14 Best Ways To Redeem Finnair Avios for Maximum Value [2024]

Key Takeaways

• Finnair Plus no longer uses Plus Points and instead uses Avios alongside British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and Qatar Airways.
• Miles can be redeemed for award flights on Finnair and Oneworld partners, along with Braathens Regional Airlines (BRA), Juneyao Air, and LATAM Airlines.
• Some of the best redemptions include economy and business round-trip flights between Finland and European destinations.

Note: Because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Finnair is currently experiencing many restrictions on airspace and may temporarily suspend flights to or from Asia.

Finnair, the flag carrier of Finland, is one of 14 member airlines of the Oneworld alliance and is headquartered in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Operating since 1923, the airline is majority-owned by Finland’s government and is the world’s sixth oldest airline.

Additionally, Finnair has had no fatalities since 1963 and consistently ranks at the top of the global airline safety rankings.

But we’re not here to talk about Finnair’s spotless safety record. We’re here to talk about its frequent flyer program. Finnair used to have its own loyalty currency, Finnair Plus Points, but the airline adopted Avios as its loyalty currency in March 2024. That puts it in good company with British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and Qatar Airways, all of which also use Avios. You can transfer your Avios between Finnair and British Airways and from British Airways to each of the rest of these programs, and there are sometimes good reasons to do so.

The Pros and Cons of Finnair Plus (Quick Overview)

While the previous Finnair Plus program that used Plus Points was pretty terrible, the new Finnair Plus program that uses Avios has a few things going for it.

• You can combine Avios with British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Qatar Airways.
• You can use Avios to upgrade Finnair flights.
• Earn bonus Avios milestone rewards after earning elite Tier Points.
• Add segments within Northern Europe for no additional cost.

On the other hand, there are a few areas where Finnair Plus is weak as a loyalty program:

• Lack of a U.S.-based credit card
• Limited transfer partners from flexible rewards currencies

While the old Finnair Plus program was one to avoid, the new Finnair Plus program with Avios has a few sweet spots that you’ll want to be aware of. If you’ve been crediting your Oneworld flights to Finnair for many years, you may already have a balance of Finnair Avios. In May 2024, the old Finnair Plus Points were converted to Avios at a 3:2 ratio. So a balance of 90,000 Plus Points would now be 60,000 Avios. If you fly to Finland often, you may also find value in earning and redeeming Avios.

Earning Finnair Avios

Finnair does offer a credit card, but it’s only available in Finland. As such, earning Finnair Plus points can be difficult for customers based in the United States. Additionally, Finnair only partners with one flexible rewards program: Capital One Miles.

Capital One miles transfer to Finnair Avios at a 1:1 ratio. Transfer times are instantaneous, so you can transfer right before booking your flights. The minimum transfer amount is 1,000 Capital One miles.

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You can also earn Finnair Avios when flying Finnair. Finnair Plus members earn anywhere from 6-10x Avios per €1 spent, as follows:

• Finnair Plus basic members earn 6 Avios per €1 spent.
• Finnair Plus Silver members earn 7 Avios per €1 spent.
• Finnair Plus Gold members earn 8 Avios per €1 spent.
• Finnair Plus Platinum members earn 9 Avios per €1 spent.
• Finnair Plus Platinum Lumo members earn 10 Avios per €1 spent.

You can also earn Avios by crediting codeshare flights or flights with partner airlines. In those cases, you’ll want to check the earning rates you would get from crediting your flight to your various options. Finnair has a separate earnings chart for each partner, so the amount you earn will vary depending on which partner and what class of service you fly.

Transferring Avios to Finnair

Now that Finnair has adopted Avios as its loyalty currency, it has opened up the ability to transfer and combine Avios between the different frequent flyer programs that use Avios. Currently, there is only a direct transfer between Finnair and British Airways. You can initiate the transfer at either the Finnair or British Airways website. You will want to ensure that your name and identifying information are exactly the same on your British Airways Executive Club and Finnair Plus profiles.

You can not currently transfer your Avios from Finnair directly to Iberia, Aer Lingus, Qatar Airways, or Vueling. However, you can transfer to or from these programs to Finnair through British Airways. For example, if you have Iberia Avios that you want to transfer to Finnair, you can transfer your Avios from Iberia to British Airways and then to Finnair. The same process works in the other direction, as well. If you have Finnair Avios that you want to transfer to Qatar Airways, transfer from Finnair to British Airways first. Then, once the Avios are in your British Airways Executive Club account, you can transfer them to your Qatar Airways Privilege Club account.

Using Your Finnair Avios

Finnair Plus has also revamped its award chart and redemption rates as part of the conversion to using Avios. So, while the old Finnair loyalty program was a bit confusing, the current Finnair Plus program has been streamlined. Remember, Finnair is a member of the Oneworld alliance and also has some non-alliance partners.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can only book certain partners online. For the others, you need to contact Finnair customer support. In the next sections, we’ll go over the partners you can book with online versus over the phone.

Oneworld Alliance Airline Partners

Here are the Oneworld alliance partners that Finnair is affiliated with:

Remember that several additional airlines are affiliate members of the Oneworld alliance. These are primarily regional subsidiaries of Oneworld airlines.

Non-Alliance Airline Partners

In addition to being partners with all Oneworld airlines, Finnair is partners with Braathens Regional Airlines (BRA), Juneyao Air, and LATAM Airlines.

You can also earn and redeem Finnair Avios with these partners as well.

Finnair Plus Award Charts (Finnair Flights Only)

Finnair Plus has a slew of award charts, and here’s where it starts to get confusing.

If you’re flying on Finnair flights only, pay attention to this region-based award chart:

And here are the destinations that Finnair categorized into each zone:

• Zone 1: Bodø, Copenhagen, Gdansk, Gothenburg, Oslo, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn, Trondheim, Vilnius, Visby, Warsaw, and all flights within Finland
• Zone 2: Amsterdam, Bergen, Berlin, Billund, Brussels, Budapest, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Krakow, Ljubljana, London, Manchester, Munich, Prague, Salzburg, Tromsø, Vienna, Wroclaw, Zagreb, Zurich
• Zone 3: Alanya, Alicante, Antalya, Barcelona, Bologna, Chania, Dublin, Dubrovnik, Faro, Geneva, Heraklion, Larnaca, Lisbon, Madrid, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Milan, Naples, Nice, Paris, Reykjavik, Rhodes, Rome, Santorini, Split, Venice, Verona
• Zone 4: Gran Canaria, Eilat, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Madeira, Tel Aviv, Tenerife
• Zone 5: Delhi, Doha, Dubai, Mumbai
• Zone 6: Bangkok, Chicago, Dallas, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Phuket, Miami, New York, Seattle, Seoul, Shanghai
• Zone 7: Los Angeles, Nagoya, Osaka, Singapore, Tokyo

There is also an additional cash surcharge for these bookings, which ranges from €10 to €120 (about $11 to $130). One useful feature of booking a Finnair award flight on Finnair metal is if you are connecting from anywhere in Zone 1.

On most connecting flights, you’ll be charged a separate amount of Avios for each leg of the flight. For example, on a London-Helsinki-Singapore award flight, Avios are charged separately for the London-Helsinki and the Helsinki-Singapore flights.

But when you book a Stockholm-Helsinki-Singapore award flight, you will only be charged Avios for the Helsinki-Singapore flight. The additional flight within Zone 1 is included. This only applies if you are connecting onward — if you only fly between Helsinki and Stockholm, you will be charged the Zone 1 price.

Finnair Plus Award Charts (Partner Flights)

Let’s now move on to the region-based award charts for partner airlines. Like Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Finnair Plus uses a different award chart for each partner, so there are several award charts available. As part of the transformation of the Finnair Plus loyalty program in March 2024, all of the award charts were revamped, bringing them generally in line with the British Airways award charts. So, whereas the previous award charts using Finnair Plus Points were somewhat ludicrous, there are a few sweet spots for partner bookings with the current award charts.

To see the Finnair Plus partner award charts, visit this link and choose your partner airline.

Awards Bookable Online vs. Phone

According to Finnair Plus, you can book award flights only on these airlines online:

• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• Qantas
• Qatar Airways

You’ll need to contact Finnair Plus customer service for any other airlines. You can reach them at 358-3-0087-1161 (Finland), 929-474-6049 (New York), or 323-694-7646 (Los Angeles). Finnair also says that the easiest and fastest way to contact the airline is via chat on the bottom right corner of any page on its website. There is a charge for calling the Finland phone number, and awards booked through customer service may also be charged an additional surcharge in addition to the Avios amount listed on the award chart.

Hot Tip: For expert tips and strategies, see our complete guide on searching for Oneworld award availability.

Award Redemption Rules

There are a bunch of award redemption rules unique to each award type. For Finnair-only award travel (known as Classic awards), here are the rules Finnair has indicated:

• Return flights must share the same departure and return city. One-way flights are exempt. For example, JFK-HEL-JFK is valid, whereas JFK-HEL-ORD is not.
• Connections for award flights are always booked for the first possible flight. No stopovers are permitted for short-haul, and 1 stopover is allowed on long-haul flights. This means that you’ll have the tightest connections available. 
• The Avios costs in the award chart only apply when you purchase online. If you purchase your Finnair Classic award flights through customer service, there is an extra charge of 500 Avios for one-way flights and 1,000 Avios for return flights.
• The outgoing and return flights of a round-trip award ticket may not be on the same day.
• Customers can make changes with certain restrictions for award flights. The change and refund fees are both $50. 
• If the customer travels in multiple travel classes during an award journey, the cost of that award is calculated based on the highest travel class.
• Double-booked awards will be dropped and canceled.

Unfortunately, this makes for a relatively dull set of rules for Finnair-based travel. The next set of routing rules from Finnair that we’ll be discussing is for partner award flights:

• An award may be combined with a Finnair flight.
• For round-trip flights, the origin and destination airports must be identical. This doesn’t apply to one-way flights.
• There are no stopovers, except 1 stopover permitted on intercontinental flights.
• The outgoing and return flights may not be on the same day.
• The change and refund fees are both $50. 
• You may not change your ticket once the journey has started.
• Your award ticket will be ticketed within 1 day of reserving it.
• If the customer travels in multiple travel classes during an award journey, the cost of that award is calculated based on the highest travel class. In other words, mixed cabin awards will be charged according to the rate corresponding with the highest travel class booked.
• Double-booked awards will be canceled.

The partner award routing rules are nearly identical to Finnair’s Classic awards, which is unsurprising.

The 14 Best Ways To Use Your Finnair Plus Points

There are quite a few ways to extract significant value from your points. Let’s get started with the best ways to use Finnair Avios points.

1. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and Northern Europe in Economy (13,000 Avios)

If you find yourself in Finland and want to spend as few points as possible on an ordinarily expensive economy cash ticket, Finnair Plus can help you out.

Round-trip costs from Helsinki to see the northern lights can be pretty expensive, considering how Norway is one of the most expensive countries on Earth. So, using a small handful of Finnair Avios can significantly soften the blow.

Here’s the route we’re talking about, which costs 6,500 Finnair Avios one-way when booked online:

•  Helsinki (HEL) – Bodø (BOO)

If you wanted to fly on a different route, you could pay the same price to fly to any of these additional cities:

2. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and Northern Europe in Business Class (20,000 Avios)

Let’s say you still want to fly within Northern Europe, but you’d prefer business class instead of economy. The value you’ll get here is minimal due to the lack of quality business class seats on intra-Europe flights.

However, if you want to be a bit more comfortable when flying within the Northern Europe region, you can choose to fly in business class. Here’s a great route you can take:

• Warsaw (WAW) – Helsinki (HEL)

The business class seats are nothing to be astonished by. Generally, intra-Europe business class simply consists of a blocked middle seat. But still, it can make your flight slightly more comfortable. One-way costs are 10,000 Finnair Avios.

3. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and Europe in Economy Class (30,000 Avios)

Let’s move on to another region. Finnair breaks down Europe (and near-Europe) destinations into 4 different regions:

• Northern Europe (which we covered above)
• Central Europe
• Western and Southern Europe
• Canary Islands, Madeira, Eilat and Tel Aviv

Many of Finnair’s routes are cash-intensive, and using Finnair Avios can help soften the blow on your wallet.

If you’re interested in flying within Europe, you can do so with these great sample routes:

• Madeira (FNC) – Helsinki (HEL)
• Helsinki (HEL) – Tel Aviv (TLV)

If booked online, round-trip tickets cost 30,000 Avios. Round-trip flights to Central Europe cost 24,000 Avios, and round-trip flights to Western and Southern Europe cost 26,000 Avios.

In addition to these ordinarily expensive routes, you can fly nonstop to or from Helsinki and:

Finnair flies to many other European destinations, and these examples are intended to illustrate some expensive cash destinations.

4. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and Dubai in Business Class (110,000 Avios)

If you wanted to fly within Europe in business class, you could do so on a medium-haul route of around 6 hours in Finnair business class. Round-trip costs will be 110,000 Finnair Avios.

If you’re lucky, you can get an exciting, lie-flat business class seat on the carrier’s Airbus A350! On top of that, enjoy better service, food, and lounge access.

• Helsinki (HEL) – Dubai (DXB)

5. Fly Round-Trip in Finnair’s Lie-Flat A350 Business Class Seats to London (36,000 Avios)

Until now, we haven’t discussed any special flight products from Finnair, and it’s for good reason. The seats on intra-Europe flights are somewhat depressing:Business class seats are the same as economy seats, but the middle seat is blocked off.

That means that instead of 3 travelers on each side, only a window and aisle seat are occupied, and the middle seat is left empty. However, Finnair has excellent hard products on its Airbus A350s and A330s, and this next redemption is focused on a short-haul flight that offers lie-flat business class in a reverse-herringbone configuration.

If you want to try this on a short-haul flight, look no further than a route to London.

• Helsinki (HEL) – London-Heathrow (LHR) only on AY flight 1331 or AY flight 1337

Finnair currently runs 4 daily flights between Helsinki and London, 2 of which are operated by a wide-body aircraft. This flight can be booked for 36,000 Avios points round-trip, and we feel it’s worth spending the points for a new experience on a great business class product.

6. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and Asia in Economy Class (60,000 Avios)

Now, let’s get into the long-haul destinations. Finnair operates nonstop flights to major cities across Asia, including:

It’s best to use your Finnair Plus points on economy tickets that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive, such as to these destinations:

• Helsinki (HEL) – Osaka (KIX)
• Phuket (HKT) – Helsinki (HEL)

The cash price of these tickets can cost $2,000 or over round-trip, so spending 60,000 Avios can net you a value of 2 to 3 cents per point, which is staggeringly good for economy tickets.

7. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and Asia in Business Class (125,000 Avios)

If you want to fly from Finland to Asia or vice versa, you can do so in business class for 125,000 Avios points round-trip. In this case, it’s important to get the best business class product on the carrier’s Airbus A350s or Airbus A330s.

Here are some 10-hour and longer flights that you might be interested in trying:

• Helsinki (HEL) – Seoul Incheon (ICN)
• Tokyo Narita (NRT) – Helsinki (HEL)

8. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and North America in Economy Class (60,000 Avios)

Flying between the U.S. and Finland is identical in price to flying to Asia, which is great and not the norm in the industry, which typically sees flights from North America to Europe priced slightly higher than those between Asia and Europe.

Here are some of the routes you can take:

• Chicago (ORD) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330
• New York (JFK) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330
• Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• Seattle (SEA) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330

Bottom Line: Economy tickets can be pretty expensive, particularly from the West Coast, so using 60,000 Avios for a round-trip ticket will save you a bundle of cash.

9. Fly Round-Trip Between Finland and North America in Business Class (125,000 Avios)

Finnair’s flights to North America are primarily operated by the Airbus A330 and A350, the latter of which is the newest addition to the airline’s fleet. Both aircraft have great business class products that we’d be happy to spend several hours in.

• Chicago (ORD) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• Miami (MIA) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• New York (JFK) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350

10. Upgrade Deeply Discounted Finnair Tickets Between Finland and North America or Asia (40,000 Avios)

Another redemption you can make is not an award redemption but an upgrade. Finnair doesn’t have a minimum fare class required to upgrade, so if you find yourself booking a super cheap economy ticket, you can upgrade your flight for a somewhat reasonable price.

Here’s the upgrade chart for upgrading economy flights to business class. Remember, these upgrade costs are for one-way flights:

The cheapest round-trip economy tickets to or from North America and Asia can run as little as $500. If you get your hands on those and find upgrade space on Finnair, you can pay 40,000 Finnair Avios to upgrade each segment.

Considering that one-way business class tickets cost around $4,000 or more, upgrading your tickets could provide significant value.

11. Upgrade Deeply Discounted Finnair Tickets to Tel Aviv and Try Finnair’s Sauna on a Long Layover in Helsinki (11,000 Avios)

An extension of upgrading deeply discounted tickets is doing so to enhance your lounge experience. Just because an airline offers mediocre hard products (intra-Europe business class) doesn’t mean it can’t be valuable to travelers.

For example, Finnair is one of the only airlines in the world to offer a sauna in its business class lounge at Helsinki (HEL). If you had a super cheap economy ticket within Europe (not Northern Europe), why not upgrade for 11,000 Finnair Avios and spend a long layover in the lounge?

12. Transcontinental Flights Within the United States (11,000 Avios)

While up to this point, we’ve been talking about using Finnair Avios for flights on Finnair metal itself, the last 3 sweet spots in our list involve using Finnair Avios on partner flights. In many cases, the award cost for using Finnair Avios is similar or equal to the cost of using British Airways Avios, so there isn’t a benefit to using one versus the other. However, in some instances, being aware of and using Finnair Avios can save you significant miles.

The first partner sweet spot on our list is using Finnair Avios on American Airlines or Alaska Airlines within the continental United States. Finnair’s region-based award chart has flights within the continental United States at 11,000 Avios. While using British Airways Avios will be less on shorter flights (8,250 Avios for flights under 650 flown miles), Finnair Avios can be a good deal for longer flights. You’ll still get the same 11,000 Avios cost on longer flights with Finnair, while British Airways will charge up to 16,000 Avios for these longer flights.

13. Flights From the East Coast to Hawaii (15,000 Avios)

Similarly, you can find deals flying from the continental United States to and from Hawaii using Finnair Avios. It’s 13,500 Avios when flying on Alaska Airlines (usually only from Alaska or the West Coast) or 15,000 Finnair Avios when flying on partner American Airlines. Because Finnair uses a region-based award chart, you can fly from the U.S. East Coast on American Airlines (even with a connection) for only 15,000 Finnair Avios.

14. Cathay Pacific Flights to the United States in Business Class (75,000 Avios)

While premium cabin award space to the United States on Cathay Pacific can be hard to come by, if you find it, using Finnair Avios can be an excellent way to pay for it. Finnair charges 75,000 Avios for a one-way business class redemption between Asia and North America. Because of the difference between Finnair’s region-based award chart and the distance-based chart of British Airways, this can be incredibly lucrative for flights to the East Coast of the United States, such as:

• New York (JFK) – Hong Kong (HKG)

It costs 75,000 Finnair Avios to fly this route in business class as compared to 108,250 Avios if you booked this flight with British Airways Avios. And remember that you can freely and easily transfer your British Airways Avios to Finnair to make this booking.

Final Thoughts

The March 2024 changes to the Finnair Plus program made it a frequent flyer program with much more utility and value. While there is some overlap between the redemption rates using Finnair Avios as compared to British Airways, Finnair’s region-based award chart opens up opportunities to get additional value.

And since moving your Finnair Avios to or from British Airways (and then on to Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, or Qatar) is convenient, you’ll want to be aware of the differences. That way, you can use your Avios in the most effective way possible, whether that’s a simple regional award ticket, a premium cabin trip, or an upgrade on a deeply discounted economy fare.