AY points sale with status

[Captain Halliday]

Interesting Points Sale from Finnair that would allow you to buy Oneworld Sapphire (QF Gold) and with their option to swap points for Tier points, you could in there buy Emerald QF Plat).

If my maths is correct for around AU4,000 you could buy:
OW Sapphire and enough points for 1xAU-EUR return in J, plus four domestic J sectors:
or
OW Emerald and enough points for 4x domestic J return trips.

 

[Mattg]

Buy, transfer or exchange Avios

Through your membership account, you can easily buy Avios, transfer Avios to someone else or exchange Avios for tier points.

www.finnair.com

Interesting. You need 80,000 tier points to get to Finnair Plus Gold (Oneworld Sapphire). By my maths, this means buying at least 178,000 points (which means getting an additional 142,400 points for free with the 80% bonus), bringing the total award points received to 320,400 and the tier points received to 80,100 (25% of the award points).

As far as I can tell, the cost for this amount of points would be €2,292 (~AUD3616) and you'd also have more than enough Finnair Plus points to redeem for 5x return Qantas Business class flights anywhere within Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and PNG. So potentially a cost of AUD362 + taxes for each J flight, which you could even redeem on routes like PER-BNE-NOU or DRW-BNE-AKL.

It's even slightly better value if you buy 200,000 points (with the 100% bonus) - that gets you enough points 6x return QF J trips and a one-way within the same region, bringing the cost to ~AUD312 + taxes per J flight.

What am I missing?

 

[Captain Halliday]

Buy, transfer or exchange Avios

Through your membership account, you can easily buy Avios, transfer Avios to someone else or exchange Avios for tier points.

www.finnair.com

Interesting. You need 80,000 tier points to get to Finnair Plus Gold (Oneworld Sapphire). By my maths, this means buying at least 178,000 points (which means getting an additional 142,400 points for free with the 80% bonus), bringing the total award points received to 320,400 and the tier points received to 80,100 (25% of the award points).

As far as I can tell, the cost for this amount of points would be €2,292 (~AUD3616) and you'd also have more than enough Finnair Plus points to redeem for 5x return Qantas Business class flights anywhere within Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and PNG. So potentially a cost of AUD362 + taxes for each J flight, which includes routes like PER-BNE or DRW-BNE-NOU.

What am I missing?

My numbers were based on buying the maximum 200k points with the 100% bonus. However, this may not be the sweet spot.

@Mattg Are you asking about the step to get OW Emerald? If so, there is an option to transfer points for Tier points. Details are further down the link I posted.

Doing this gets to the highest status level without taking a single flight, but naturally reduces the points available for redemption.

 

[Mattg]

My numbers were based on buying the maximum 200k points with the 100% bonus. However, this may not be the sweet spot.

@Mattg Are you asking about the step to get OW Emerald? If so, there is an option to transfer points for Tier points. Details are further down the link I posted.

Doing this gets to the highest status level without taking a single flight, but naturally reduces the points available for redemption.

Also an interesting option.

This is not a promo I will personally take advantage of (I already have status with all 3 alliances and don't need Oneworld Emerald at this point) but if you don't have any Oneworld status, it's a good offer considering you also get a heap of points that are redeemable for QF/Oneworld flights.

 

[Captain Halliday]

I have OW status so don’t need it either.

But posted for those who do.

There is no other way I’m aware of to get OW Emerald for <AUD4k. And this method doesn’t even require you to go flying.

An excellent option for some.

 

[Guvner]

Works out at AUD$4201 (VISA card conversion + fees ) for the full 200k + 200k points (400k) + 100k Tier points.
That initially gets OW Sapphire for you.
Take 150k of the 400k points and convert at 3:1 to 50k Tier points ($AUD27 online transaction fees).
Add that to the 100k Tier points for a total of 150k Tier points. That gets OW Emerald for you and OW Sapphire to gift.

In summary (from what I can ascertain) for the full 200k purchase you receive:

• 1 x OneWorld Emerald (QF Plat) until Dec 2023 with a soft landing to OneWorld Sapphire (QF Gold) until Dec 2024
• 1 x Sapphire to gift until Dec 2022
• 250k points for awards on OneWorld airlines (you could take 4 x QF MEL>CNS return in Business [total 240k AY points] which has a revenue equivalent of approx. $10k at today's fares)
• 4 (Intra Europe) short haul upgrade vouchers for the initial Sapphire status
• 4 short haul and 2 long haul (Inter Continental) upgrade vouchers in 2022 and again in 2023 for the Emerald status
• 4 short haul upgrade vouchers in 2022 and again in 2023 for the gifted Sapphire

So 20 x SH vouchers and 4 x LH vouchers
4 x SH vouchers can be exchanged for a 2for1 award flight . i.e. half points return award flight.

The status tracking period starts the day you join and lasts for 12 months, plus you get an additional 12 months of any new status gained in that period.
So if you join today (Dec 2021), you'll start at "Basic" which lasts until Dec 2022, however if you then "upgrade" your status, you will get an additional 12 months of the new status (Dec 2023).
The trick here is that the new status benefits kick in straight away, effectively giving you 24 months before being "soft landed" down a level until Dec 2024.

There's a lot to like if you are not a high status flier (like me, over 1M QF points and Bronze) and intend to do some travel over the next 2-3 years.


QF redemption table (Note: These are for return, 2 x One way is more expensive)

 

[Mattg]

Just thought I'd have a look at the options for redeeming Finnair Plus points on Qantas flights.

There's reasonable availability, but does anyone know why the taxes on a one-way SYD-PER booking are over $100?



On CBR-SYD it's even worse:

 

[Austman]

Take 150k of the 400k points and convert at 3:1 to 50k Tier points ($AUD17).
Add that to the 100k Tier points for a total of 150k Tier points. That gets OW Emerald for you and OW Sapphire to gift.

Can you convert so many? The gap from Gold (80,000) to Platinum (150,000) is 70,000 so you can only "acquire" 35,000?

You can exchange points in batches of 5,000 tier points, but can acquire no more than half the tier points you need to maintain or advance your tier membership. For example, you need 30,000 tier points to be a Finnair Plus Silver member and you can acquire a maximum of 15,000 of these tier points by points exchange.

Exchange Avios to tier points

If you need some extra tier points to stay in your current Finnair Plus membership tier or if you want to move up to the next tier, you can exchange 3 Avios for

www.finnairshop.com

 

[MEL_Traveller]

If I am an existing member - signed up but never used the account - how long do I get status for? Is it only new members that get the 2 years + soft landing? Or does everyone get two years + soft? My membership year ends in Nov 22, currently lowest tier... what would this promo mean for me?

Edit: thinks I've answered my own question... I'm lucky my membership year is Nov... I would get the status for the rest of this year PLUS the year after. Same same as QF.

 

[Guvner]

Can you convert so many? The gap from Gold (80,000) to Platinum (150,000) is 70,000 so you can only "aquire" 35,000?

Exchange Avios to tier points

If you need some extra tier points to stay in your current Finnair Plus membership tier or if you want to move up to the next tier, you can exchange 3 Avios for

www.finnairshop.com

Yes, you need 150,000 for Plat. You have 100k, you acquire 50k.
50/150 meets the rule.
I agree it's a bit unclear, but it works.

Just did it: xmas present to self.




Some on FT are saying that the Gold Gift gets another 12 mths in Dec 2022 as well (as does the Plat).

 

[Mattg]

Nice one @Guvner.

Now that you have some award points in your account, I'd be fascinated to know the breakdown of the fees/taxes on a QF domestic award if you're able to find this?

 

[Guvner]

I’ll have a look tomorrow Matt.

 

[Austman]

I agree it's a bit unclear, but it works.

Nice. So for Platinum (150,000) you can "acquire" up to 75,000 - which is half of the tier level, not half of the difference between tiers.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Am I missing something with AY's availability tool? I have zero points which may be limiting results? But for example, pick JFK-LHR on 5 April and AY's engine returns limited results, and only in coach. AA/AS/QF all return bucket loads of BA/AA/IB flights.

 

[Guvner]

Nice one @Guvner.

Now that you have some award points in your account, I'd be fascinated to know the breakdown of the fees/taxes on a QF domestic award if you're able to find this?

Sample return QF domestic itinerary.



Revenue (QF)



Award (QF) 83,000 pts +



Award (AY) 60,000 points +

 

[Guvner]

Just thought I'd have a look at the options for redeeming Finnair Plus points on Qantas flights.

There's reasonable availability, but does anyone know why the taxes on a one-way SYD-PER booking are over $100?



On CBR-SYD it's even worse:

View attachment 267373

Sample return



AY Awards



QF Awards




Seems to consistently be ~ $100 more.

 

[Guvner]

SYD - PER - SYD (QF Business)

QF award 83k points +


AY Award 60k points +

 

[Mattg]

Thanks @Guvner. So Finnair seems to be adding its own "Carrier-Imposed fee" of $35 per round-trip and calculating GST incorrectly? Like, how are they calculating GST of $73.81 on an award with taxes of $187.17 (including GST)?

I guess the GST wouldn't apply on international awards, but then the taxes would be higher anyway.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks @Guvner. So Finnair seems to be adding its own "Carrier-Imposed fee" of $35 per round-trip and calculating GST incorrectly? Like, how are they calculating GST of $73.81 on an award with taxes of $187.17 (including GST)?

I guess the GST wouldn't apply on international awards, but then the taxes would be higher anyway.

Was doing some research into this on FT - they say calling Finnair gets the GST waived on flights where it isn't supposed to be applied.

 

[Guvner]

Sample QF Business International





QF Award 136,800 pts +



QF Revenue




AY Award 220k points +


so, yes. $35 added per round trip.