There once was a time where Avios were considered one of the best partner currencies with which to book domestic American Airlines awards – availability was great and pricing was often better than on AA itself, especially for shorter flights.
That time has come and gone.
British Airways has rolled out a series of price-hikes specific to the domestic US awards, the latest of which has made the program completely non-competitive for most routes within the lower-48. Qatar Airways Avios then followed suit in August, bringing its pricing for domestic awards for AA and Alaska more or less in line with BA’s. That left Finnair as the last shining city on a hill where you could use your Avios for good value within the US.
Unfortunately, that value has been pushed even further to the margins, as Finnair has increased its pricing as much as 50% for domestic American Airlines flights, pretty much putting the final nail in the coffin of using Avios in the US for short or medium-length flights.
Finnair Plus operates a little differently from the rest of the Avios programs in that it uses a zone-based system for AA award pricing (as opposed to distanced-based). There are three zones that have been affected in this recent increase, with the prices in Avios listed below.
| Economy – Old | Economy – New | Business – Old | Business – New | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Within the US and Canada | 11,000 | 16,500 | 30,000 | 40,000 |
| From the US to Mexico and the Caribbean | 13,000 | 15,000 | 40,000 | Same |
| Within South America | 13,000 | 15,000 | 40,000 | Same |
By far the worst increase is on economy awards within the US and Canada, which has gone up by 50%. Domestic business class awards have gone up by 33%, putting the pricing in line with inter-South America and US-Mexico/Caribbean flights.
When it was 11,000 Avios in economy, Finnair often had the best pricing when redeeming Avios for domestic AA awards. Basically, for any flights that were over 1,401 miles one-way, Finnair was the program to beat.
Obviously, that’s no longer the case.
Now, Alaska Mileage Plan has significantly better pricing on any AA award that’s 2,100 miles or under (unless you happen to have Japan Airlines miles). Finnair still remains the best value for awards that are 2,101 miles or longer: think transcontinentals and flights to Hawai’i – assuming that you can find the availability.
Strangely enough, Finnair has not increased its excellent pricing between the US Mainland and Hawai’i…that’s still 15K each way in economy. This creates a bizarre situation where it will cost you 16,500 Finnair Avios to fly from DC to New York or New York to San Francisco, but only 15,000 Avios to fly from New York to Honolulu. What a crazy world.
Interestingly, unlike the other Avios programs that increased prices on domestic Alaska and American awards at the same time, Finnair has only raised American pricing. Alaska is still operating under the old award chart pricing…for now.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
I feel like BA has killed a huge revenue stream for them. Most people are not going to attempt to accrue Avios anymore. Whereas many people used to value Avios, now they are worse than the Skypeso. I am glad I used all of mine up before they circled the drain.
My how Avios has fallen in a year. Unfortunate to see Finnair follow the other programs but it was already hit or miss as it was. Tried 4 different times to book an AA transcon a few months ago and could never get it, some of the agents stated that BA can see different availability and not all of that space was open to Finnair. Don’t know how accurate that is but after enough times I gave up and used AA miles.
Maybe not Avios has fallen but AA. AA is the common thread here. Next for AA bookings will be AS I’m thinking. AA domestic for me is much worse than DL on award bookings especially 1st class.
Maybe. As with many programs Avios was great for partner bookings but often meh for their own metal, at least with long haul BA thanks to surcharges. I do agree it’s not all bad, Qatar Avios are still a better way to book Jet Blue Mint than actual Jet Blue Miles (though again devalued from the first redemption rates). Qatar on its own metal is a bit of a premium for better availability (and product quality). Aer Lingus and Iberia still give good value when you can find the availability.
I managed to snag under 20K AA domestic First for a 5 hour flight next summer so I can’t complain too loudly about them. But yeah many times I see 50K for a route you can buy right around $500.
Very good friend a 4 million miler and lifetime Platinum which really means nothing. Anyway he has 3-4 million AA miles and whether domestic or international he gets burned on almost every award ticket. My tip to him, as P2 also has a lot of AA miles and I do the family bookings, you had better be ready at 331 days booking AA and really DL. Sometimes 332 as it takes a day for the award level to “settle down” so to speak. Our problem is we’re AA hub captive – DFW. The same if flying DL from ATL. Anyway if you don’t book AA at 331-332 days out I’ve seen it go from say 60K to 100K overnight. And if someone books ahead of you, then forget it. My examples all 1st class awards. As we say it’s a game and YMMV. Good Luck
Sounds about right, once AA has their “saver” inventory used up as Lee mentioned you’re going to see those 100K+ prices until very close in, or it’s all you’ll ever see. The good awards I found for next summer on AA were booked very close to schedule open by a bit of luck on when we had more certainty around future family schedules. The AA + a BA connector for 57.5K had every flight time available with multiple seats and then were all gone within a few days. The 5 hour domestic flight to EWR stuck around longer at a good rate but also went up over 40K after a month or so.
A while ago, AA eliminated “saver” award pricing. We now have Web Specials. But, in reality, AA did NOT eliminate “saver” award characterization from its database. Customers can’t see that designation but booking agents can.
Historically, partner access to award inventory was based on “saver” award availability. When AA eliminated “saver” awards for customers, it still needed a way to designate which award inventory would be made available to partners. So, behind the scenes, AA had to keep the “saver” award characterization . . . again, which the customer doesn’t see. (Side note: SWUs need “saver” award inventory to be used, even on a revenue ticket.)
AA’s Revenue Management designates what award inventory is blessed with “saver” award characterization. Historically, international F and transcon were rarely available to customers as “saver” awards . . . which is why partner airlines couldn’t book them and why SWUs were worthless. Today, expect nothing different. You might find availability at inconvenient flight times but not during civilized hours.
That’s good background and makes a lot of sense. What frustrated me with Finnair was I could book a route with BA or AS miles but Finnair could never see the inventory. I’m well aware of the partner availability issues but have never heard of AA selectively releasing space to only specific partners – I feel like that was more of a cover for inadequate IT systems. And of course Finnair had the best pricing. Booking with any other partner would have meant 10K+ more points, which didn’t make sense when AA had it for 25K of their own miles (later dropping to 17.5K).
And AA uses married segment logic in order to release/price mileage ticket space for at least AA mileage tickets on domestic US routes.
Isn’t US to Mexico/Caribbean only 25,000 avios in business class?