AY Plus changes on 01JUN23
 

https://www.finnair.com/fi-en/finnai...r-plus-changes

Not great but not as terrible as I feared. Biggest change is quite drastic increases in upgrade and award flight prices (incl. surcharge on awards) - the rest is quite bearable (removal of sports equipment from Golds, free bag from Silvers and heavy bag charge applied to Plats/Lumos). Heavy bag charge returning to both Plats and Lumos is quite stingy, they could have at least waived it for Lumos when the revenue from Lumos' heavy baggage is likely to be quite low anyway.

With the new award prices, at least on shorthaul it's quite similar to the previous award prices we had prior. The new ugprade prices, on the other hand, make vouchers more valuable and might be good for upgrade availability.

Finnair Visa card holders earn 450 tier points per month when spending exceeds 1500 EUR. Isn't a big benefit but better than nothing.

Baggage changes do not seem to apply to tier members that much. I am not sure though if Superlight ticket still allows for a piece of checked baggage for Gold and above, but I would assume so?

Paskat, I am really annoyed by the award price increases and especially the surcharges on longhaul. 120/segment to Asia? That´s a lot.

Service and product going downhill and need more points and more money.

Wrong direction Topi now.

Not as bad as I was first expecting when seeing the news. Obviously going downhill but I welcome a better control of cabin baggage as the amount and size of baggage people are allowed to bring into the cabin is sometimes ridiculous.

Also, 450 tier points/month for AY Visa spend should not devaluate status as with these amounts (5400 tp/year) one will not be able to spend oneself to Gold/Plat by simply using the credit card.

33% devaluation of points in addition to introduction of surcharges.

They might start selling points now or even start double points promo.

Is this Superlight 0% points ?

Is the price for an award to Asia just 120 for Business Class? That's cheap compared to BA, AF or other airlines that charge minium 200 euros for Business Class.

Have we also had confirmation on the abolishment of the soft landing perk? There were some rumors….

My guess is as this replaces Light, it would still be at 50%.

Re the soft landing perk, it has never been an official perk and Finnair has never stated it exists, I doubt they would communicate in any way if it was to be removed.

Finnair Plus Platinum and Platinum Lumo members can no longer take heavy or oversized bags with them free of charge.

Imo this sucks most for me. Fixed amount of tier points for 1500e spend is little strange, but ok I guess.

Congratulations Finnair, it's making Eurobonus comparatively sexy again!
Round trip to Asia = 190000 points + 240 EUR = 1500-1800 EUR + real airport taxes depending on the value one gives to AY points. With availability sometimes difficult to come by. In the end, buying revenue tickets without bothering with AY might be the way to go. AY points are still interesting for intercontinental one-ways though.

Not as bad as I feared. They didn't touch the tierpoint thresholds or gift gold card which I fully expected. Although removing the perk of free heavy bags for top members is annoying. My bag is often a couple of kgs overweight but need to be more careful with it now.

Also, no mention if the free carry on bag on superlight tickets is also available to other OW elites. I imagine so?

My personal worry is that they'll now start checking the carry-on luggage weight. I don't like check-in bag for intra-Europe flights, and even if my carry-on has small dimensions, it's often bit heavy - typically just over 10kg (laptop and other typical business travel stuff).

In my opinion, the 8kg limit (incl personal item) is ridiculously low, and if I understood correctly, the same 8kg limit will be now applied also to business class both short- and long-haul.

It also seems that even business ticket now has max 23kg checked bag, not anymore 32kg. It has been sometimes handy to have one heavier bag for longer trips, but I guess from now just do two lighter bags instead. Not sure how that'd benefit Finnair. Even more stupid would be check-in bag for short travels just to stay below that 8kg carry-on limit...

Also on the could have been worse -train. AY had to make changes to drive for sustainable profits and they focused most of the negative changes away from their most frequent travellers.