Finnair Plus - Double points - except for Finns

I was quite surprised when I read about Finnair's double points offer between Finland and Switzerland this Summer.
http://www.finnair.com/finnaircom/wps/portal/finnair/currentissues/currentissuesix/en_CH

Double points for all AY flights - except for Finnish citizens. As per terms & conditions:

Travel period: until 31 August 2011.

This Finnair Plus offer is valid on direct flights between Geneva and Helsinki and Zurich and Helsinki.

This offer applies to Finnair Plus members travelling on a Finnair flight. This offer is not available on codeshare or oneworld partner airline flights.

The extra points are Finnair Plus award points only and will not count towards your tier point balance. The extra award points are not eligible for extra tier points

This offer is not available to Finnish citizens.

To receive double points, you must be a Finnair Plus member.

I have to say that I certainly am not impressed as I wouldn't think that it's legal to discriminate according to citizenship. What next... Double points for women? No points for handicapped?

I have happily bashed Finnair before and pulling a stunt like this makes my opinion of them even stronger. Finns are paying the highest prices for their travels and still no extra miles for them! "Great!" :td::td::td:

Unbelievable bulls**t.

"Welcome to Finland"

The problem is that Finns are used to bending over and taking it, even if they are not directly aware of it. And not so many will in fact do anything to even make Finnair see sense. Passive complaining maybe, but....

Even if everyone took a "week away" from Finnair it could show an impact on their bottom line and send a message.

Unbelievable bulls**t.

So true so true. Well, I´ve tweeted about this too and I certainly hope that at least a few more people will choose KF between HEL and ZRH instead of AY. I am so tired of Finnair treating us Finns as second-class travelers. Luckily *A is a good alternative on most flights except to some minor domestic destinations.

This offer is not available to Finnish citizens.



Actually, the exact language of this part is (or has been changed to):

This campaign is not valid for residents of Finland.

Not that it makes the restriction any more palatable, but it makes the rule a bit easier to get around - just change your address to a non-Finnish one for a while and you should be able to use the promotion.

But, very big thumbs down for Finnair for what is essentially screwing over royally their largest customer group. Ill-guided bean counter mentality at its worst, really.

Cheers,
T.

Actually, the exact language of this part is (or has been changed to):

This campaign is not valid for residents of Finland.

Not that it makes the restriction any more palatable, but it makes the rule a bit easier to get around - just change your address to a non-Finnish one for a while and you should be able to use the promotion.

But, very big thumbs down for Finnair for what is essentially screwing over royally their largest customer group. Ill-guided bean counter mentality at its worst, really.

Cheers,
T.

Yes, it has now been changed as I guess that Finnair woke up to fact that you can't discriminate according to citizenship. (I took a screenshot of the earlier text which clearly stated that it wasn't valid for Finnish citizens). Finnair treats Finns as second-class customers.

Anyway, won't be using this myself. I will be in ZRH in August but will fly KF.

Not that I'm a fan of this kind of promotions but it's getting more and more common. If you take a look at the AA promotions for double miles (almost) all of them are targeted at citizens in certain states. Quite sad but at the same time I understand that they want to reach out to a certain public and have to do more effort in regions where they have more competition.

Better for them IMHO to do it in a way that cannot frustrate people who are not targeted.

Something that's going on for years already :
Prices for flights differ as well according to where you originate travel :

For eg. BRU-HEL-BRU or HEL-BRU-HEL is a different price

Well the "discrimination" on a route basis is one thing (flights ex ZRH) just as flights ex other countries can be cheaper than the equivalent (reversed) from home market, but excluding a valid routing just on a citizenship thing was smelly.

Thanks to AY's "improvements" of the AY+ FFP in recent years (and last year's endless problems with strikes, etc) + the way they handle FIN based customers I have avoided them whenever I can. The result?

Points earned with AY+ in 2011 so far - 824
Miles earned with M&M in 2011 so far - 91443
(in AY's km based calculations it would be near 150k)

Lost revenues to AY in 2011 so far - 30+ k€, most of it in profitable C fares.

Well, that's my way of showing my appreciation of AY+ "improvements"

Ilta-Sanomat, one of the evening papers has written about this:
http://www.iltasanomat.fi/kotimaa/finnair-mainosti-pistetarjousta-ei-suomen-kansalaisille/art-1288395890674.html

According to Finnair it was an human error, theay had meant to write that the offer wasn't for Finnish residents as those residing in Finland have more uses for Finnair Plus points...

I guess that if there are many uses for points I won't be needing many points... or something. :rolleyes:

The best part is

Varjan mukaan pluspisteiden käyttömahdollisuuksia on Suomessa paljon. Kampanja on osoitettu nimenomaan ulkomailla oleskeleville, jotka eivät voi Suomen tarjouksia käyttää.

"Varja says that there are lots of usage for plus points in Finland. The campaign targets specifically those residing abroad, who cannot use the Finnish offers."

In other words - we offer double points to those who have no use for them. Well done (again) AY! :td:

The best part is

Varjan mukaan pluspisteiden käyttömahdollisuuksia on Suomessa paljon. Kampanja on osoitettu nimenomaan ulkomailla oleskeleville, jotka eivät voi Suomen tarjouksia käyttää.

"Varja says that there are lots of usage for plus points in Finland. The campaign targets specifically those residing abroad, who cannot use the Finnish offers."

In other words - we offer double points to those who have no use for them. Well done (again) AY! :td:

I can't even find words anymore...I just booked couple of tickets today to London and Oslo, was quite close in taking Finnair but after this it was BA and SK, 1.800 eur worth of lost revenue for AY..I know they couldn't care less but that was my 2 cents towards them today..

It seems that quite a few FFPs "discriminate" against their main customer base.

BAEC have much higher status thresholds for UK residents compared to continental Europe. M&M does the same, plus it offers a family membership program to residents of the Middle East... only.

It's all rather annoying to see this happen.

Sorry to break up your bashing, but it does make sense. AY likes to attract more Swiss customers on a special route, giving them some incentive to start an AY+ membership and maybe travel more frequently on AY, visting Finland and spending cash. Is that a bad thing?

If I am not mistaken, we were all invited to a double points offer for ANY AY-flight for a period well over two months last winter. So please tell me what we loyal customers really are missing out on here?

So please tell me what we loyal customers really are missing out on here?

I'm mostly pissed off by the idiocy of AY PR. (see quotes from a few posts above) Are they really stupid or do they think that WE are so stupid? Or maybe both?

Why not just say what you said - "we want to recruit more Swiss pax/AY+ members, period"

OTO why should they care about the domicile of their paying pax? Shouldn't the route be promoted? God forbid, even Finnish residents may pay for it.

And to answer you question - the double points, of course :)

Sorry to break up your bashing, but it does make sense. AY likes to attract more Swiss customers on a special route, giving them some incentive to start an AY+ membership and maybe travel more frequently on AY, visting Finland and spending cash. Is that a bad thing?

If I am not mistaken, we were all invited to a double points offer for ANY AY-flight for a period well over two months last winter. So please tell me what we loyal customers really are missing out on here?

As WilcoRoger already mentioned, AY PR really doesn't seem to know what it's doing. Discriminating passengers not according to domicile but according to nationality... unbelievable. Now they have changed the offer to non-Finnish residents (slightly morea acceptable) but the original offer was only for non-Finnish citizens!

True, the PR responses seems not so clever. In fact, PR seem to have stated things that are relevant inside AY, and not relevant to the finnish public.
I am sure that
"It is to promote this route and to support our "asian-hub" strategy, making more europeans travel through HEL"
still is a very accurate description of the promotion and a much better explanation too. Explaining it like this would make it more agreeable, seems like PR was surprised by the questioning of this promotion.

(The statements about "targeting people who have less use of points" is also true, but much less sensible to tell anyone except your boss, who need to sign for the points-inflation...)


And, in comparision, the number of points we non-swiss people miss on this deal is nowhere near the amount of points possible make on the double-points-offer that ran 10. december - 28. februari.

I am sure that
"It is to promote this route and to support our "asian-hub" strategy, making more europeans travel through HEL"
still is a very accurate description of the promotion and a much better explanation too.

Very true - that would certainly have been a better explanation.

Yes, it has now been changed as I guess that Finnair woke up to fact that you can't discriminate according to citizenship..


Well SAS EuroBonus MasterCard is for ONLY Finnish citizens too in Finland-What a mess! (separate comment)

Finnair is not really an airline worth travelling with... would be wise if everyone boycot them. Maybe they'll wake their ... up then :D

Well SAS EuroBonus MasterCard is for ONLY Finnish citizens too in Finland-What a mess! (separate comment)

Finnair is not really an airline worth travelling with... would be wise if everyone boycot them. Maybe they'll wake their ... up then :D


Well, the first part is definitely not true - I had the EM MC without a lion on my passport :D

As for the second part - I don't boycott AY, simply avoid them whenever I can and save serious money in the process.