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.

I say boo to everything.

Been following the forum a bit less lately, as I have started to gravitate away from AY where it makes sense. Could someone help me catch up; what's the underlying reason on why the removal of soft landing is talked about here? Was there an announcement or some T&C update earlier?

I'm getting concerned, as my tracking period rolls over on June 1st, that AY manages to [mod retraction] me over twice during the one period of Lumohood I've enjoyed. First by removing the second set of vouchers and now this.

Can only laugh at this circus going on at Tietotie.

No, someone noticed that they mention that if you don't qualify, your tier will be determined by the tier points/segments you have at that point. This text, however, has been the same for 10 years or so. So again, I don't think it's worth panicking over before we have any experience of the soft landing perk being removed.

As noticed with the changes now introduced, they don't affect the core of the program or tier progress or similar things. However, nothing's off the table and we cannot know for certain.

Thanks, have to wait and see. I did save the AY company reps post on this forum about a year ago where it was explicitly stated that this exists, so I'll continue to go by that.

Someone without status who has bought a classic J ticket (I'd assume all travel classes are affected) might be rather surprised to find out that they can't select seats for free even during check-in.

https://www.finnair.com/fi-en/bluewi...wances-2973610

Wow. It's one thing to do it on Light (Superlight) tickets but even on the Classic fare? This is getting beyond ridiculous.

And since they use the archaic online check-in system from Amadeus, I assume that even if you do pay for a seat, you won't be able to change it at check-in without paying (as is the case with TP that runs on the same system). Unlike with LH Group where paying for a seat in advance (on Light fare) at least means that you get unlimited seat switches afterwards.

I'm not sure about this either. With a quick glance I didn't notice any mention of this. Hopefully that means there will be no change.

The surcharge system is designed to penalize ex-Finland based travellers . We already seen the removal of seats from non-finns by employing anti married segments on award. And now the few awards open for non-finns getting double surcharge. Lovely.
​​​​​
VIsa card is also only available for Finns, so even improvements are targeted to the domestic audience.

Might also suprise them to only get one bag at 23kg 😄🤷‍♂️

With the baggage changes to J it really feels like penny pinching. I assume the additional allowance with an upgrade is then now gone. And awards likely include then also only one piece allowance.

Also that special baggage like skis are not part anymore of the regular allowance is not good.

Overall it could be worse but it is difficult to see why to move to AY.

Piece of S*** airline.

If buy award trips now and have to postpone them later. Do I have to pay extra later?

I would assume so, but who knows with ay...

The baggage changes are dependent on ticket issue date, so IF this goes by same logic, a reissue of an award would trigger new copay.

So, this was AY's 100 year celebration for customers.

Cant wait 101 year s bringing us together -celebration.

Travel class upgrades with points: 15 000 European flights one way and 60 000 rest of world one way

Oh well, at least the Burger King takeaway paper bag should still fit within the permitted small bag measurements of 40x30x15 cm (which btw volumewise are less than what Ryanair permits passengers to bring into the plane for free).

This sucks, the carry-on changes are really annoying. Guess it's time to spend the rest of the points on award flights before the prices go up.

WOW they want to drive away all loyal customers by purpose, the high prices combined with the new regulations make AY even more attractive - not.

Remember just a few years back as a Plat flying J you could carry a total of 128KGs with your ticket, now we are at 23KGs if on a Light Ticket. Paying for seat assignments even at CI is FR style, the booking fees for awards per leg are even more appealing, so if you win one of the lucky tickets your price is 270€ - I could not dream about it.

Just gonna book a whole bunch of Lapland flights to get rid of my points. The rest we will see, but it looks like the results prove that AY is going into the right direction. I just learned from them, giving your customer a bad product for a higher price make everyone happy.

AY has been pissing in their customers face ever since banker Topi took the reigns in the company. I have long avoided AY if i can but now i will go great lengths and even inconvenience my travels to avoid AY.

To me, by far the biggest impact is the weight limit of 8kg _total_ for your carry-on. Normal gear for a work week will go over that, which would mean that you need to check bags every time. That adds easily an hour each way, plus the risk of lost luggage. I can understand the rationale behind the limitations on the number and volume of carry-on bags, but why control weight? Just for reference, BA allows carry-ons up to 23kg per item, so total 46kg is OK.

Weight limits for AY carry on have always been as total.

Because taking less is more sustainable ;)

The weight limit has always been the same, so no change here (it was 10kg for Business and elites in the past but 2kg does not make much difference). I doubt they are going to start weighing the bags, though, if they fit in the sizer as they have a lot to monitor at the gates already.