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Finnair announced the introduction of a guaranteed minimum number of award seats on all its flights. This guarantee is already in effect. However, the guaranteed minimum number of award seats is only for flights departing on February 1, 2024 and beyond.
Finnair Minimum Award Guarantee Overview
The number of award seats will vary depending on the route as follows:
- Short flights within Europe will have at least:
- 4 economy awards.
- 2 business class awards.
- Long-haul flights to Asia, North America & Dubai will have at least the following:
- 4 economy seats.
- 2 premium economy seats.
- 2 business class seats.
However, that said, the minimum award guarantee does have some exclusions as follows:
- It does not apply to flights between Helsinki and Doha.
- Flights where tour operators have reserved most of the seats are excluded.
- Any flights that do not arrive or depart from Helsinki airport.
How Is Finnair Award Space Looking?
While it is excellent that Finnair is releasing more award space, booking through Finnair can be problematic due to the minimal number of transfer partners. You can only transfer Capital One miles to Finnair — along with a couple of hotel programs — which limits the ability to build a substantial Finnair points balance.
Thankfully, you aren't limited to booking through Finnair. Finnair is already making plenty of award space available to its Oneworld alliance partners. Space is readily available throughout next year during both peak and off-peak seasons.
For instance, we checked reward space between New York (JFK) and Helsinki (HEL) on April 18, 2024. We found plenty of space on British Airways' website, with six seats in economy and two in business class:
Unfortunately, British Airways passes along tons of taxes and fees on this award. This Finnair business class award flight prices out at 77,250 Avios plus £809.30 (~$944) in taxes and fees.
As savvy award travelers know, a better booking option is almost always available. Indeed, when booking the same award for the same flight through American Airlines AAdvantage, the same business class seat prices at 57,500 AAdvantage miles plus $5.60 in taxes and fees. That is a considerable saving compared to the British Airways price.
One thing to note, however, is that AA is showing substantially less Finnair award space than British Airways. Only time will tell whether this will be the norm or is a one-off. Our guess is that Finnair will likely provide Avios partners with more space than non-Avios partners as Finnair adopts the Avios currency and other Avios programs limit award availability to non-Avios partners.
While not every date is available through AAdvantage, there's already a noticeable increase in the number of dates with Finnair business class bookable between New York (JFK) and Helsinki (HEL).
Our Take
It is excellent news anytime a program add more award space, giving you more option to leverage your miles. The deal is even sweeter because Finnair will adopt Avios in 2024. This should mean it is much easier to boost your mileage balance if you want to book directly with Finnair since you should be able to transfer Avios between programs at no cost. Alternatively, the increased space should also make booking awards with non-Avios partners like American even easier.
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