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Buy up to 266,666 Avios for 0.83p each – if you are willing to take a little risk

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If you are looking to top up your Avios balance and are willing to take a small risk, there is a very interesting opportunity available until 18th September.

Oddly, the thing you will be doing is buying Finnair Plus Points.

You can, indirectly, buy up to 266,666 Avios for 0.83p this way.

Buy up to 400,000 Avios for 0.83p via Finnair Plus

Finnair is joining Avios in ‘early 2024’

As we covered in detail in this article, so I won’t repeat everything, Finnair is switching from Finnair Plus Points to Avios in ‘early 2024’.

It has already been confirmed that the conversion rate from Finnair Plus Points to Avios will be 3:2 and that you will be able to move Avios from Finnair into other Avios programmes such as British Airways Executive Club.

Finnair is offering a 100% bonus when you buy Plus Points

Until 18th September, Finnair is running a bonus when you buy Plus Points.

The bonus is staggered and looks like this:

  • 5,000 to 19,000 Finnair Plus Points – 40% bonus
  • 20,000 to 49,000 Finnair Plus Points – 60% bonus
  • 50,000 to 99,000 Finnair Plus Points – 80% bonus
  • 100,000 to 200,000 Finnair Plus Points – 100% bonus

At the top end, you can buy 400,000 Finnair Plus Points (200,000 base + 200,000 bonus) for a total of €2,575.

Assuming you pay with a 0% FX fees credit card, the cost would be £2,201. This is 0.55p per Finnair Plus Point.

Buy up to 400,000 Avios for 0.83p via Finnair

What does this mean in terms of Avios price?

Remember that Finnair Plus Points will convert to Avios at 3:2 ‘early in 2024’.

This means that you would have paid £2,201 for 266,666 Avios.

This is 0.83p per Avios.

0.83p is exceptionally good value, and as cheap as you will ever see. You should be getting well over 1p per Avios of value if you are redeeming for premium cabin flights, especially if you are using a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 companion voucher.

To put this in context, the cheapest Avios Subscription price is now 0.99p per Avios. This is based on paying £1,989 for 200,000 Avios, dropped into your account at 16,667 per month. Buying via Finnair is 16% cheaper and you should get them faster.

What are the risks of doing this?

This is clearly NOT a risk free deal.

We don’t normally recommend that you stockpile Avios that you don’t intend to use in the next few months. You can’t get your money back if there is a major Avios devaluation before you can use them.

There are extra risks with the Finnair deal:

  • you won’t get your Avios until ‘early 2024’ – although, of course, you can redeem them at any time via Finnair Plus for flights on BA and oneworld alliance airlines (at ‘not great’ rates) if you had to
  • Finnair may backtrack on its decision to join Avios
  • Finnair may change the announced ‘3 for 2’ conversion rate of Finnair Plus Points to Avios
  • your Finnair Plus Points could expire if the deal was substantially delayed, although any earn or burn activity every 18 months will keep them alive

To be honest, I’m not too worried about the final three points above. Even though Finnair’s CEO has just resigned – and the new person could potentially hate the idea and try to stop it – I suspect contracts are signed and the IT integration is progressing.

The real risk is that changes occur to the Avios programme in the months before you can get your hands on the Avios. However, oddly, if Avios did devalue hugely then you might appreciate having a pile of Finnair Plus points which you could use to book BA or other oneworld redemptions.

It’s up to you, of course.

The page to buy Finnair Plus Points is here. The offer runs to 18th September.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

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.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Category

British Airways and Avios, Finnair and Finnair Plus

Comments (100)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    6 Sep6 September 04:30

    I thought this might be a good deal but as I didn’t have a Finnair account I didn’t know the exact rate they’re charging. It’s a good price to buy the points and I agree the risk is low as they’ve announced the transfer rate already.

    Something I discovered recently is it’s possible to double dip with Nectar and Avios on Sainsbury’s collection and delivery if you click through via the BA online portal. As I don’t live here anymore it’s took me a while to try it out but for a £61 shop I got 184 Avios through the BA portal, plus the usual 61 Nectar points plus the bonus ones from the app (which can be quite generous when you have not shopped with them for a while).

    I don’t know if this works if you do it every time, so maybe try it when you have a big shop planned. I’ve not had it work when I’ve edited the order so it’s best to get your order correct and complete in one go.

    • BBbetter says:
      6 Sep6 September 07:29

      Roughly £2.1 in value back on a £61 order. Compared to paying £50 at Aldi / Lidl.

      • Matt says:
        6 Sep6 September 07:56

        Not really comparable as the discussion was about clicking through the online portal for online food shop. Aldi/Lidl don’t do home deliveries so not comparable to Sainsburys.

      • Qrfan says:
        6 Sep6 September 08:05

        I’ll happily pay £10 to avoid the 1hr+ round trip to Aldi and physically doing the shopping. I don’t work for £10 per hour. It’s why I pay Sainsbury’s £1 to do it for me.

      • Jonathan says:
        6 Sep6 September 09:01

        The supermarket industry is a very complex and for some, difficult to understand.
        Either way comparing Sainsbury’s to Aldi & Lidl is not fair at all, Aldi & Lidl will nearly always win hands down on price, but clearly the likes of Sainsbury’s invest more in their store presentation, quality of what’s on offer, and sustainability in many areas of their business. Of course Aldi & Lidl do this as well, but nowhere near as much interest goes into it

  • cin4 says:
    6 Sep6 September 05:30

    I realise it’s not really practical, but if I had the chance I’d sell my large balance of Avios for 0.83p each all day long.

  • Erico1875 says:
    6 Sep6 September 06:05

    Nigel, fortune favours the brave.
    If I had a spare €2K cash sitting earning typically 5% i would be right on this.

  • Corpt says:
    6 Sep6 September 06:11

    I’m trying to find somewhere where it confirms that the quoted 3:2 transfer rate definitely means 3 Avios to 2 Finnair, rather than the other way round? The latter would become very expensive.

  • says:
    6 Sep6 September 06:52

    Brilliant heads up – thank you! May I ask two questions please?

    What price per avios could I get – inclusive of FX fees – if I used my AmEX Black card to pay?

    I subscribe to the BA sub deal for 0.89p per Avios. Will it go up to 0.99p (the new rate) once my new sub year begins, or am I locked into 0.89p as that is what I agreed to when I joined the scheme?

    • Nancy says:
      6 Sep6 September 09:59

      To your first question: Use a calculator

      To your second question: Read the T&Cs

    • yorkieflyer says:
      6 Sep6 September 10:08

      some folk believe that its locked at .89p on an inspection of the T&C’s so presumably they think that this would be forever? I presume that the subscription would renew at the new rate which is why I’ve cancelled the renewal. I may be wrong but I doubt it

    • says:
      6 Sep6 September 12:03

      Nancy – Thanks for challenging me to use a calculator! I realised that I don’t know the AmEx FX conversion rate. I therefore cheated and asked the agent to tell me how may pounds I get for EUR 2,575, and he said £2,276, based on today’s 1.165 rate. So, 0.85p per Avios. But wait, I come back here and Little Nick done it for me!

      LittleNick – Excellent points, thanks! If I use my AmEX card that £2,276 counts towards my £10K spend, so it helps as I’ve still got another £4K to spend on my BAPP too, in addition to a few K on my AmEx! Motivation is based reaching card targets to get vouchers. Looked at from total number of avios bought – it’s only 0.85p — not 1.94P but I would never have thought of your point on my my own!!! So, thanks! In this context, what do you reckon?

      Yorkieflyer – You’re so right. I’m going to cancel my BA sub and cancel yesterday’s Balance Boost!

  • Gordon says:
    6 Sep6 September 07:14

    I used my 100,000 Avios I finally received in July from the Barclays promotion to buy via the Avios booster for 0.84p plus 30k bonus = 330,000. before anyone reminds me of the risks, which I am well aware of, they won’t be sitting there for long, they will be put to good use….

  • BJ says:
    6 Sep6 September 07:16

    For those that cannot live with a little risk on this Finnair gameplay but can live with a little faff there’s always the option to buy 100,000 avios per household account per year via Sainsbury’s and Nectar. You can ‘buy’ 25,000 avios per household per year for 0.24ppa via Sainsbury’s Over 50s life cover if somebody in the household is 50+. If resident of said households are in your BAEC HHA then they are directly available, if not then the 25,000 avios can be transferred to a member of the HHA for £15. If there are no over 50s then it is still possible to purchase roughly the same amount of avios per household per year for under 0.5ppa. The precise number of avios and the cost varies depending on the promotion being run and the premium you pay.

    • Sussex bantam says:
      6 Sep6 September 07:50

      Is this an actual offer avaialble now ? I can only see one that pays 20k nectar points ?

      • BJ says:
        6 Sep6 September 08:27

        Check Sainsbury’s finance pages. Only one I see on my Nectar app st the moment is the Over 50s variant. However, 20k used to be ever present on regular life cover sometimes boosted to 22k and onevtime to 30k IIRC. I’ve only ever done Over 50s to avoid risk of more faff on regular cover. You can get the bonus on 2 policies ler household per year, minimum premium £5/month, bonus pays after 5 or 6 months. Only ever had to chase up the bonus on one policy.

      • BJ says:
        6 Sep6 September 08:33

        *the 25k avios quoted comes from taking two policies at 20k Nectar points each. Thus 2 policies x £5/month each = £60 outlay before cancelling.

  • TimM says:
    6 Sep6 September 07:25

    Daily Mail digital subscription – £20 for one year with “£20 of bonus Nectar points”. Converts to 2500 Avios = 0.8p/Avios. Buy as many as you like. You don’t have to read it.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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