Earlier this weekI wrote that Finnair were about to introduce the ability to transfer in Avios from BA. Today, Avios transfers became possible between Finnair and British Airways. They are already available between BA and Qatar, Iberia and Aer Lingus. Transferring Avios between your accounts is free of charge, and you can do it as often as you wish.
The good news is that the transfers are instantaneous and will allow you to spend your Avios with Finnair in some different ways to what was available before:
- Upgrades – Currently you can’t use BA to upgrade on Avios. Now you will be able to buy a cash economy fare and upgrade using Avios.
- Extra partners to redeem on.
- Here is a selection of the most relevant additions:
- Two more airlines Swedish BRA (Braathens) Regional Airlines and Juneyao
- ALL Accor 4,600 Avios = 1,000 ALL points
- Scandic hotels
- Sokos hotels
- IHG – details not yet released
- Here is a selection of the most relevant additions:
- Extra availability – Finnair guarantees a minimum number of seats for Avios redemption on almost all Finnair flights, with two business class and two premium economy award seats on most long-haul flights. The exceptions are flights that do not pass through Helsinki (such as from Stockholm) and flights to/from Doha.
- Substantially lower taxes and charges on Avios redemptions – compared to flying with BA or even booking via BA.com, taxes and charges can be amazing value with prices starting from around £60 return in business class on long haul if you book from Helsinki and aren’t travelling to US or Japan, although those are still cheaper than with BA at around £400-550 return in business class.
It will also mean you can potentially transfer Avios from Iberia or Qatar to Finnair by linking them to your British Airways Executive Club and transferring into BA before moving them to Finnair.
How to link your accounts and transfer Avios
First you will need both a British Airways Executive Club account and a Finnair Plus account, so make sure you have signed up for both.
Next you need to go to this page to link your accounts.
The first thing you need to do is set up two factor authentication for your Finnair account. You will need to download a suitable authenticator app if you don’t have one. Finnair accepts the main ones such as Google.
Once you have completed that you will come back to the same page for step two.
You will then be asked to sign into your British Airways account, which will take you to this BA page. You may want to bookmark the page as it is a quick way to convert your Avios between partners such as Nectar and Qatar.
You then click on link accounts now, and it is done.
Next, you will need to move your Avios. This can be done in either direction, and there is no minimum, which is very handy. One Avios converts into one Avios in both directions.
I tried it, and it was instantaneous and very simple to do.
You can find more details about redeeming and earning Avios with Finnair here.
