This is no way, AY - things to improve [feedback thread]
Sep 24, 2016, 11:19 am
#331
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Helsinki-Vantaa APT, Finland
Programs: AY LUMO
Posts: 6,059
Yep, that is why I'm not working in state owned company of heavy organisation and not working in the place where you must ask supervisor for pressing enter and of course you are supposed leave your brain at home.
Sep 24, 2016, 11:24 am
#332
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Helsinki-Vantaa APT, Finland
Programs: AY LUMO
Posts: 6,059
And we have to remember this is AY. This airline is counting every toothpick and salt and pepper even in C, just don't care my 200€uros. Something is really wrong.
Sep 25, 2016, 1:57 pm
#334
Join Date: Jul 2014
Programs: AY Platinum
Posts: 287
The main reason they're careful about changing the booking class is probably that you could buy a non-refundable ticket, then "pay extra" to change it, and then cancel it with a full refund. Easier to just have a policy that forbids it entirely.
Sep 27, 2016, 12:51 am
#335
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: HEL
Programs: lots of shiny metal cards
Posts: 14,110
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Both finnair.fi and finnair.com
Both finnair.fi and finnair.com
Sep 27, 2016, 12:58 am
#336
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Programs: Finnair (AY) Platinum, Air France Silver, Tallink Club One Silver :)
Posts: 1,655
Oct 3, 2016, 3:51 am
#337
Moderator, Finnair
Join Date: May 2011
Location: MMX (CPH)
Programs: Eurobonus Diamond, QR Gold, AY+ Platinum, A3*G, Nordic Choice Lifetime Platinum, SJ Prio Black
Posts: 14,185
I was happy to see Qantas flights included in the Finnair award-search, until I saw the charges. Finnair overcharges by more than 100$! 
Going into the details, Qantas charges 14$ per segment in carrier charges and 21$ in other fees/taxes (unspecified). Total 69 AUD.
Finnair also charges 14$ per segment in carrier charges, 17$ per segment in other fees and a whopping UO (= goods and services tax) of 54,51$ per segment!!!
109,02 in GST, with tax rate at 10%, means Finnair is taxing me for a purchase of 1090$, around 745€. Bizarre. Is there a logical explanation or is Finnair simply ripping people off with a GST scam?
Going into the details, Qantas charges 14$ per segment in carrier charges and 21$ in other fees/taxes (unspecified). Total 69 AUD.
Finnair also charges 14$ per segment in carrier charges, 17$ per segment in other fees and a whopping UO (= goods and services tax) of 54,51$ per segment!!!
109,02 in GST, with tax rate at 10%, means Finnair is taxing me for a purchase of 1090$, around 745€. Bizarre. Is there a logical explanation or is Finnair simply ripping people off with a GST scam?
Oct 3, 2016, 5:06 am
#338
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: HEL
Programs: AY Platinum, TK Elite, BT VIP, AA, BA, SK, DL, NT, WB + hotels
Posts: 8,761
Strange. I used some BA Avios to book domestic QF tickets last year and they charged something like €20 for a return ticket. And BA is well known to be among the worst when "taxes" are concerned.
Do you have the opportunity to dummy book the same flights using Avios or via QF to see what they say about "taxes"?
Do you have the opportunity to dummy book the same flights using Avios or via QF to see what they say about "taxes"?
Oct 3, 2016, 5:19 am
#339
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Vantaa, Finland
Programs: BAEC GGL, Lounge Key, Accor basic, AY basic, HHonors Diamond
Posts: 163
Oct 3, 2016, 5:46 am
#340
Moderator, Finnair
Join Date: May 2011
Location: MMX (CPH)
Programs: Eurobonus Diamond, QR Gold, AY+ Platinum, A3*G, Nordic Choice Lifetime Platinum, SJ Prio Black
Posts: 14,185
I don't have enough QF points, so I can't go through with the booking 100%, but during the booking I can see they will charge YQ 28AUD, QR+WG 34 AUD and OU (ie GST) ≈7. They calculate GST as 10% of (28+34) ie doing it as if the fare is 0 AUD.
Oct 3, 2016, 5:52 am
#341
Moderator, Finnair
Join Date: May 2011
Location: MMX (CPH)
Programs: Eurobonus Diamond, QR Gold, AY+ Platinum, A3*G, Nordic Choice Lifetime Platinum, SJ Prio Black
Posts: 14,185
Oct 4, 2016, 8:35 am
#342
Moderator, Finnair
Join Date: May 2011
Location: MMX (CPH)
Programs: Eurobonus Diamond, QR Gold, AY+ Platinum, A3*G, Nordic Choice Lifetime Platinum, SJ Prio Black
Posts: 14,185
OK, today there was a happy ending! Platinum line have booked me and the fees are now on par with BAEC. Thank you platinum line!
However, there still is a great need of improvement!
They confirmed that the web booking indeed is not pricing the ticket correctly. In fact, it seems all QF awards are priced wrongly. So it is great that plat desk could fix it for me, but not so great that the unsuspecting do-it-yourself stands the chance of losing 100€ on one single booking.
So my advice is to use the AY award search with caution.
I also learned a few other things about QF awards:
And the worst lesson of the day - An AY award on QF does not allow for stopovers.
However, there still is a great need of improvement!
They confirmed that the web booking indeed is not pricing the ticket correctly. In fact, it seems all QF awards are priced wrongly. So it is great that plat desk could fix it for me, but not so great that the unsuspecting do-it-yourself stands the chance of losing 100€ on one single booking.
So my advice is to use the AY award search with caution.
I also learned a few other things about QF awards:
- qantas.com has a lot of availability that oneWorld partners does not see. Especially business class seats.
- finnair.com sees a lot of domestic QF Y availability but very little (none in my case) international availability or J availability.
- platinum desk sees availability that finnair.com does not see. (but again, not nearly as much as qantas.com sees)
- ba.com and AY platinum sees approximately the same, however AY does not seem to see some LAN flights that ba.com saw. OTOH, platinum desk sees multiple flights on the same day when it seems like ba.com has limited the search to 1 flight option a day.
Oct 4, 2016, 9:53 am
#343
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Helsinki
Programs: AY Platinum, IHG Gold, Diners
Posts: 1,277
Annoying. I was in the summer thinking about booking a "dream trip" to Australia for the winter. Dropped the idea partly as it was so expensive to travel within Australia on awards. Well, I trusted blindly finnair's website and now know better. Perhaps another time!
Oct 5, 2016, 11:59 pm
#344
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Helsinki-Vantaa APT, Finland
Programs: AY LUMO
Posts: 6,059
Again: it is very difficult to book flights while the only response from booking machine is :
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Virhe tietoja lähetettäessä. Yritä myöhemmin uudelleen.
Oct 10, 2016, 9:59 am
#345
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: HEL
Programs: AY+ Plat and several other cards
Posts: 645
A good friend of mine changed to AY+ from BAEC. He had some existing reservations with BAEC frequent flyer number, but for some reason had problems changing one of those into AY+, and asked AY+ helpline to do it. They changed the frequent flier number on the reservations for him and also boarding passes showed his AY+ number. Quite a surprise to find out after the flights that despite all the efforts to ensure accrual into AY+ the points were credited to his BAEC account!
He contacted AY+ helpline and their response was that he must contact BAEC himself and ask them to remove the points and give a written confirmation of removal and after that AY+ can perhaps add the points to his account!!!
Totally unbelievable! The customer has done all he can to ensure the points are credited to right account, asked AY+ helpline to remove wrong/old FF number from the reservation and replace it with AY+ number, has confirmed at check-in that his AY+ number is stored in the reservation and had it also printed on his boarding passes, and after all this it is customer's problem to sort out the mess caused by AY! Is this really the right way to treat top tier customers?
No, Finnair, this is no way! If Finnair IT or some members of the staff have messed things up, it is not the customer that has to clear things up, but it definately is Finnair CS that shoud do it for the customer!
He contacted AY+ helpline and their response was that he must contact BAEC himself and ask them to remove the points and give a written confirmation of removal and after that AY+ can perhaps add the points to his account!!!
Totally unbelievable! The customer has done all he can to ensure the points are credited to right account, asked AY+ helpline to remove wrong/old FF number from the reservation and replace it with AY+ number, has confirmed at check-in that his AY+ number is stored in the reservation and had it also printed on his boarding passes, and after all this it is customer's problem to sort out the mess caused by AY! Is this really the right way to treat top tier customers?
No, Finnair, this is no way! If Finnair IT or some members of the staff have messed things up, it is not the customer that has to clear things up, but it definately is Finnair CS that shoud do it for the customer!