Finnair Plus - AY Silver or OW Saphire, which is better on AY?

I have AY Silver (OW Ruby) and AA Platinum (OW Saphire). I am just wondering which one I should use when booking AY flights... Which one does AY value higher, their own Silver or higher OW tier?

BTW: I have suprisingly often experienced complimentary upgrdae on gate when using SK Gold - and wondering if AY has the this policy to move higher tier passanger in Business class occassionally (even if economy is not full). I am ot sure why SK did that, maybe they had late cancellation for Business and had already ordered provided with the meals or something like that.

Finnair does not upgrade w/o a reason so from that perspective it doesn't make any difference...only if whY is overbooked you might have a slight chance for an upgrade but even with Emerald status those are very, very few and far between, more important is the whY booking code you have on your ticket.

I've taken hundreds and hundreds of AY flights over the last 15 years..w/o any status, with all AY status levels, with BA status, with AA status...and I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever.

To answer your question: use the card you want to credit the points to and do not worry about the status thing at all. Simple as that.

If you care about mileage accrual, you might want to choose AA Plat.

AA Plat gives you e.g. mimimum mileage guarantee (500 mi), full miles regardless of Y booking class, and 100% elite status bonus.

This is one of the main reasons why I switched from AY Plus to AAdvantage.

On the other hand, AY points are easier to convert to upgrades if you fly AY a lot. The problem is that you really don't get that many AY points in deep discounted Y.

Thank you for the replies. Based on this and some other posts here, seems that AY should really look and learn how the competitors treat their frequent flyers... They are just small things and does not cost a dime for them, but could make the customers more happy, which should not be bad thing for any business. :)

Over the years I have noticed that traveling alone, wearing a suit and being extremely polite to the agents help much more with scoring an upgrade than the color of your FF card. As NoWindowSeat said basically there needs to be an overbooking situation in Y before they start upgrading anyone to J. However, I have been lucky to get a J seat with Y service in the aft J cabin quite a few times (if J is lightly booked they tend to move all J pax into the fwd cabin).

I am actually doubting if AY even has clear-cut upgrading procedures based on status or booking class. Or at least they are not consistently enforced.

I am crediting AY and other OW flights to BA EC due to better earning on discount economy tix and the 100% status bonus being silver/sapphire. I also value the possibility to transfer Amex points to EC -- with quite frequent promotional incentives.

I have never been upgraded as BA silver/gold. However, several times as a Flying Blue gold when travelling Helsinki-Paris on a AF code on AY metal. Let's see what happens now after being matched to Flying Blue platinum.

If you care about mileage accrual, you might want to choose AA Plat.

AA Plat gives you e.g. mimimum mileage guarantee (500 mi), full miles regardless of Y booking class, and 100% elite status bonus.

This is one of the main reasons why I switched from AY Plus to AAdvantage.

On the other hand, AY points are easier to convert to upgrades if you fly AY a lot. The problem is that you really don't get that many AY points in deep discounted Y.

I'm faced with a similar issue as I might be taking the HEL-SIN route more often from now onwards, which also means that I'll be looking at joining one of the OW FFPs.

I can also see myself using BA and QF on the SIN route from time to time, but for the big family trips it will almost always be AY & HEL.

I guess the key issues are mileage accrual and award redemption, something that I would need to look into across the various OW programs. One thing I'm looking at closely is the family membership feature. Should I decide to pool all our miles into a family account, which is the best OW FFP to join? BAEC?

I'm BA silver for few years. Only once had upgrade and that was LHR-HEL with AY.

I guess the key issues are mileage accrual and award redemption, something that I would need to look into across the various OW programs. One thing I'm looking at closely is the family membership feature. Should I decide to pool all our miles into a family account, which is the best OW FFP to join? BAEC?

Well, BAEC has the household account which is a convenient feature. I don't think that AY or AA have it(?). However, it is usually possible to transfer miles or redeem awards for other household members.

I am fairly happy with BAEC and find it by far superior to AY Plus even though I am based in Helsinki... AY Plus is really geared for corp people traveling in paid J (I know very few Finnish companies that allow J class travel anymore... but maybe enough to fill up AY's elite ranks ;)).

Yes, even though I'd be flying AY most of the time (with the rare BA flight, possibly in biz, whenever they have those crazy promos) I thought about BAEC simply because I'd be able to pool my family miles straight away.

The only problem I hear people complain about is miles redemption - on some routes, like Singapore, they have apparently been unable to find any seats in C/F. How has your experience been with spending miles on BAEC?

Yes, even though I'd be flying AY most of the time (with the rare BA flight, possibly in biz, whenever they have those crazy promos) I thought about BAEC simply because I'd be able to pool my family miles straight away.

The only problem I hear people complain about is miles redemption - on some routes, like Singapore, they have apparently been unable to find any seats in C/F. How has your experience been with spending miles on BAEC?

Hi Aster, I hope you are doing well :)
I can confirm that nothing has been changed in terms of BAEC miles redemption on BA flights. I did couple of dummy queries for this year on the following route LHR-SIN-LHR to find nothing, both to book PE and upgrade to CW as well as to book CW for award points completely.

What has changed however is the possibility of including partner airlines if there is no availability on BA planes for dates requested. Among some inconvenient connections, such as WAW-LHR-HKG-SIN on CX, it will show also AY redemption availability on the route WAW-HEL-SIN which is quite generous I would say in terms of dates availability, however seems to be limited to 2 award seats. It shows the following redemption possibilities:
140000 miles + PLN 1,274.07
126000 miles + PLN 1,944.07
105000 miles + PLN 2,948.07

As for the number of award seats, I haven't seen anything more than 2 even on BA flights, so perhaps this can be sorted out by BAEC customer service.

Hi Stiwi, good to hear from you. :)

2 award seats is the most I'd be looking for, but 140000 miles + PLN 1,274.07... is that 1-way, per person?

Just getting back to accruing miles for a moment, I have noticed that BAEC is a bit "stingy" for Finnair flights giving just 7,201 miles for a flight in C between HEL and SIN. No tier bonus either. Which makes me wonder if BAEC is indeed the right choice if most of my paid flights would be with AY...

Hi Stiwi, good to hear from you. :)

2 award seats is the most I'd be looking for, but 140000 miles + PLN 1,274.07... is that 1-way, per person?

Just getting back to accruing miles for a moment, I have noticed that BAEC is a bit "stingy" for Finnair flights giving just 7,201 miles for a flight in C between HEL and SIN. No tier bonus either. Which makes me wonder if BAEC is indeed the right choice if most of my paid flights would be with AY...

140k miles is for round travel per person and I can only say that any taxes, fuel surcharges are usually even higher on BA flights than on partner redemptions.

As for the BAEC earning scheme on Finnair flights, it seems you are right. It looks best when you fly on BA (due to earning miles) but book award flights on AY (due to availability).

For 140k miles I can fly on SQ to FRA and back ... in F.

Not too keen on earning on BA simply because LHR is out of the way for me (too many hours wasted backtracking...).Will have to give this one some thought...

For 140k miles I can fly on SQ to FRA and back ... in F.

Not too keen on earning on BA simply because LHR is out of the way for me (too many hours wasted backtracking...).Will have to give this one some thought...

Did I mention that the generous availability of BA points on AY business flights are on ex-AF planes? :) Those airline rewards always make me a big laugh.