Buy Avios and earn bonus Tier Points with Finnair

Finnair has just launched an interesting new Black Friday Avios sale which could be more useful than usual. The airline has taken one of its standard “buy Avios and get a bonus” deals and added to it an extra element – you’ll Tier points towards elite status on top of whatever Avios you buy.

Also, as an added bonus, Finnair has reset the Avios buying limit for the year so anyone who has already purchased Avios in 2025 can still buy up to 200,000 Avios (+ bonus Avios) in this sale.

Key terms & conditions

• The offer is only available to Finnair Plus members who joined the program before 16 November 2025 and have a minimum balance of 50 Avios in their Finnair Plus account
• Transactions must be completed between 19 November (00:00:01 UTC+2) and 30 November (23:59:59 UTC+2) 2025.
• Tier points offered as part of this offer apply to all transactions of 1,000 Avios or more, only for Buy Avios purchases, and do not apply to Buy Avios as a gift.
• Please note that tier points are not displayed during the purchase process.
• For this campaign, the annual buy limit is reset, allowing members to purchase up to 200,000 Avios even if they have already reached the annual limit earlier in 2025.
• Bonus Avios do not count towards the annual limit.
• Bought Avios are non-refundable and non-transferable
• Avios Points are issued subject to Finnair Plus Terms & Conditions

Full terms and conditions can be found on the sale page

The promotion

This is the promotion that we’re seeing in our accounts and as it doesn’t appear to be targeted, this should be the promotion that you see too.

With this being a bonus-based promotion rather than a discount-based promotion, a maximum of 300,000 Avios are available in this sale and a maximum of 20,000 Tier Points can be generated.

The numbers

The way the promotion has been structured, the price per Avios gets better every time the bonus increases (obviously) and, in a change from we usually see Finnair do, the price does not vary within each bonus band.

What this means is that you don’t have to purchase 200,000 Avios to get the best deal in this sale – buying the minimum number of Avios which will trigger the 50% bonus will do that for you.

Here, for example, is what it would cost to buy 100,000 Avios in this sale:

And here is what it would cost to buy 200,000 Avios in this sale:

Buying 100,000 Avios with a 50% bonus would see you adding 150,000 Avios to your account at a cost of €2,100 which means that you would be paying 1.40 Euro Cents per Avios (~1.62 US Cents)

Buying 200,000 Avios with a 50% bonus would see you adding 300,000 Avios to your account at a cost of €4,200 which means that, once again, you would be paying 1.40 Euro Cents per Avios (~1.62 US Cents)

As far as the Tier Point bonuses go, it doesn’t matter how many Avios you buy, you will always earn 10% of your Avios purchase as a Tier Point bonus.

Is this a good price at which to buy Avios?

If we’re discussing the Avios purchase in isolation, the answer to this question comes down to what the Avios will be used for and when they’ll be used.

Let’s get this important point out of the way before I go any further – If you have no immediate use for any Avios that you buy, you shouldn’t be taking part in this sale. It’s never a good idea to stockpile miles and you never know when a program will decide to implement a sudden and painful devaluation (our golden rule applies).

It’s also worth keeping in mind that in the past, we’ve seen Finnair, British Airways and Qatar Airways sell Avios for less than the best rate on offer here, so from a cost of Avios standpoint, this isn’t a standout sale.

It’s an OK sale, but nothing more.

The best use of Avios is often to be found on short-haul flights within Europe (where taxes and fees are capped) or within regions elsewhere in the world where taxes are naturally low.

They can, however, also be put to good use on Aer Lingus Business Class flights to/from the US and on Iberia Business Class transatlantic flights as both Aer Lingus and Iberia charge considerably lower fees for Avios bookings than British Airways.

They can also, in certain cases, be used for good long-haul flights with Qatar Airways and Finnair.

Don’t forget that Avios held in a Finnair Plus account can be transferred to all the other airlines that use Avios (often via the British Airways Executive Club) and they can be transferred back again too.

Anyone with a British Airways 2-4-1/companion voucher may do well in this sale too.

Don’t forget that you’ll still have to pay any taxes and fees due on the second ticket, but with two people flying for the Avios cost of one, buying Avios in this sale and then moving them across to British Airways (so you can use a 2-4-1/companion voucher) may be an economical way to book a nice trip – you just have to check the numbers to see if the costs work out in your favor.

Related: How to link Finnair Plus & British Airways Executive Club accounts

Are the bonus Tier Points a good deal?

Possibly.

Finnair Plus already allows its members to exchange Avios for Tier Points once per membership year at a rate of 3 Avios to 1 Tier Point and if this was something you were already planning to do, this sale may be worth considering.

Here are the standard Avios to Tier Point conversion limits:

• Basic and Silver members can exchange Avios for up to 7,500 tier points
• Gold members can exchange Avios for up to 22,500 tier points
• Platinum and Platinum Lumo members can exchange Avios for up to 40,000 tier points

And here are the Finnair Plus elite status requirements:

• Finnair Plus Silver status (OneWorld Ruby) – 15,000 Tier Points
• Finnair Plus Gold status (OneWorld Sapphire) – 45,000 Tier Points
• Finnair Plus Platinum status (OneWorld Emerald) – 80,000 Tier Points
• Finnair Plus Lumo status (One World Emerald) – 300,000 Tier Points*

*250,000 of these Tier Points must be collected from Finnair flights.

In this sale, a Finnair Plus member can generate up to 20,000 Tier Points regardless of their elite status and they can do so as long as they have at least 50 Avios in their account.

With that in mind and if you take a look at the Finnair Plus elite status requirements, you’ll see that this sale could be used to make serious moves up the elite status ladder.

Whether this is worth doing or not will depend on how many Avios you were already planning to convert to Tier Points, whether or not you actually need any of the Avios that you have to buy to earn the Tier Points, and what value you place on the Avios you’ll need to buy.

Let’s use me as an example.

By the end of January, I’m going to be 10,999 Tier Points short of Finnair Plus Platinum status (OneWorld Emerald), and although I will still have a number of months left of my elite year in which to earn those Tier Points, I was considering fast-tracking myself to Platinum status by exchanging 33,000 Avios for the remaining Tier Points that I need.

I could now, however, choose to keep those 33,000 Avios in my account and, instead, purchase 110,000 Avios to earn 55,000 bonus Avios and 11,000 bonus Tier Points.

That would see me end up with 165,000 more Avios and the tier points I need for Platinum status at a total cost of €2,310 (~$2,675).

At the moment, that’s not a deal that looks attractive to me as (a) I could earn the Tier Points I need by booking a trip that would cost me less than €2,310/$2,675 (I have time on my side), (b) I don’t really need 165,000 more Avios right now, and (c) I can afford 33,000 Avios.

But if the situation was a little different, my view of this deal would probably change.

If I was approaching the end of my elite status year, didn’t really have the time to book a trip that would earn me the tier points needed to get me to the status level I’m chasing, and if I was low on Avios, this deal would look considerably more attractive.

I could use this deal to get me to the status level I’m aiming for and use it to lock in enough Avios to save myself some money on future flights.

If you change the personal situation, the deal can look different.

What this shows is that the value of this bonus Tier Points offer will vary significantly from member to member based on their individual circumstances – it will be a good deal for some (especially if they’re aiming for a OneWorld Emerald tier) and a bad deal for others – so there is no definitive answer to the question that asks “is using this deal to earn Tier Points a good idea?

You just have to take a close look at your own situation and go on from there.

Use the right credit card

Finnair Plus Avios sales are processed by Points.com so that eliminates the scope to earn a travel/flight/airline bonus by using a credit card that offers bonus points for shopping in one of those categories (e.g. The Platinum Card® from American Express – terms apply).

With that option closed off, this makes this sale a good opportunity to use a credit card on which you’re working towards a strong welcome bonus.

If you’re not working towards a card’s welcome bonus, the Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express which offers 2 points/dollar on the first $50,000 of purchases in a year (1 point/dollar thereafter – terms apply) would be one of the better options to use.

Bottom Line

At around 1.62 cents (US) per Avios, this is is an OK Avios sale, but it’s not one to get excited about (better deals have been seen before and may well reappear in the coming months).

If you need Avios right now, however, what may or may not happen in the future is probably irrelevant to you. And if you need Tier Points in a hurry, what the next sale will offer will also be irrelevant.

Our relatively low valuation of Avios (1.0 cents) would suggest that this is a sale to stay away from, but because it’s often possible to get over 2.0 cents per Avios in value when booking reward flights, there’s scope for this sale to be of use – you just have to make sure that you do your due diligence and that you run the numbers to check that you’re coming out ahead.

Also, if you’re in need of Tier Points, this sale may work for you, but make sure you check to see if you really can’t earn the Tier Points you need any cheaper way (i.e. by flying or by converting existing Avios) as this is not the time to be throwing money down the drain.

Link to the Finnair Avios sale page