Hi there!

I am a new member, although I have been reading the forum for some time.

I am from Finland and obviously flown mostly with Finnair, and their Plus-program is of no use for someone buying cheap offers a couple of times a year.

However, I just booked flights to Africa for the whole family, and accidentally the cheapest tickets were offered by BA (HEL-JNB was 800�, LHR-JNB would have been 1600�..go figure). They promoted their Executive Club and I joined. Or the whole family joined. Their calculator shows that we would be getting over 65.000 Avios for the trip and the "how to spend your Avios"-site told that those points already would be enough for HEL-VCE-HEL for two people in couch (the trip we are planning next).

Finnair in general seems to give less Plus-points per route and charges almost twice as much points for reward flights.

Are there really that big differences in reward programs or did I miss something? I have never given that much thought on these since I always go for the lowest prices. But if we get a shorter European trip for a couple of people for the BA flat rate everytime we take a longer vacation..it's madness!

yes. Frequent flyer programs even across one alliance vary wildly in perks and benefits. In the oneworld forum, there's a whole thread dealing with the finer points of comparing FFPs that's over forty pages long already. Star Alliance has a discussion twice the size as well.

For infrequent fliers such as you,the BA program is good as it (together with Iberia) has the most generous expiration policy among oneworld airlines (any activity within three years will keep all points alive).
Two tips that will make your BAEC experience better: Sign up for a household account (if you haven't done so already). This way, you can pool all avios earned by any member of the family into one account.
And check if they offer an affiliated credit card in Finland which will not only earn you a sizeable sign-up bonus and Avios on every euro you charge to it, but also (if continuously used for purchases) keep your Avios balance from ever expiring even when not flying BA or partners.
Edit: They appear to not have a co-branded card in Finland, but you can get a MR-earning Amex card. Amex MR points can easily be transferred to BA Avios. More information in this thread.
There is a catch with BA, though: When redeeming your Avios for BA flights, BA usually levies large 'fuel' surcharges on award tickets plus an assortment of taxes which can run rather high.
Make sure you select the "reward flight saver" option when redeeming your Avios for that VCE flight. This will cost you 'only' 42 Euros pp on top of your Avios.

BA tends to be good for shorthaul European awards on BA and bad for longhaul awards or partner awards -- the exact opposite of most other programmes. Also the household account is a big advantage that makes it quite useful for a lot of people.

All else being equal you're usually best off with the programme of your home airline as they tend to be better tuned for your needs. They might have more local non-alliance partners, have more fine-grained award charts for the region, or have more promotions that you're eligible for. But there are definitely variations, some big variations.

Also look carefully at expiration policies. Some may have miles that you can keep from expiring as long as you have at least one flight a year or so credited toward that airline. Others may have "hard" expirations (expirations that cannot be extended in any way) after a certain number of years, and if you don't earn enough miles to get to your desired award by then, "poof" they go.

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"There is a catch with BA, though: When redeeming your Avios for BA flights, BA usually levies large 'fuel' surcharges on award tickets plus an assortment of taxes which can run rather high.
Make sure you select the "reward flight saver" option when redeeming your Avios for that VCE flight. This will cost you 'only' 42 Euros pp on top of your Avios."

Another option -- which would cost fewer Avios -- would be HEL-TXL-VCE on Air Berlin, for which there are no surcharges when redeeming Avios. There are still taxes, however, and I'm not sure how they would compare on an AB redemption via TXL with the RFS co-pays on BA via LON.

The OP might also consider crediting her BA flights to AA rather than to BA. AA charges 10,000 miles for an Economy one-way flight within Europe (connections included), as long as the operating carrier publishes a through-fare from origin to destination. No surcharges on AA redemptions, except when one redeems on BA or IB. And only 20,000 miles one way in Economy from HEL to anywhere in the U.S. -- including Hawaii, subject to there being published through-fares -- during AA's off-peak season (October 15 to May 15) with a free stopover at the North American gateway (JFK, ORD, etc.)

Lots to consider.

BA via LON will require a change of airport. Furthermore, Avios is based on distance, and TXL is much more direct so I would expect the Avios to be lower


Searching on ba.com:
BA via LHR-LGW - 15000 Avios + �35.00 one way (but may be EUR 35 for Finnish members?)

AB via TXL - 12000 Avios + �24.30 one way

In my opinion AA is the clear winner, at least if you are flying cheapest possible economy. Here are the most important points for me:

- you earn miles on pretty much every AA, BA, AY flight, no matter the booking class (for example AA's flights between USA and South America in booking class O don't earn miles on any other OW program)

- you earn full miles on Flybe flights

- I'm not sure, but I've understood that you even earn full miles on AY's leisure flights

- you can book one-ways from HEL to most important European cities for just 10k miles +tax

- 25k miles (first elite level) is easiest to reach with AA's program of all OW programs

As you have noticed yourself, AY Plus sucks, so please don't even consider it

It seems to me that the overwhelming consideration here is that BA allows pooling of miles within the family. That means a family can accumulate miles for all of its members and then get award tickets for some of them, while others buy tickets. If each family member has a separate account it may mean that none of them have enough miles for an award.

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Yes, but ....

A HEL-LHR-JNB-LHR-HEL roundtrip would earn about 13,000 miles in either program, which would be enough for an intra-European one-way to be booked with AA miles by each member of the party, whether in one's own name or someone else's.

BAEC would be better for redemptions between HEL and the UK because of the distance-based nature of the BAEC redemption scheme and the availability of Reward Flights Savers; and for redemptions made less than 21 days before departure, since AAdvantage charges non-elites a $75 close-in award-booking fee, and BAEC does not. But if a HEL-based traveler expects to book awards primarily on AY, then an AAdvantage redemption will likely have lower out-of-pocket costs, due to the absence of surcharges.

Thank you for these bits of info! I really did not compare or think about the programs at all, felt just that Finnair is kind of a letdown these days.

So AA would be better in regards of getting miles out of AY flights but BA is ok, especially considering the Household account and the almost never-expiring points? Maybe we'll stick with BA for now then. Heathrow is hellish, but London is our favourite city. Don't mind travelling via London every once in a while.

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If you are primarily interested in using your miles to travel between HEL and the U.K. on BA metal, then Avios are your best deal, utilizing Reward Flight Savers. Also, note that for the cost of a HEL-LHR redemption, you can tack on an intra-U.K. flight (to Manchester, Belfast, etc.), even after a stopover in London.