I am looking at travelling to Europe with my wife and 2 young kids in the next couple of years. We have almost enough velocity points to fly business class with virgin/Qatar and should get the remaining points needed soon.
We had originally planned to go during the European summer but have kind of been put off the idea being that its peak time, hot and crowded. We are looking into the idea of potentially going during December to have a winter holiday and maybe check out some of the Christmas markets.
I was wondering if anyone has any experience trying to book business rewards flights to Europe during December. I know getting 4 at the same time is going to be a challenge, but I wonder if its considered “off peak” and a little easier to get your hands on.
Well done for accumulating all those Velocity points!
I’ve travelled to Europe during the (northern) winter myself and really enjoyed it. The days are shorter and it’s colder and wetter, but it’s a lot less crowded and Europe at that time of year has its own unique attractions (in your case, the Christmas markets; in my case, the Northern Lights!).
Unfortunately it’s not really seen as an “off peak” season because it’s the school holidays in Australia. Late November to early December is as “off peak” as any other time, but once you reach about December 10, frequent flyer availability becomes a lot tighter. Availability becomes a TINY bit better sometimes for the week between Christmas and New Year.
You’re also going to really struggle to find four business class seats – I mean, really really struggle. I think your best strategy would be to divide and conquer: each of you should take one child and look to find availability for 2 on separate flights. Then if you find last-minute availability on the same flight, you can cancel the original booking if you choose.
With Velocity, seats become available 330 days before the flight and, in the case of business class, they’re gone (more often than not) within hours of their release at 12am AEST (1am AEDT). Consider being awake and up at that time, to grab any seats before someone else does.
thanks @sixtyeight that is very good advice. We are open to whatever options make it work.
The charismas markets was just one of the things in mind, how were the northern lights? where did you fly into?
we are really in the preliminary planning stages so nothing is set yet. We are thinking 27th Dec to perhaps 17th Jan. Make use of the school holidays so we can stay a little longer
@souheilelkhoury The Northern Lights are amazing! We saw them from Iceland and had a wonderful week there; in fact we were sorry that we weren’t there for longer.
Initially, we flew into Paris and flew to Iceland from there, but there are plenty of options. To get to Iceland more directly using Velocity points, you’d need to fly there on Air Canada or United via North America.
You can also see them from Norway, as per the link below.