Finnair Plus or BAEC

Old Oct 16, 2018, 4:43 am
  #1  
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Finnair Plus or BAEC

Hi,

I'm hoping someone can share some insights:

I'll be travelling between London and Helsinki on a weekly basis. Additionally, I'll be doing multiple (12 as minimum) trips from either Helsinki or London to Asia and North America. All of this done on either AY or BA flights in Full Fare Economy. As an indicator, I expect I would comfortably achieve Gold tier with BAEC.

What is important to me is getting as many upgrades to Business Class as possible on long haul flights, either through direct upgrades or points usage.

Should I opt for Finnair Plus or BAEC and why? Does it depend on if the long haul flights are AY or BA?

Hope you can help. Many thanks!

M
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 4:55 am
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Lots of things to consider really and one could faff along forever. BA Gold other than being emerald offers you very little as far as upgrades are concerned. I was one for many years. I cannot do the calculations, but if a lot of your travel is on AY coded, then definitely AY provides better value with upgrade vouchers and regular SMS offers for miles upgrades. I did the swap on similar grounds to AY, made Platinum in 5 months, but I am travellin the LH in J. The only other thing to really consider is that Finnair in recent months has become quite an expensive airline to fly and now my flights to Asia have pretty much all switched to Qatar.

Anyhow, when choosing between the two, I think you get the best value by choosing the program on which your flights will be ticketed with. If there is a lot of BA, i would go with them and if a lot of AY, then with AY.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 4:58 am
  #3  
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Concur with above. However if paying with , AY has very good offers. And all of the booking classes in AY economy are upgradeable by points or vouchers. AY coverage in NA is limited but AA-AY-BA-IB cartel will be of help. Avoid LHR when connecting from HEL to NA or allow for plenty of lax between the flights.

Been the other side also... half way to BAEC LTG, but now AY Plus serves me better.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 5:01 am
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Weekly HEL-LHR are ca 100 legs +12 longhauls (min 24 legs) brings you dangerously close to 150 legs, that is Finnair Lumo. Starting from scratch, on your way up, you'd get 4 s/h upg vouchers (for hitting Gold) + 2 lh & 4 sh more (for hitting Plat) + 4 lh & 8 sh (for hitting Lumo) AND 1+2 giveaway AY Gold (OWS) cards + a healthy points balance to use for award flights or to upgrade (all revenue tix are upgradable with AY). Once the first year is over, you'll get the Lumo allotment (4lh + 8sh + 2 Gold cards) the next year. Excellent upgrade availability.

100 HEL-LHR on BAEC would be some 4000TP + whatever the lh's would bring in (another 1000?), getting you into the higher echelons of the BAEC programme, I forgot what they are since jumping the BAEC ship a few years ago.

Mileage, Avios, AY TP earnings depend a LOT on the marketing airline. Best case scenario on AY - 225% (paid C for AYPlat), same flight on BAEC would earn 125% (?) Similar results when reversed.

PS - if choosing your flights carefully, you can have most of your HEL-LHR flights in the front cabin of the A359! Obviously AY Y flights, upgraded with AY vouchers/points
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 5:10 am
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In addition to what WilcoRoger mentioned, considering you will fly Full Fare Economy, you would certainly collect 200k, 300k and likely also 400k bonuses in AY+. That would give you an opportunity to collect another nice bunch of upgrade vouchers or points.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 5:48 am
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This made me do some calculations. With BA I would have already 3200 TP-s this year, but only north of 130k miles, since there is only 8 flights on BA Metal. I am well over halfway through to Lumo, however I will not qualify due to incredibly high proportion of QR flights. I guess I just cannot win and I still have some longhaul vouchers going sour in december.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 11:26 am
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Also note that in BAEC, upgrading from BA's World Traveller (ie Economy, Y) using Avios, it only takes you to World Traveller Plus (ie W). Up to Business Class (Club World) would be a two-class upgrade, which is not possible.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 3:46 pm
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All,
Thanks very much for the feedback. Much appreciated. Looks like it will be Finnair.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 9:00 pm
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Mileage, Avios, AY TP earnings depend a LOT on the marketing airline. Best case scenario on AY - 225% (paid C for AYPlat), same flight on BAEC would earn 125% (?) Similar results when reversed.
There is a big difference in the earnings multiplier for higher tiers. AY Plat gets you 25% additional points (only on AY), BA Gold gets you 100% additional (double points) on BA, AA and IB. And for the past few years they have a 2x or 3x promotion during the autumn. You will not get the 100% extra when flying AY though unless you book it with a BA flight number (I have booked HEL-JFK in the past with a BA flight number for this reason). For LHR-HEL all the AY flights have a BA flight number as well (I always book them with BA flight numbers for this reason).

There are upgrade "vouchers" with BA EC, they are called gold upgrades for two (GUF2 on this board) and also there is GUF1. You get them at certain tier point thresholds and they are applied at time of ticketing. One voucher is valid for a whole ticket, not one segment. So if you have LHR-SIN-SYD return that would be one GUF1 voucher to upgrade the whole trip. They are only for BA operated flights though, in the same way that AY vouchers are only for AY flights.

I would not enjoy all those long haul flights in Y though. With my current employer I pay the difference (normally about 300-400euro per trip) to be ticketed in premium economy (which AY doesn't have). From london the CX premium economy to HK is really nice and a good chance of an op up to their business cabin which has much better seats than BA or AY. For the extra money I get some comfort and also much higher avios and tier point earnings.
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Old Oct 16, 2018, 9:46 pm
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Should I opt for Finnair Plus or BAEC and why? Does it depend on if the long haul flights are AY or BA?
Originally Posted by Gate25
Thanks very much for the feedback. Much appreciated. Looks like it will be Finnair.
With AY Finnair ffp you will not be able to upgrade BA flights with ff miles. Or on any other airline.
BA/IB/AA have a cross airline upgrade scheme that has onerous t&c's and requires a high priced Y/B/? base fare.

What will you use your ff miles for? Just upgrades on AY and award flights on other airline?
What is your current BA / AY status?

Is LHR/LGW your home airport?

Oneworld:- Deciding on a Oneworld Frequent Flyer Program? Help is here

Be mindful of expiry Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire. Click to open the wiki.

Last edited by Mwenenzi; Oct 17, 2018 at 1:17 pm
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Old Oct 17, 2018, 2:55 am
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There is one more thing - if you go down the BAEC route, you'll tend to end up on BA metal (double TPs and Avios!) even when going east (been there, done that) Going east with BA ex HEL you'll face:

1) The hell some people call LHR transit
2) MUCH longer travel time compared on AY
3) Compared to BA's Dormitory class (aka Club World), AY C is miles and miles ahead.
4) You can even fly during the winter

Westbound 2) is less of an issue, if you go to destinations NOT served by AY

My experience is, that (being HEL based) jumping from BAEC to AY+ was a good decision. BAEC just got too many things enhanced to make it less interesting for me as an FFP (I was THIS close to GGL when they raised the bar) while at the same time AY+ got real imporvements. Flying direct to Asia (instead of via LHR) made my life so much easier.
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Old Oct 17, 2018, 3:16 am
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger

1) The hell some people call LHR transit
2) MUCH longer travel time compared on AY
3) Compared to BA's Dormitory class (aka Club World), AY C is miles and miles ahead.
1. Once you are Emerald and transit queues are bad you just walk out to the landside of T5 and use the security at FIRST checkin. Never had a problem there.
3. I for one find the A350 business class seat in AY one of the most uncomfortable seats in Oneworld. Firstly the lack of storage and then for someone with size 12 / 46 feet, the foothole is way too small and that ventilator grill still drives me bananas every time I am on that plane. So BA Club any time, any day.
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Old Oct 17, 2018, 4:19 am
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1/ Given that the HEL flights land at T3, you're/we're SOL Even if at T5 you'll get to queue at UK Border to go landside and it'll probably get nightmarish come next April... So thanks, but no thanks. LHR is high on my "avoid if you can for transit" list, together with FRA and CDG.

3/ I have no (serious) issues with the A359 seat, even being a gentleman of size Whereas the Dorm World just freaks me out. 2-4-2 is premium class - seriously? Facing backward, facing a complete stranger for xx hours, jumping over/being jumped over, the whole plexi divider thing - and this is just the hard product... In 2018 it doesn't cut the cheese. Yes, beats the back of the plane, but why go out of my way to use it when there are so many better options?

The one thing for Avios is that it is a more versatile currency, but often it's just cheaper to buy a revenue ticket than award + "fees"

If you're LON based, have Avios earnig CCs, etc - that's another calculation for sure.
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Old Oct 17, 2018, 8:27 am
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A lot of valid points here from both FFPs. As OP primary goal is to get as many upgrades possible, AY Plus suits better. First upgrade vouchers come after 46 segments, then after 76 segments. If 150(100 AY) segments for Lumo is not achievable, the rest 50 something segments or less could be posted to BAEC for Gold, when the long haul flights give a sufficient amount of TPs to reach BA Gold. AY redemption chart sucks when redeeming with partner airlines.
About the transfer in HEL and LHR. HEL is simple and usually fast. LHR takes definitely more time especially when you transfer between T3 and T5. I would choose a T3 CX,QF,GF and T5 GF or CCR any day instead of any HEL lounge.
BA Dormitory(CW 2-4-2,2-3-2 upper deck) must be designed by Finnish. It is exactly a Neighbor Hunter(naapurin kyttj) layout :-) Fortunately I never flow in there, yet. AY359 business class is nothing special, I prefer QR,CX business class with longer total time and transfer to get better experience unless the price is significantly lower with AY.
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Old Oct 17, 2018, 11:33 pm
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Going east with BA ex HEL you'll face:

1) The hell some people call LHR transit
2) MUCH longer travel time compared on AY
3) Compared to BA's Dormitory class (aka Club World), AY C is miles and miles ahead.
4) You can even fly during the winter .
But the OP did mention that the flights would be in economy, even the long haul ones, with a hope to upgrade them. So this brings up the lack of premium economy on AY. In the past few months i've flown HEL-LHR-HKG-KUL and HEL-MUC-DEL both in premium economy (CX and LH) rather than take economy class flights on AY. I have made the decision that i'd prefer a few hours extra travel time but travel in comfort rather than long haul economy. Out of the four long haul segments, one was an op-up to business class (LH) which is quite common with premium economy. For the CX flight it was T3->T3 and the showers and dining room of the CX first class lounge. The LH premium economy ticket was cheaper than economy and the CX ticket was 300e more than economy.
If you are travelling east in business class then AY is quicker and quite acceptable (although I would always choose JAL if travelling to Tokyo) but in economy there are other factors that mean you might put up with extra travel time in exchange for a more comfortable trip.
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