Well, this would the the standard approach in the old days, but I see now that new normal for Finnair is something more transactional of nature. Elites in AY are treated like the rest of the pax, which in Finnair terms is cattle.

I dont think they are being harsh, most of these boys here have been members for 15+ years. They have seen the freq flyer status being nuked to fraction of the value it used to have. They also have insane amount of practical experience how things work, and thats why Im in this forum. I just failed to notice that they dont autocheckin you anymore, and thus you lose the low seq number that will lead to being on standby and possibly bounced regardless off your shiny card. Personally I feel that this is not the way, but Finnair has decided that they want to cash in on every single thing Ryanair-style, and in this game status dont really matter. We will see if this pays off for Finnair, or not

Practical result for me is massbooking on air baltic and swap in work schedules