a three hour drive from Clark, but was told in no uncertain terms that they could not change my final destination, no matter how close it was.

After some creative route planning, Finnair said that they were able to reroute me on one of their flights to Seoul, and then on Asiana from Seoul to Clark. This would be in a couple of days due to availability, but it's still better than nothing. I accepted, and the Finnair staff started to confirm my new reservation. Here we start to run into the next problem. The Finnair staff were having issues confirming my new reservation, but assured me it was just due to system demand and that all would be okay, and promptly provided me a hotel for two nights before I continued my journey.

Two hours later I received this email:

Hello Samuel, I am truly sorry but Finnair was unable to reissue your Qatar ticket for your new routing via Seoul. Qatar asked you to contact their customer service and ask them to issue new ticket for you. Finnair booking ref is XXXXXX and Qatar XXXXXX. Hopefully you got hotel link for staying in Helsinki. Best regards.

Right.

I am a diligent planner, I know my options, but being thrown back into the hands of Qatar Airways was a death knell. In a normal situation this would have been no problem, but they frankly had bigger problems to deal with than silly old me, and even three days later I have been unable to contact anyone within Qatar Airways, such are the demands on their phonelines. I phone, stay on hold for an hour, before the call disconnects, and I have to start all over again.

Just to double check that Finnair cannot help me, I turn to their customer service team who confirm there is nothing that they can do with my ticket. Fortunately, a helpful agent gives me an answer as to why. It feels somewhat ironic writing this, but because I was flying on an Avios ticket, only Qatar has the ability to alter that booking, and because I cannot get hold of Qatar, my trip to the Philippines is dead in the water. So in a sense, using Avios scuppered me, as if I had paid cash, Finnair would have been able to handle the rerouting. Please do not read this as using Avios will get you stranded. I have had many helpful interactions with Qatar Airways customer service, and in any normal situation I would have of course been able to get hold of Qatar and this been rerouted.

By the time all of this had come to its conclusion, the remaining flights out of Helsinki towards Asia had risen from £500 to nearer £2,000. Why not just claim on my travel insurance? Most travel insurance will not pay out if your travel is affected by war, with my policy clearly stating "You will not be paid for claims directly or indirectly as a result of: Declared or undeclared war or hostilities".

With the remaining options having either sold out, or becoming uneconomical to pursue, I accepted that there was no option to continue my trip, and Helsinki was as far east as I was getting.

Time for the pivot!

Having spent yesterday in Helsinki (not before buying a coat!), I'm writing this on a ferry to Tallinn, Estonia, where I'll be staying the night, before getting another ferry from Tallinn to Stockholm, Sweden, enjoying some time there before returning to London. I don't think my flip flops will be making an appearance on this trip...

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I don't write this for sympathy, only that you may be able to take something away from my experience. I'm not someone who is held back, if there is a will, there's a way! But even for all my knowledge, experience, and nous, it seems there is one thing that can hold me back, war.

I do want to take a second and thank the staff at Finnair. Even though they were unable to get me to my final destination, everyone I dealt with was extremely helpful and did everything they could to help me. So thank you to everyone at Finnair.

Lastly, if you haven't seen already, I have put out a Simon Calder-esque video on our Instagram and Tiktok reminding people of some of their basic rights and some tips with how to navigate this new travel landscape. With a combined 250,000 views, I'm struggling to reply to all the comments from people asking for help, so if you have any capacity to lend a hand, please do consider offering people any advice that you may think is relevant to their situation.

If you are travelling right now, stay safe, and make sensible decisions.

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.