Finnair resumes flights to Osaka and adds more Tokyo services, bookable with Avios

Finnair has announced plans to boost its flights to Japan, albeit with longer flight times than pre-covid due to the need to avoid Russian airspace.

If you have been struggling to find Avios availability on British Airways to Japan next year, you may want to see if you can find seats on Finnair – albeit you can’t use an American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher or a Barclays Upgrade Voucher.

Osaka

There will be three flights per week to Osaka starting on 26th March.

Flights will use an A350 and depart Helsinki on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Tokyo Narita

As well as its existing daily flight to Tokyo Haneda – where landing slots are restricted – Finnair is adding four weekly flights to Tokyo Narita for Summer 2023.

Services to Narita will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, starting on 27th March. It has already been tentatively restarting Narita with two weekly flights this Winter.

Other routes

Hong Kong and Delhi are being expanded to daily from late March.

Services are timed to allow sensibly timed connections to the Finnair flights from Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Our review of the innovative new ‘no recline’ Finnair business class seat is here. I also took a look at the new Finnair Premium Economy seat here.

Our guide to earning Finnair Plus points from UK credit cards is here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2023)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.