In October 2025 I decided to cancel our USA trip to Cancun/USA we had booked for March 2026. This had become quite a complicated trip, which started by me chasing a business class fare from MAD-CUN for 119k Flying Blue miles and €125, for 2 people! I saw this and jumped at it without realising that positioning to MAD from BHX and then from CUN to CLT (at the end of Spring Break) then getting back to the UK would involve 11 flights BHX-AMS-MAD-AMS-CUN-NLU-MFE-AUS-ATL-CLT-JK-LHR. (I had chased a flight with KLM instead of AirEuropa as we wanted to experience which added an extra leg and €400.) We travelled to USA in October – last minute decision. So we felt another trip in March was just stretching things too much, both our budget and our ability to enjoy USA.

However one of the few non-refundable flights was BHX-AMS-MAD in Business class which had been fairly expensive. It also netted us 30 Flying Blue XP each which we needed for our requalification plans for 2026. So I looked into this and discovered that the flight *could* be changed although this would incur a fee. Searching around in December – as we had decided we’d like a trip to a Christmas Market, I managed to find a reasonably cheap return fare from Helsinki so I rebooked the BHX-AMS-MAD as BHX-CDG-HEL and booked an ecomomy return HEL-AMS-BHX. We we’re off to Helsinki.

I wanted somewhere walkable so chose the Radisson RED in Helsinki, which is pretty close to the rail station and the Christmas Market. 2 nights booked and we were pretty excited to go. A new city in a new Country for us both and a Christmas Market in early December.

TO BE CONTINUED