intuition

Finnair have silently raised the change fee for Value tickets. If you like me buy them with the notion of "I can always change it later" you may want to reconsider your ticket strategy. (If you buy them for the 100% points earning, then nothing changed so far)


On routes of interest to me the change fee on a value ticket has now gone from 50€ to 120€, a nice 140% price hike! I believe they still don't allow route change, so the 120€ is for just changing date/time of flight. Plus fare difference of course.

Cancellation penalty is still 25%, so for tickets below 480€ cancellation is financially a better option. Mind you, if you cancel and buy a new one, you are no longer tied to the same route (or Finnair, for that matter!) so cancellation may be the best option in even more cases.

On a side note, change fee for Business saver have been raised to 200€ (a meagre 33% raise, how will they survive?!)

Courmisch

Which destinations? HEL-SIN is (still) 50€, HEL-HKG is a meek 30€... Meanwhile HEL-CDG got a yet another hike to 36€. So more than HKG. Figures.

intuition

EU-HEL-Asia (Japan excl) is 120€ in the 5-6 searches I've done:
CPH-CAN, OSL-BKK, ARN-SIN and so on.

EU-HEL is 65€ change fee and 50% cancellation penalty, example ARN-HEL, PRG-HEL

intuition

HEL-ARN has 55€ change fee, so 10€ less than ARN-HEL.

So either they are in the middle of the update or they have launched a system where there are so many tiers of different change fees it is impossible to keep track of them.

ottersmacker

Thanks for the heads-up!

Seeing a constant 65€ on the intra-EU routes I normally tend to fly as well.

The sad part is that the lack of communication around it sounds just about right these days.

R2

I noticed this too...however the change fee for the cheaper Business campaign fares is still €150, figure that.

lento

I did not even check the change fee while buying, my value ticket to DEL has change fee 150€!!!

kauppias

I guess AY really needs to hire a new director of communications!

Seems like ALL news is communicated to customers ATLEAST 14 days late

niksal

Hmmm. Really bad news. Sounds like I have to start following the company policy and buy cheapest and buy new ticket if necessary.

intuition

Yeah, it is pretty badly done. First they market the ticket types, a bundling of services with names for easy recognition among customers. Then they alter the bundle without telling.

There has been no communication AFAIK. The new pricing is hidden when you purchase the ticket and you won't know it unless you click "Show me more about ticket types". And why would you do that when you have been taught for several years what the Value bundle is?

WilcoRoger

EU-BKK/PVG-EU in I (restricted business) comes also with a 150€ change fee.

(weirdly of the OTAs only priceline was able to book what matrix priced out)

Courmisch

Screw that. I was referring to the extra cost of Value from Basic/Light. I misunderstood the top post.

FossilFlyer

Strangely the value ticket I just bought today for HEL-ARN-HEL in March is the same €55 change and 50% cancellation in both directions! As are the HEL-ZUR-HEL I'm looking at the week afterwards... From memory nearly all of my EU and non-EU SH flights recently have been this.

intuition

It seems they have applied a tiered mode and different routes have different fees, based on what they think they can get away with on each market. It is not the flight segment that decides, it is the home country of the fare.
HEL-ARN-HEL is 55€ fee while ARN-HEL-ARN is 65€ fee.

FossilFlyer

Ah I see, I thought you meant the HEL-ARN leg was €10 less than ARN-HEL for a HEL-ARN-HEL, which wasn't what I was seeing... So Helsinki residents pay less than other EU countries for changes now? Strange!