Trav1970

You are right here - to me this is yet another sign of AY really not caring too much of it's existing elite tier members. Some years ago, AY quite frequently had special point campaigns at least for silvers ("vauhtietu"). Those have all disappeared, and just about every campaign I see is targeted for people who are NOT Finnair Plus elite members (gold status for one return flight meeting certain conditions for central European countries, now this paid upgrade campaign, and recently some point campaigns where the extra points are not elite status earning points). To add to the list of things, FC flights bought from their web shop not earning AY points anymore is yet another thing making the program less attractive.

In addition, my personal experience from one complaint last year and one special request this year is that they really do not seem to appreciate their loyal customers at all. For my complaint I received indeed a nice letter ("we are very sorry that we messed up") and a Delicard voucher, which was worth far less than even the additional telephone expenses I incurred when sorting out the mess created by AY.

With Lufthansa having the status match offer, I am seriously considering that as an option as my *G status with SK will most likely expire this year (no time to concentrate enough flights to SK before the end of the qualification year). As my current travel amount is enough to maintain elite status on one airline, this would mean switching essentially all my business from AY to *A (in fact, I would already have done that if *A did not have the 25% earnings in discounted economy).

To Finnair - loyality programs are about loyality, but that works both ways. If you want to hold on to my business, then get your act together now.