The Bottom Line

Overall it was a pretty seamless transition from BA(E)C to AY+.

Avios / Miles posted almost as expected however with VERY significant differences in the time it takes until they are actually posted (see table below).

So do not count on fast posting of Avios between flights if you rely on them between flights, for example for baggage allowance, lounge access etc.

Expect around 2 weeks “delay” until posting date and another week until your new status has trickled down through all the systems and databases.

Status less travel is kind of dull. You watch all the suddenly entitled looking people waltz by you in the queues and you are crying internally “but I still have gold too!”

The biggest thing I came to miss was free seat selection.

Being BA Gold for so long I never had to think about this for ages, you just booked, selected your seat and flew.

So for this (and lounge access) I would value Sapphire indeed the most worthy status.

Another thing I noticed, traveling C without status could mean (on some airlines) you choose your meal (almost) last.
I observed this on some of my QR flights and on CX. The way they run up and down the aisle and stop at what seems at “random” people suggested they go via status first.

On QR it meant they had run out of choices on one flight while on CX it seems they cater enough.

Other random thoughts / observations:
No flights missed out of being credited, and most of them credited as expected.

DONEx tickets book into domestic J booking class for JL.

Minimum threshold segments use 465 (including any multipliers).

I had to call AY for adjustments as my flights back were so close to each other that some of them posted before the others and therefore they were posted only with Gold multipliers instead of Platinum (MAD-AGP and following).

Important finding!
AY flights (on AY metal) post as spend based, despite this RTW being on AA stock!

AGP-HEL-OSL initially posted with some what looked to me totally random Avios amounts.

Higher than the ones in the table now, but none looked like a combination of x2.5; x1.25 or any other of the usual suspects.

As I had to reach out to AY regarding the wrongly posted Avios (see above) I asked them to explain the amounts of the 2 AY flights which resulted in a down-adjustments with the explanation of “The flights are credited according to the ticket price (spend-based). The net value of AGP-HEL is 273*9 (Platinum)=2457. And HEL-OSL net value is 91*9=819”.

They did not elaborate how they got to the 273 and 91 amounts.

So as we recently discussed in one of the other threads it is totally unpredictable how many Avios you will get for Finnair flights in a RTW ticket, so any AY flight numbers are best to be avoided on such tickets.




My ticket turned out to be a bit same as what Matt has explained in his videos. I booked my ticket before his video so the similarities are by coincidence as my initial approach was to maximize 140 oTP sectors.

Not being able to book JL on HND-DFW turned out to be great Avios-wise due to the very high bonus you get on AA flights!

And I got lucky with the crew on that flight, it was actually a lovely experience (food not as exciting, you can look up in the “AA international meal” thread if interested), so I was not too upset to have missed out the new A350K experience on JL.
Next time maybe JL flight on AA codeshare maybe

So far, I had mostly good experiences with AY’s customer service, both the chat and Platsapp.

The app and website are way ahead of BA’s (although not bug free).

Availability of customer service during the strike periods was a disaster though, but we had this discussion in length in the related thread.

Auto-rebooking of missed flight connection pretty seamless on the app, however it seems the app then gets confused with new / old seats and does not updated properly.

Cabin crew on AY usually very hospital and friendly, especially the more senior crew are a joy (see e.g. my meal post from AGP-HEL).

No wifi on Embraers and no charging points, so not 2025…

Blueberry juice and glass ware

Will I stay with Finnair Plus?

Yes, I think so. The way the current BAC is set up does not make me want to put any effort in it anymore. I am not in the corner of boycotting BA in terms of flying I just will not credit to BAC anymore and since moving Avios between accounts is easy, there is no real need.

Will I keep Platinum in the future?

Not sure, somehow I feel the “fun and game” part of FFPs is gone and I do not know if I want to join this spend based game for a long(er) time.

With BAEC I was around 5.5 years away from GfL so even this was still a bit far out it was some sort of “goal” that looked vaguely achievable and kept me on board the points world.

Although AY+ offers life time status too, I am not overly motivated to start this race all over again as rules will probably change on the way along, currently it does not look as if business related travel (at least long haul) will come back to its old level and personally I am not one of the top spenders to reach Lumo or any high amount of Avios that will make me reach any life time tier faster.

I will probably settle in for Sapphire or will exchange Avios for TPs if the missing amount is not too high or eventually will even go completely freelance.

Although I have to say I somehow grew fond with oneworld over the years, its airlines and their unique features and quirkiness, the overall implementation of benefits and mainly the memories of the trips they made me experience.

We will see, time will tell…

My apologies for this lengthy piece of reading, for anyone making it this far, thank you for your time