11 Best Ways To Redeem Finnair Plus Points for Maximum Value [2023]

Note: As a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Finnair is currently experiencing many restrictions on airspace and may temporarily suspend flights to/from Asia.

Finnair, the flag carrier of Finland, is one of 14 Oneworld member airlines and is headquartered in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Operating since 1923, the airline is majority-owned by the government of Finland and is the sixth oldest airline in the world.

Additionally, Finnair has had no fatalities since 1963, and therefore consistently ranks at the top of the global airline safety rankings.

But we’re not here to talk about Finnair’s spotless safety record. We’re here to talk about its frequent flyer program, Finnair Plus. Finnair Plus is, sadly, a mostly useless frequent flyer program. It charges ungodly amounts of points for flight awards and there’s very little value to be had for award generalists.

There are a handful of niche redemptions that you can keep in your back pocket if you find yourself with a substantial balance of Finnair Plus points.

Let’s see how we can maximize your Finnair Plus points.

The Pros and Cons of Finnair Plus Points (Quick Overview)

There’s honestly not a lot to like about Finnair Plus, but we’ve managed to dig up a few talking points on both sides of the discussion. Let’s start with the good things. There aren’t a whole lot:

• Change fees are relatively modest

That’s pretty much where it ends as far as the pros of Finnair Plus. On the other hand, there are a slew of areas where Finnair Plus is weak as a loyalty program:

• Exorbitant redemption prices (380,000 Finnair Plus points versus 140,000 Alaska miles for round-trip first class on Qantas between North America and Australia)
• Lack of quality transfer partners (only Capital One)
• One-way awards are priced horribly
• All fuel surcharges are passed on
• Confusing rewards program and routing rules

Overall, Finnair Plus is a rewards program you generally want to avoid unless you already have a bunch of points. If you’ve been crediting your Oneworld flights to Finnair for many years, you may fall under this category. If you fly to Finland a lot, you may also find some value in liquidating these points.

Using Your Finnair Plus Points

Finnair Plus is a generally confusing loyalty program, but the good news is that you can book some partners completely online, which will minimize travelers’ headaches.

Remember, Finnair is a member of the Oneworld alliance and also has some non-alliance partners.

We’ll go over the partners you can book with online versus over the phone in the next sections.

Oneworld Alliance Airline Partners

Here are the Oneworld alliance partners that Finnair is affiliated with:

Remember that a number of additional airlines are affiliate members of the Oneworld alliance. These are mostly regional subsidiaries of Oneworld airlines.

Non-Alliance Airline Partners

In addition to being partners with all Oneworld airlines, Finnair is partners with Braathens Regional Airlines (BRA), Juneyao Air, and LATAM Airlines.

You can earn and redeem Finnair Plus points with these partners as well, so that’s a bonus.

Finnair Plus Award Charts

Finnair Plus has a slew of award charts, and here’s where it starts to get confusing.

1. Region-based (Finnair flights only)
2. Region-based (Partner flights only)

If you’re flying on Finnair flights only, then you will want to pay attention to this region-based award chart:

* Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Gdansk, Krakow, Moscow, Oslo, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Reykjavik, Riga, Talinn, Tartu, Tromsø, Visby, Vilnius, Warsaw, and all flights within Finland. Please note there is no business class on flights within Finland.
** Includes Tel Aviv .
*** On selected routes.

Let’s now move on to the region-based award charts for partner airlines. Just like Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Finnair Plus uses a different award chart for each partner, so there are loads of different award charts available.

However, most (if not all) of these award charts are ludicrous, charging 180,000 Finnair Plus points for a one-way first class flight on Japan Airlines between the U.S. and Japan, for example.

You really don’t want to be booking partner award flights using Finnair. If you absolutely must do so, however, visit this link and choose your partner airline.

Awards Bookable Online vs. Phone

As per Finnair Plus, you can book award flights on these airlines online:

For any other airlines, you’ll need to contact Finnair Plus at +358-9-818-0800 (Finland), 929-474-6049 (New York), or 323-694-7646 (Los Angeles).

Hot Tip: For expert tips and strategies, see our complete guide on searching for Oneworld award availability.

Award Redemption Rules

There are a bunch of award redemption rules unique to each award type. For Finnair-only award travel (known as Classic awards), here are the rules Finnair has indicated:

• Return flights must share the same departure and return city. One-way flights are exempt. For example, JFK-HEL-JFK is valid, whereas JFK-HEL-ORD is not.
• Connections for award flights are always booked for the first possible flight. No stopovers are permitted for short-haul, and 1 stopover is permitted on long-haul flights. This means that you’ll have the tightest connections available. 
• The outgoing and return flights of a return award ticket may not be on the same day.
• Customers can make changes with certain restrictions for the award flights. The change and refund fees are both $50. 
• If the customer travels in multiple travel classes during an award journey, the cost of that award will be calculated based on the highest travel class.
• Double-booked awards will be dropped and canceled.

Unfortunately, this makes for a relatively boring set of rules for Finnair-based travel. The next set of routing rules from Finnair that we’ll be discussing is for partner award flights:

• You can only book awards for yourself, close relatives, and people sharing the same household as you. We’re not sure what qualifies as “close relatives” or “sharing the same household,” but we’ll take this at face value.
• An award may be combined with a Finnair flight.
• For round-trip flights, the origin and destination airports must be identical. This doesn’t apply to one-way flights.
• There are no stopovers, except 1 stopover permitted on intercontinental flights.
• The outgoing and return flights may not be on the same day.
• The change and refund fees are both $50. 
• You may not change your ticket once the journey has started.
• Your award ticket will be ticketed within 1 day of reserving it.
• If the customer travels in multiple travel classes during an award journey, the cost of that award will be calculated based on the highest travel class. In other words, mixed cabin awards will be charged the highest travel class booked.
• Double-booked awards will be canceled.

In essence, the partner award routing rules are nearly identical to Finnair’s Classic awards, which is not too surprising.

How To Boost Your Finnair Plus Points

Earning Finnair Plus points can be difficult with only 1 transfer partner in Capital One Miles.

Capital One miles transfer at a 1:1 ratio. Additionally, transfer times are instantaneous, which means you can transfer right before booking your flights. The minimum transfer amount is 1,000 Capital One miles.

Recommended Capital One Cards

The 12 Best Ways To Use Your Finnair Plus Points

There are (nearly) an unlimited number of ways to waste your Finnair Plus points, and these include redemptions that cost a fortune.

However, there are actually quite a few ways to extract significant value from your points. Let’s get started with the best ways to use Finnair Plus points.

1. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and Northern Europe in Economy (15,000 Points)

If you find yourself in Finland and want to spend as few points as possible on an ordinarily expensive economy cash ticket, you can definitely count on Finnair Plus to help you out.

Round-trip costs from Helsinki to see the Northern Lights can be quite expensive, seeing as how Norway is one of the most expensive countries on Earth. So, using a small handful of Finnair Plus points can significantly soften the blow.

Here’s the route we’re talking about, which costs 15,000 Finnair Plus points one-way when booked online:

•  Helsinki (HEL) – Tromsø (TOS)

If you wanted to fly on a different route, you could pay the same price to fly to any of these cities:

2. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and Northern Europe in Business Class (25,000 Points)

Let’s say that you still want to fly within Northern Europe, but instead of economy, you opt for business class. The value you’ll get here is very limited due to the lack of quality business class seats on intra-Europe flights.

However, by taking advantage of the flight distances in the Northern Europe region, you can nab up to 4 hours in business class. Here’s a great route you can take:

• Reykjavik (KEF) – Helsinki (HEL)

The business class seats are nothing to be astonished by, but they can make a 4-hour flight slightly more comfortable. Round-trip costs are 25,000 Finnair Plus points.

3. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and Europe in Economy Class (30,000 Points)

Let’s move on to another region. Finnair lumps the rest of Europe into the Europe region, and this actually includes Tel Aviv.

Many of Finnair’s routes are cash-intensive, and using Finnair Plus points can help soften the blow on your wallet.

If you’re interested in flying within Europe, you can do so with these great sample routes:

• Gazipaşa (GZP) – Helsinki (HEL)
• Helsinki (HEL) – Tel Aviv (TLV)

It will run you 30,000 points for round-trip tickets if booked online.

In addition to these ordinarily expensive routes, you can fly nonstop to/from Helsinki and:

There are many other destinations within Europe that Finnair flies to, and these examples are intended to illustrate some expensive cash destinations.

4. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and Dubai in Business Class (160,000 Points)

If you wanted to fly within Europe in business class, you could do so on a medium-haul route of around 6 hours via Finnair business class. Round-trip costs will be 160,000 Finnair Plus points.

If you’re lucky, you can even get an exciting lie-flat business class seat on the A350! On top of that, enjoy better service, food, and lounge access.

• Helsinki (HEL) – Dubai (DXB)

5. Fly Round-trip in Finnair’s Lie-flat A350 Business Class Seats to London (50,000 Points)

Up until now, we haven’t talked about any special flight products from Finnair, and it’s for good reason. The seats on intra-Europe flights are somewhat depressing: business class seats are the exact same as economy seats, but the middle seat is blocked off.

That simply means that instead of 3 travelers on each side, there’s only a window and aisle seat occupied, and the middle seat is left empty. But, Finnair has great hard products aboard the A350 and A330, and this next redemption is focused on a short-haul flight that offers lie-flat business class in the reverse herringbone style.

If you wanted to try this on a short-haul flight, you can look no further than a route to London.

Here’s the route I’m talking about:

• Helsinki (HEL) – London-Heathrow (LHR) only on AY 1331

There’s only 1 flight with a widebody aircraft to/from London, but it’s totally worth spending the points for a new experience. This can be had on a round-trip flight for 50,000 points.

6. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and Asia in Economy Class (90,000 Points)

Now, let’s get into the long-haul destinations. Finnair operates nonstop flights to major cities in Asia, and these are:

It’s best to use your Finnair Plus points on economy tickets that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive, such as to these destinations:

• Helsinki (HEL) – Osaka (KIX)
• Phuket (HKT) – Helsinki (HEL)

The cash price of these tickets can run into $2,000+ round-trip, so spending 90,000 points can net you a value of ~2.2 cents per point, which is staggering for economy tickets.

7. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and Asia in Business Class (160,000 Points)

If you wanted to fly from Finland to Asia or vice-versa, you can do so in business class for 160,000 points round-trip. In this case, it’s important to get the best business class product, which is either on the A330 or A350.

A lot of times you don’t have much of a choice since there’s only 1 type of aircraft flown on long-haul routes. Here are some 10+ hour flights that you might be interested in trying:

• Helsinki (HEL) – Seoul-Incheon (ICN)
• Tokyo-Narita (NRT) – Helsinki (HEL)

8. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and North America in Economy Class (90,000 Points)

Flying to/from the U.S. and Finland is identical in price to flying to Asia, which is great. Usually, flights to/from the U.S. are at least slightly more expensive in points than to Asia due to the high demand from America.

Here are some of the routes you can take:

• Chicago (ORD) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330
• New York City (JFK) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330
• Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• Seattle (SEA) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330

Bottom Line: Economy tickets can be quite expensive, particularly from the West Coast, so using 90,000 points for a round-trip ticket will save you a bundle of cash.

9. Fly Round-trip Between Finland and North America in Business Class (160,000 Points)

Finnair recently began expanding its routes operated by the A350, which is the newest plane available on Finnair. Additionally, it has the longest flight, measuring at around 10.5 hours.

There’s just something about brand-new business class products in the reverse herringbone layout that oozes classiness. And luckily, the A330 features the same lovely business class configuration as the new A350.

• Chicago (ORD) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A330
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• Miami (MIA) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350
• New York (JFK) – Helsinki (HEL) operated by the A350

10. Upgrade Deeply Discounted Finnair Tickets Between Finland and North America/Asia (50,000 Points)

Another redemption you can make is not an award redemption, but rather, an upgrade. Finnair doesn’t have a minimum fare class required to upgrade, so if you find yourself booking a super cheap economy ticket, you can upgrade your flights for a somewhat reasonable price.

Here’s the upgrade chart for Finnair Plus flights. Remember, these upgrade costs are for one-way flights.

* Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Krakow, Moscow, Oslo, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Reykjavik, Riga, Talinn, Tartu, Vilnius, and Warsaw.

The cheapest round-trip economy tickets to/from North America and Asia can run as little as $500. If you get your hands on those and find upgrade space on Finnair, you can pay 50,000 Finnair Plus points to upgrade each segment.

Considering that one-way business class tickets are around $4,000+, you could get significant value by upgrading your tickets.

11. Upgrade Deeply Discounted Finnair Tickets to Tel Aviv and Try Finnair’s Sauna on a Long Layover in Helsinki (10,000 Points)

An extension of upgrading deeply discounted tickets is doing so to enhance your lounge experience. Just because an airline offers mediocre hard products (intra-Europe business class) doesn’t mean that it can’t be valuable to travelers.

For example, Finnair is one of the only airlines in the world to offer a sauna in its business class lounge at Helsinki (HEL). If you had a super-cheap economy ticket within Europe (not Northern Europe), why not upgrade for 10,000 Finnair Plus points and spend a long layover in the lounge?

Final Thoughts

All in all, Finnair Plus won’t be a frequent flyer program we’re dying to use. It has mind-bogglingly high redemption rates on most awards, and it’s difficult to get tons of value.

However, we’ve shown that there are ways to use your Finnair Plus points to get some good value. We’ve covered the entire gamut of possible trip redemptions, ranging from a simple regional award ticket to upgrades on deeply-discounted economy fares.

All in all, there’s a bit of value to be had in using Finnair Plus points. In general, redemptions take a ton of points, so be ready to shell out hundreds of thousands of points.