Jonesdds

I have a Ton of AA miles, been EXP through them awhile but did take advantage of Finnair promo in 2021 to buy miles, get my Plat status, along with wife’s Gold and got great value on LAX to CDG trip booked in Econ with use of biz upgrades. Bit bumpy with all the flight schedules changes but fought my way through. So sitting on 150k still but with status ending and rest of upgrades expiring too late to extend and use the upgrades. So late Jan will see my 150k miles become 100k Avios if I understand it all.

Been considering BA gold vs Finnair Plat as of last year. I’m a U.S. flyer predominately with bi annual flights on OW airlines mostly. Seemed fairly easy on Finnair’s current/old program to maintain plat with this flying, not sure now. Just read a blog on tier points but it doesn’t spell out what domestic US flights earn. I know what it takes to earn OWE on BA but trying to figure out if Finnair makes more sense.

I’ve got about 12 RTs booked on AA domestically, almost all 2 segments each way so, works out to 22 segments. Til late summer. But segments aren’t the criteria any more, it’s spend but is that true for domestic us partner travel? And what about conversion of miles to tier points in Finnair program? 150k is 50k but then 3/2 with Avios program is 33k, is that correct? So leaves 47k to reach 80k to plat, correct? Probably won’t use miles/Avios for this but possibly some, maybe all.

My reasoning behind doing this instead of AA EXP is I don’t value upgrades any longer but do value the other OWE benefits, more so with a none US based airline. Qantas first lounge out of LAX, Cathay first LHR T3 and galleries first T5 among others and other benefits is a big plus for me

guv1976

In what class of service will your 22 domestic segments be, and what is the typical length of the individual segments?

kauppias

Also good to remember that ba requires xx number of ba segments for status

intuition

This is the source, so you can read up on what is publicly said at this time.

For all we know, flying on partner airliens (eg US domestic) will not count as spend, but use earnings table. There is no more info on these tables at this point, and it is only promised to be released 1 month before program change-over at the latest. Expect info about this late december or thereabouts.

Tier points from those flights will be based on distance and probably with factors for cabin class, but before those new tables are made official it is impossible to know what it will take to qualify.

Same thing for exchange from award points (avios) to tier points. It is said to remain possible at 3 avios -> 1 tier point, but as long as you won't know how easy/difficult it will be to collect avios on AY+ program via partern flights that says very little.

kauppias

I thought it was ba, ib and AA that would be spend based or was that the AA version?

intuition

I'm reading the question as flying OW carriers in the US and choosing to credit to AY or BA. Maybe I misunderstood, but crediting eg AA flights to AY will not count as spend.

Jonesdds

all business/first

Jonesdds

Am I missing something or is there a spend requirement for status?

guv1976

In that case, you should be able to easily obtain oneworld Sapphire via Iberia Plus without ever setting foot on a BA or IB plane. Whether you'd be able to get to OWE would depend on the exact routing of your twice-a-year intercontinental roundtrips. Note, though, that Iberia's earning period for elite status is fixed: It runs from April 1 through March 31 yearly.

If you can meet the four qualifying BA segments, then your flying patterns should get you BAEC Gold/OWE pretty easily.

More information about attaining status with IB here:

https://insideflyer.co.uk/2019/03/qa...f-iberia-plus/

("WHY QATAR AIRWAYS BUSINESS CLASS REGULARS MIGHT BE BETTER OFF WITH IBERIA PLUS")

intuition

Yes, both Avios and tier points on AY+ program will be spend based when flying AY.
When flying ow partners it will not, but we don't know exactly how much tier points a ow flight will earn (or if it will be possible to earn ay status flying only ow carriers)

mpkz

There have been no spend requirement announced. You can earn anything up to plat by flying other OW partners, only Lumo requires the bulk of points to be earned on AY.

Jonesdds

Per the Finnair website:

”Tier point qualification and collecting loyalty currency on flights that are marketed or operated* by a partner airline, including Finnair codeshare flights, will continue to be based on the travel class, booking class and distance flown, but the distance flown will be changed from kilometres to miles.

This will apply to all flights flown on or after the date when the changes are implemented in late January 2024, as well as when claiming missing tier points and Avios for any flights after the changes have taken effect. This means that all tier point and Avios transactions will be based on miles after the changes have been implemented in late January 2024.

*The marketing airline refers to the airline that sells the flight, whereas the operating airline refers to the airline responsible for actually flying the flight.
In addition to Finnair codeshare flights, you can collect tier points and Avios from oneworld partner flights and only Avios on other partners' flights. The carrier code on the ticket must be ‘MARKETING CARRIER’ and the flight operated on an aircraft of the partner. If the partner airline is not part of the oneworld alliance you will collect only Avios, not any tier points.”

It seems from this my taking domestic U.S. flights on AA or BA transatlantic/intraeurope flights will earn avios based on distance and get fare and tier multipliers. We just don’t yet know.

one thing that could affect my decision is my status and the earning period. My two year run as Plat on Finnair Plus ends end of Jan. Is it a soft landing to gold or down to a basic member?

mpkz

Yes, you are correct, there is no indication that your domestics would stop counting towards status. There is absolutely no minimum spend. My guess is the same earnings chart as now but scaled down, but no idea on that. Of course, usually partner earnings are worse and there are fewer benefits from flying on partners but in your case the case for getting a non-US status is clear.

There is no official soft landing but I think almost all people get it, so you would drop to gold.

UKtravelbear

yes 2 for Bronze and 4 for Silver / Gold.

you can earn all the TPs you like on other one world carriers but with out the BA flights you won’t get the status and BA is strict about that.

CX HK

Don't forget that on AY+ you can convert your points / soon to be Avios into Tier Points, which is quite helpful in achieving or maintaining status.