I am enjoying currently another nice soft perk in AY Premium lounge. It is "half-secret", AY does not tell that, but some of you know of it I am fairly sure. For those who do not know, I give a hint: you can find the answer very easily on FT now if you are smart ;)

Wanted to freshen up on arrival and visited AY schengen lounge with arriving boarding pass at HEL (without connecting flight), asked lounge dragon if the unofficial perk for platinums is still in force regarding arrival entry.
"yes sir, we want to take care of our best customers" ^

How are you even supposed to know that you can do that? I would probably have used it when I had Plat if I'd know.

Exactly - which is why they should stop doing unofficial perks altogether. How difficult could it be to put it in print?

As a OWR I had a 28kg golfbag last week. I knew that when I entered the prio check-in. The official looked at me like "c'mon" with a little evil smile when he saw the weight of my bag. Well, then he said : "I'm a golfer myself, and I know that if you want to have everything you want with you, it's impossible to keep it within 23kg". Then he put the priority tagged baggage tag on the bag and guided me to the bulky bag belt and greeted for some good swings.

I've had a whole mix of experiences with our national carrier, but these are the ones I want to remember.

-T

A comment here after 6 "NORRA" flights (=ex-Flybe flights of AY):

"Soft seat block" did not work on any of these even if there were empty seats. Neither newspapers nor anything else was gotten on these. Not that they did something wrong or bad, but it seems NORRA "has not been trained internally to AY "rules" how inofficial they are" ;).
Could be also a question of IT that seat block thing or other reason...

Seat block is working fine for me on Norra-contracted flights. Out of 5 flights with them, I had an unwanted neighbor only once, the one time the flight was full.

As a matter of fact, I verified with a friend scheduled on the same flight in a different booking that the block is still enforced by Finnair.com OLCI.

To my experience these soft perks are very random. For instance my flights this weekend: got newspapers on Friday morning on E190 (i.e. operated by Norra), but no next seat blocking, though there were empty seats next to people that didn't get the newspapers. On Sunday evening back to HEL on A319 (operated by Finnair) no newspapers and no next seat blocking. It seems to be totally dependent on the station staff and FAs if they see us (elites) worth noting, and on Sunday evening I obviously was not worth it. Very obvious flaw in their training and also seat allocation IT system.

It seems that usually max one out of these two "soft perks" and one official (= priority baggage delivered first) works. No need to mention that priority baggage was not first on the belt on either of these flights.

I have been wondering why it is so difficult for AY to standardize the service and ensure that elites are noted on their flights, it would be very easy to keep us happy but they just don't get it!

I fly mostly E90 and ATR machines by NORRA so I think I am pretty sure the seat block has got random as of late. Might be an IT issue, but it worked nicely still a year ago.

Now I can mostly see on ATR too where there is no exit-row either, that my preassigned seat has got a neighbor even if on the same row the other seats are empty. Similar with E90.

I wish the seat block worked, and it was made "official", since it is my most valuable perk as everything else on a plane is useless in my value map. I rather take exit-row without neighbour on E90 without food, than a business class seat with a neighbour extending to my lap.

On last weeks flight HEL-LHR there was no soft perk recognition. However, when compared to some CX flights when there has been a queue of flight attendants to do "the honors", I kinda prefer to be ignored. Of course, I would like to get the news paper, but don't really care to listen to the "hello, I am ... if there is anything..." multiple times during one flight (not that this had ever been a problem with AY) :D

I have never had problems with the seat blocking on non-full (or nearly) flights, except for passengers not respecting seat assignments, and for L/H Comfort seats. I guess the later are not subject to seat blocking for commercial reasons.

The free newspaper is pretty random. But my name pretty much gives it away that I am not a Finn/Swede.

It's pretty random also for Finns!

Did you ever ask for a newspaper in one language and obtain one in another?

In my case, I once asked (upon FA solicitation) in voucher-upgraded Euro-J from BRU for a French language newspaper. And I got one in Flemish?!

I mean, sure, Zaventem is technically a Flemish-speaking area, but 1) I am not Belgian and do not understand Flemish and 2) it takes serious neglect to not notice the difference between a romance and an anglosaxon language newspaper.

So yeah, I stopped caring about the free newspaper, if I ever did.

I only fly AY as Sapphire. I have never received a newspaper and inflight perks, but do get seat block most of the times, also on NORRA.

I quite enjoy the seat blocking perk, unofficial and inconsistent as it may be. I still remember once flying BRU-HEL, knowing on boarding that the exit row window seat next to me was one of the only empty seats on the E90 flight, so yes I was quite satisfied. (So easy to please frequent flyers indeed :D ) Until of course, after boarding was complete, whilst resting my eyes, I wake up to someone jumping over my legs to place themselves in the window seat.

They didn't ask a FA, nor me if it was OK. I think I would be fine with accommodating with such a request if politely asked, it's just the inconsiderate nature of just taking the seat without asking that bothers me. (And no, they were not a tall person suffering the pitch constraints either) :rolleyes: :td:

Was not very happy for the rest of that flight. :p