Don’t waste your time using ‘Part Pay With Avios’ on Finnair

Finnair Plus adopted Avios as its loyalty currency in March, and last month it launched the ability to transfer Avios back and forth from British Airways Executive Club.

Because Finnair reward flights were already bookable via ba.com due to Finnair’s membership of the oneworld airline alliance, the ability to move Avios between the two airlines didn’t have a huge impact.

There are a handful of Avios-earning partners with Finnair who are not partners with British Airways Executive Club – such as the airlines Braathens and Juneyao – but for most HfP readers it won’t be relevant.

There are a couple of things which you CAN do for the first time now that you can transfer Avios into a Finnair Plus account.

One is upgrade Finnair flights booked with cash. We will look at this at another time.

The second is to use Avios to part-pay a cash flight on Finnair.

If you read our article about using Avios to part pay flights on British Airways, you’ll know that we don’t recommend it.

It IS worth making the smallest possible part-payment (usually £20 off for 2,000 Avios, getting you 1p per point) but after that the rate drops sharply. It bottoms out at around 0.45p per Avios which is shockingly poor – you’d be better off transferring your Avios into Nectar points where they are worth 0.5p.

‘Part Pay with Avios’ flights on Finnair are even worse

I thought I’d see what the rates are if you use your Avios to part pay Finnair flights.

The first thing to note is that you only see the option to pay with Avios if you have Avios in your Finnair Plus account. You need to go to the trouble of moving your Avios across from British Airways Executive Club before you can see if it is worth using them (which it’s not, sorry to spoil the suspense).

Assuming you do have Avios in your Finnair Plus account, you will see the option to pay with Avios on the payment screen.

Here is an example based on an economy flight from London to Tokyo via Helsinki. You are presented with a slider, although in reality you can only choose from a handful of Avios amounts:

Here are some of the options:

• £931 for 100% cash
• £875 + 15,000 Avios (0.37p per Avios)
• £765 + 45,000 Avios (0.37p per Avios)
• £610 + 90,000 Avios (0.36p per Avios)
• £415 + 150,000 Avios (0.34p per Avios)

What can I say? It’s bad.

Even the ‘best’ option, getting you 0.37p per Avios, is terrible. Why would you do this when you could redeem your Avios via Nectar and get 0.5p? Or even redeem towards a cash flight with British Airways which would get you 0.44p?

If you thought that I picked a bad example, I actually picked a good one. This article from Loyalty Lobby shows a short haul Finnair flight where you get 0.37 Eurocents (0.31p) per Avios.

It’s so bad that I can’t understand why Finnair is offering it, because it simply makes the programme and Avios look bad. Does IAG Loyalty have a veto to stop partners attaching its Avios brand to shockingly poor deals? If not, it probably should.

Suffice it to say that you don’t need to add ‘Part Pay with Avios’ on Finnair to your library of Avios tricks because I can’t see any scenario under which you would want to use it.

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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:

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 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.

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.

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

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.