News

Finnair will fly their A350 to Los Angeles starting 2019

a row of seats in a plane

We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.


Starting March 31, 2019 Finnair will commence 3x weekly service from Los Angeles to Helsinki utilizing their A350. Additionally, Finnair will up their San Francisco service from 3 to 4, thus flying to the west coast daily. As an LA resident, and Alaska loyalist, this couldn’t be more welcomed, and hopefully leads to more Finnair space being released on their transatlantic routes.

How is Finnair for releasing space?

Well…more than likely you’ll find this when you search on AA.com ( our preferred method) – a big fat nothing burger.

a screenshot of a calendar

Glass half full. This is welcomed for Alaska enthusiasts.

Alaska finally released redemptions levels for Finnair flights after announcing their partnership last year.  While the levels are fair ( 70k for business US to Europe), if you can score business class on the A350, it stands to a be a really competitive flight and a great ride.

a blue and white rectangle with white lines

If you’re unfamiliar with the Finnair product, we reviewed their A330 business class last year from Helsinki to LA, and are excited to potentially give the A350 a go on this new route next year, but that’s a big “potentially” as space is pretty hard to come by.

a teddy bear wrapped in a blanket on a plane

Here’s to more space opening on what would be a great way to fly to Europe

h/t economy class and beyond

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

a blue credit card with lines and symbols

Learn More

 Affiliate link 

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

3 Comments

  • Jonathan W October 9, 2018

    I prefer the AY 330 over the 350. The AY A350s seem to be wearing out faster (mechanical problems with the seats, TVs, and wearing out of the upholstery). Additionally, the foot box is noticeably smaller than other A350s (i.e. CX is much better). Plus there is a grate in the foot box that I refer to as “the cheese grater”, because it seemingly grates layers of skin whenever moving or even just resting around it.

  • Jon October 9, 2018

    I prefer the AY 330 over the 350. The AY A350s seem to be wearing out faster (mechanical problems with the seats, TVs, and wearing out of the upholstery). Additionally, the foot box is noticeably smaller than other A350s (i.e. CX is much better). Plus there is a grate in the foot box that I refer to as “the cheese grater”, because it seemingly grates layers of skin whenever moving or even just resting around it.

  • Sean August 21, 2018

    Just booked $1600 one way YYZ LHR HEL BKK .. HEL BKK 10 hours on the a350. Cant wait to try it out

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.