Strategically buying points for premium travel can be a great value. Finnair Plus has just launched its newest promotion on purchased Avios, offering up to a 70% bonus. This is the first such offer we’ve seen from the program since Finnair Plus adopted Avios as its rewards currency.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased Finnair Plus Avios
Through Sunday, April 7, 2024, Finnair Plus is offering up to a 70% bonus on purchased Avios. The promotion is tiered, as follows:
- Buy 5,000-49,000 Avios, get a 30% bonus
- Buy 50,000-99,000 Avios, get a 50% bonus
- Buy 100,000-200,000 Avios, get a 70% bonus
Then between Monday, April 8, 2024, and Wednesday, April 17, 2024, Finnair Plus will offer a less generous version of this offer:
- Buy 5,000-49,000 Avios, get a 30% bonus
- Buy 50,000-200,000 Avios, get a 50% bonus
Ordinarily Finnair charges 2.1 cents (in EUR) per purchased Avios. If you purchased 200,000 Avios through this promotion pre-bonus, you’d receive a total of 340,000 Avios at a cost of 4,200 EUR (~$4,550), which is a rate of 1.34 cents (in USD) per Avios.
Which credit card should you buy Finnair Plus Avios with?
Finnair Plus Avios purchases are processed by points.com, meaning they don’t count as an airfare purchase 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.
In this case the best option is the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review) (Rates & Fees) or Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review) (Rates & Fees), which offer 2x miles and have no foreign transaction fees.
Personally I consider the Capital One Venture X to offer a 3.4% return on spending. So if you want to do the math differently, that lowers the real cost per purchased Avios even further.
Is buying Finnair Plus Avios worth it?
With Finnair Plus having adopted Avios as its rewards currency, the program has completely overhauled award pricing. So, what can you expect to pay nowadays?
Below you can find the one-way Finnair Plus award redemptions rates for travel on Finnair.
Awards also have surcharges, though they’re at least mild. If you have a connecting itinerary, you’ll only be charged the surcharge correlated to the most expensive segment flown.
When your award booking includes a connecting flight, Avios are charged separately for each flight, except for flights within Finland and Northern Europe; for example, a Frankfurt to Helsinki to New York business class award would cost you 82,500 Avios (20,000 Avios plus 62,500 Avios).
Finnair Plus also allows redemptions on partner airlines, though the pricing isn’t particularly attractive, for the most part. There are different redemption rates on each partner. For example, below is the Finnair Plus one-way redemption chart on Alaska Airlines.
Below is the one-way Finnair Plus redemption chart on American Airlines.
Soon it should also be possible to transfer Avios between the various “flavors,” though that functionality isn’t live yet. However, eventually you’ll be able to convert these rewards at a 1:1 ratio to Aer Lingus AerClub, British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus, etc.
Bottom line
Finnair Plus has launched a promotion on purchased Avios, which is the first offer we’ve seen from the program since it adopted Avios as its rewards currency. With this offer, you can buy Avios with up to a 70% bonus, which is an opportunity to acquire them for as little as 1.34 cents each (in USD).
This could be worth it if you have an immediate use in mind for Finnair Plus Avios. However, this isn’t some amazing price at which I’d speculatively pick up these rewards.
Does anyone plan on taking advantage of this promo on Finnair Plus Avios?
Ben, isn’t this the cheapest Avios promotion we’ve had for over a year now? BA and Qatar’s best Avios deals still worked out to be >1.5 cents per Avios.
I think this is a great deal. Are we sure we can link our Executive Club and transfer the Avios when they enable the feature ?
I have planned a trip to Finnland next year (Frankfurt - Helsinki - Ivalo/ Northern Finland)) and really am thinking about purchasing the avios points during this week. Need to compare and calculate a bit before….
The decision to speculatively purchase points before their conversion to Avios turned out quite nice, I managed to get 133k Avios for 1.03cpp.
Yes, the new program has some interesting spots. As mentioned, the CX chart is pretty good, and they do have availability online (though finding anything in Business is tough). I did see one CX ticket from LAX to HKG that was properly priced to the chart when poking around a couple weeks ago.
The other spots on the chart that are really good are ones where you have to call and book. The Royal Air...
Yes, the new program has some interesting spots. As mentioned, the CX chart is pretty good, and they do have availability online (though finding anything in Business is tough). I did see one CX ticket from LAX to HKG that was properly priced to the chart when poking around a couple weeks ago.
The other spots on the chart that are really good are ones where you have to call and book. The Royal Air Maroc chart has good rates from NA to CMN (better than AA). The Alaska and American charts are also pretty solid for longer haul economy routes. However, it is unclear if the partner charts are fully zone or if they are by segment. Someone will have to call and try to book an AA flight with connections. If it works, this becomes probably the best Oneworld program for AA domestic flights with a connection or anything over about 1200 miles each way.
But those are pretty much the use cases: Finnair, Cathay, Royal Air Maroc, AA domestic economy, and AS domestic economy.
Very interesting that AY has such a diverse award chart. I wonder if anything will change when it becomes compatible w/ QR and BA Avios.
For example, 62.5k Avios for NA to HEL is a very good deal, but then I see QR business class is 130k one way from NA? Seems like you'd never do that and instead transfer 70k Avios to QR and book that way. The AA/CX chart is actually quite good though?