Advice on redemption bookings - book what I can or wait?

Flights & Airfares
1

Hi everyone,

Trying to piece together an itinerary for 4 from SYD-HEL in Dec 2026.

I have grabbed 2 business seats for NRT - HEL (Finnair) on 13th Dec 2026 via QFF and grabbed those while searching for others.

I found 2 more seats for same route but through Cathay and on 15th Dec so have got those as well.

I was thinking to try and move the QFF tickets on 13th Dec to 15th Dec but it turns out the Cathay tickets I secured were the last two available so they disappeared from the QFF website.

Do I just wait and hope that more seats get released on either 13th or 15th Dec or search for 4 seats on other routes e.g. Seoul - Helsinki so we can all travel together instead of on separate flights and dates?

My guess is that there’s only sparse availability at this point in time e.g. 1-2 seats. The Seoul - Helsinki route has seats available on both QFF and Cathay website but I’m guessing it’s the same situation as my original booking of 13th/15th Dec in that there’s only 2 seats available, not 4?

2

When looking from a third party airline (Qantas and Cathay Pacific) for award seats on the same airline flight (Finnair), the award seat(s) usually come from the same bucket. I.e. if you saw two seats on Qantas and booked it. The two seats you saw on Cathay Pacific, will no longer be bookable.

There are some cases where some partner airlines will see more seats than others or some airlines offering more seats for their own members.

E.g. from my experience,

Krisflyer members see more seats than
Aeroplan members who see more seats than
Velocity members for Singapore Airlines flights.

KF>AP>VFF

Going back to your question, I usually book what I can. Best to assume airlines won’t release more seats once you have redeemed some.

Booking 4 award seats on the same flight in premium cabin is always going to be a challenge.

Setting up an award alert might be an option if you need to be on the same flight.