Finnair has just launched a bonus sale on their Finnair Plus frequent flyer program. This is a particularly interesting deal because we recently learned that Finnair would be switching to Avios in 2024. Since Avios are interchangeable between partner airlines, it means you can utilise other award charts to maximise value.
If you’re looking to buy Finnair Plus points under the current promo and hold them until 2024, your points would get converted at a 3:2 ratio, which works out to 0.67 Avios for 1 Finnair Plus point.
The current promotion runs until September 18, 2023, and offers buyers up to a 100% bonus. The promotion is tiered, so you’d need to buy at least 100k points to access the best bonus rate:
- Buy 5,000-19,000 points, get a 40% bonus
- Buy 20,000-49,000 points, get a 60% bonus
- Buy 50,000-99,000 points, get an 80% bonus
- Buy 100,000-200,000 points, get a 100% bonus
At the highest level of the bonus offer, you’re essentially buying points at AU$0.0161 if we hold and wait for the Avios conversion. In my opinion, this is an excellent rate to be buying Avios at and is close to the British Airways subscription, which is currently AU$0.0175 when we factor in the currency conversion and much better than the Qatar 80% bonus sale we saw recently.
Finnair Plus Points Bonus History
- Up to a 100% bonus on purchased points: September 4, 2023 – September 18, 2023
- Up to a 30% discount on purchased points: August 29, 2022 – September 11, 2022
- Up to a 30% discount & 30% bonus on purchased points: May 17, 2022 – May 31, 2022
- Up to a 100% bonus on purchased points: December 15, 2021 – December 27, 2021
- Up to a 40% discount on purchased points: March 4, 2021 – March 10, 2021
Do Finnair Plus Points Expire?
As long as you have account activity at least once every 18 months, your points won’t expire. Acitivy means either earning more points or redeeming points. All available award points will expire at the end of the 18th consecutive month for which the member has not earned or used points.
If points are earned or used on the first day of the month, the month in question is counted as the first of the 18 months. For any other day, the 18-month period will be counted from the start of the next month.
What can you book with Avios?
Since Finnair is a OneWorld airline, you have access to all the possible partners in the network. Once Finnair Plus moves to Avios, it should be possible to convert your points to Qatar Airways or British Airways to access some excellent redemption rates.
- Australia to Europe: 90,000 Avios one way in business with Qatar Airways
- Sydney to Singapore: 62,000 Avios one way in business with Qantas or British Airways
- Perth to Singapore: 38,750 Avios one way with Qantas in business
- Perth to Melbourne: 22,000 Avios one way with Qantas in business
You can reference the Qatar Airways Avios partner award chart to figure out the cost of a flight based on the distance:
Summing Up
Considering the low award surcharges, Finnair Plus can offer a good value proposition for those looking to use their points to redeem flights from Asia to Europe for 95,000 Finnair Plus Points. The Finnair Plus partner award chart isn’t so favourable, so in that case, you’d be much better off buying and holding until Finnair Plus switches to Avios early next year.
Buying points speculatively generally isn’t a great idea, but in this case, I can understand why some might be tempted!
You can buy Finnair Plus Points here: https://www.finnairshop.com/en/buy-points
I’m not sure how you made you calculations Immanuel, but I get a price of 1.073 cents per Finnair Plus point and 1.6015 cents per Avios.
It’s still cheap travel though!
Calculations:
400,000 points cost 2575 Euro or AU$4292.
429200 cents/400,000 points = 1.073 c/p
Hi Simon, yep we both have the same calculation, mine just assumes you’d hold out for the Avios conversion in which case your calculation needs to be: 2575 eur/268,000 so roughly around the 1.6cent mark depending on how the EU/AU converts.