Nicol

I just got back from an around the world business class trip on Finnair/Qantas. It was booked through Finnair and we were dogged by problems the whole way. Finnair were totally non interested in solving any of them. In brief:

1. My daughter's E-ticket had been issued by Finnair with an incorrect ticket number. After trying to check in for our first flight we were told she was supposed to have a paper ticket. An extended phone call fixed the immediate problem, and we were assured Finnair had solved the problem for the rest of our flights. But for every check in after that they would not let her through due to an incorrect number. This took endless hassling at many exotic locations.

2. We had a code share Toronto-JFK Finnair flight connecting to JFK-Helsinki. When the flight was changed to land in La Guardia, neither Finnair nor their code share partner American Airways showed the least interest in getting us and our bags to JFK. We had boarding passes out of JFK but when we got there a very rude Finnair person said 'bad luck, too late'. I asked if we could be booked the next day and got a blank 'no'. What can I do?? "Thats your problem. See if you can negotiate a flight on American to Helsinki". This was business class, remember. The Finnair flight was not due to depart for 35 minutes, but apparently 'closed' is 'closed'. The Finnair lady even told me it was my fault for checking in late!! Needless to say I never got reimbursed for the La Guardia-JFK cab fare.

3. On one long haul Finnair flight (JFK - Helsinki) the entertainment system was totally non functioning. I asked if they had anything that might entertain a child for 9 hours. They had one Finnish language comic book. No DVD player or anything. The power supply in the business class seats wasnt working either, so we couldnt even use our laptop for entertainment.

4. We had a fun weekend in Helsinki with no baggage.

5. Of course we didn't get our One World frequent flyer miles credited for any of the Finnair flights. I am still chasing them up.

6. The flight attendants were quite frosty about having a child in business class (a very civilised and quiet 10 year old). They would not give her a soft drink unless repeatedly reminded and refused to find a non caviar based snack a child might eat.

Sigh, the ticket was pretty cheap for a business class around the world, but jeepers, they have a long way to go customer service wise.

The Qantas segments were fantastic: brilliant on every front.

Gardyloo

Wow, that is totally different from all of my experiences with Finnair.

Curious - where was the RTW ticket issued and by who?

As for your miles, to which airline do you credit the miles?

I would certainly send off a letter to the issuing airline and the Finnair customer service people. Be sure to provide full details.

Other airlines (AA, BA) frequently award compensatory FF miles or credit vouchers for similar occurrences.

Nicol

Thanks for the advice. I will certainly try that and hopefully get the FF miles I am entitled to (and compensatory ones would certainly be a welcome bonus!!) The ticket was issued by Finnair through a local travel agent (I couldnt buy a RTW ticket straight off the internet). My frequent flyer miles are credited to Qantas, and I did check that my FF number was listed for all my flights. I will also take your advice and let the Finnair customer service people know. Maybe I was just unlucky on this trip.

rkkwan

A lot of what went wrong was due to the mis-connect in New York.

What was the scheduled layover? What time did you get to LGA? How did you go to JFK and what time did you get there?

How much time did you expect it'll take? Why did you expect an airline will help you with luggage transfer and did you ask about it here or elsewhere before the trip?

And did you spend precious time at LGA looking around help to transfer your luggage?

Jeff_Costa_Rica

I've had great experiences with Finnair too, so I'm sorry to hear this.

As for the LGA-JFK transfer, I know of no airline that does this for you. You're on your own, and you need to allow plenty of time.

Patty

Is this a RTW product that's only available ex-Australia or is it available ex-US too?

Nicol

Thanks. There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding. We never planned to do a La Guardia-JFK transfer (and would certainly always leave plenty of time if we did). It was scheduled as a JFK-JFK (same terminal) transfer, all ticketed through on Finnair. We were issued with boarding passes for both flights in Toronto, and our bags were checked through to Helsinki (we cleared US immigration in Toronto airport). At the last minute the Toronto-JFK flight was cancelled so we were put on a flight to La Guardia with a verbal promise of a transfer to JFK when we got there. It was all very last minute and not of our doing. It was amazing that they managed to get our bags off the JFK flight and stick them on the La Guardia flight in the space of 10 minutes.

That is why I felt that Finnair (or their agents, American) should have taken a bit of ownership of the debacle. Furthermore, all it would have taken was a phone call to the gate agent in JFK to warn them we were arriving with our already 'checked in' bags (which luckily we had figured out for ourselves we would pop out of a luggage carousel in La Guardia). Instead the Finnair agent treated us like we had arrived late of our own fault and told us stonily that our flight had closed.

We had about an hour to make the transfer, but there was an accident on the Van Wyk expressway so it took all of that in the taxi.

I don't know if that airfare is available out of Australia or not. I never heard of it until my travel agent mentioned it. I certainly never saw references to it on the internet anywhere. It was thousands of dollars cheaper than the One World RTW fare.

Odin

<<My daughter's E-ticket had been issued by Finnair with an incorrect ticket number.>>

What does that mean? I can understand a mistake could be made issuing a eticket when it should be paper but an incorrect ticket number? Did the eticket get reprinted on paper for the rest of the journey?

<<The Finnair flight was not due to depart for 35 minutes, but apparently 'closed' is 'closed'. >>

That is correct. Once the flight is closed, late passengers cannot be accepted.

Gardyloo

The confusion over ticket numbers and other things leads me to believe the travel agent, and not one of the airlines, may be the perp here. In what country was the ticket issued, and if you don't mind, could you post the first 3 digits of the ticket number? That will show what airline actually issued the ticket. Don't post the rest of the numbers - that should stay confidential with you. (Example - 001 = American, 105 = Finnair, 081 = Qantas, etc.)

If it was a ticket product "thousands less" than the regular OW RTW fare, it's probably one that has only a very few eligible countries for issuance. There are often problems with these sorts of tickets - so few of them are sold that the field station people for the airlines literally have never seen one before you turn up. (Case in point, Air France and Qantas have a joint RTW ticket listed that TAs can access. In phoning both Qantas and Air France trying to buy one, neither airline's reservation people had ever heard of it.)

Nicol

Gardyloo, you may be on to something here. The first 3 digits were 105, so Finnair issued it. But what you are saying makes sense. Every ticket check in person we spoke to was totally mystified by the ticket and had to 'get on the phone' to Finnair. All they could tell me was that while the 'booking' was in the computer, the number was 'wrong' (whatever that means) They could then fix that sector, but not the next one. Perhaps it was a very rare and exotic fare type only known to Aussie travel agents. Oh well I learned a valuable lesson: you get what you pay for!

Gardyloo

I've looked at various sources and I can't see any particular RTW product in which just Finnair and Qantas (and not the rest of the Oneworld Alliance) participate. If there was some code like "DONE4" or something like that in the fare construction information on your ticket (either paper or e-ticket) that would help. However I do think you should bring up the issue with the TA.