Finnair Plus Selling Points At A Discount

The Finnair Plus program has just launched its latest promotion on purchased points. This is definitely more of a niche deal than some other opportunities to buy points, but it’s still worth being aware of.

Buy Finnair Plus points for up to 35% off

Finnair Plus is offering a promotion when you buy points by Wednesday, September 16, 2020. Finnair Plus is offering a discount on purchased points, with the discount varying based on your status. Specifically:

• Finnair Plus non-elite members receive a 25% discount
• Finnair Plus Silver members receive a 30% discount
• Finnair Plus Gold, Platinum, and Platinum Lumo members receive a 35% discount

Ordinarily Finnair charges as little as 1.2875 cents (in EUR) per purchased point, meaning with this discount you’re paying ~0.96 cents (in EUR) per purchased point as a non-elite member, or as little as ~0.84 cents (in EUR) per purchased point as an elite member.

There are a few important terms to be aware of:

• The discount applies as long as you purchase at least 5,000 points in one transaction
• You can purchase up to 150,000 points per Finnair Plus account per calendar year
• Points purchases are processed by points.com, so wouldn’t count as airfare for the purposes of credit card spending; therefore I’d recommend using a card on which you’re trying to reach minimum spending, or otherwise, a credit card that maximizes your return on everyday spending

Finnair is selling points for up to 35% off

Is buying Finnair Plus points worth it?

Even as a non-elite member, Finnair Plus is selling points for around ~1.1 cents (in USD) each. That’s a low price, but how valuable are Finnair Plus points? Finnair Plus is definitely more of a niche program, so while there are situations where you can get good value, that’s not the case across the board.

Finnair Plus points can be used for upgrades from economy to business class, which is arguably one of the better uses of the points, given the limited fare class restrictions. The cost of upgrades ranges from 7,500 points to 50,000 points one-way, depending on how far you’re flying.

If you’re in a situation where you have a paid economy ticket on Finnair, buying points in order to upgrade could be a good value.

Upgrade Finnair flights starting at 7,500 points

If you want to outright redeem for an award ticket on Finnair, the Finnair Plus program has some steep award pricing. For example, a one-way long haul business class award costs 97,000 points.

That’s not terrible, but also not great.

Redeem points for Finnair’s A350 business class

You can also redeem for partner airline flights, including on other oneworld airlines, though in general that’s not going to be a great value. Finnair has different award charts for different partners.

Just to give some examples, here’s the one-way award chart for travel on American Airlines:

Then here’s the one-way award chart for travel on Cathay Pacific:

If you ask me, there’s not a whole lot to get excited about here for partner award redemptions. 27,000 points for a domestic one-way economy award on American, or 180,000 points for a US to Asia one-way first class award on Cathay Pacific, aren’t exactly great deals.

In almost all cases you’d be better off buying miles through Alaska Mileage Plan or American AAdvantage at a discount.

Finnair Plus partner redemptions aren’t a great deal

Bottom line

Finnair Plus is offering a discount on purchased points for the next few weeks. Finnair offers a promotion on purchased points a few times per year, and the good news is that the per-point cost is quite low through these promotions.

However, Finnair Plus is definitely a program with limited global appeal. There’s value in using Finnair points to upgrade, and even in some cases value in using Finnair points for award flights on Finnair.

However, for partner airline award flights, there are almost no cases where Finnair Plus is the best option.

Does anyone plan on taking advantage of this discount on Finnair Plus points?