Finnair Premium Economy Awards & Upgrades (Points & Certs)

Finnair announced its updated Business Class and brand new Premium Economy in February (read more here).

The airline already updated the number of Finnair Plus points you earn for Premium Economy (read more here), but it has been unclear what happens with upgrade certificates and points-based upgrades and how many points you need for Premium Economy awards.

You can access Finnair Plus here.

Finnair Award Chart:

Finnair plus has not released an upgrade chart for the economy to premium economy or from premium economy to business.

Also, we have been wondering if these Finnair upgrade certs are only available for one cabin or if you can continue going from economy straight to business.

We were in touch with Finnair to get clarification about the upgrade prices and how these upgrade certs work in the future and received the following replies:

If you mean our tier members benefit (Long Haul upgrade voucher), yes that will be same and also 50 000 points from economy to business.

We will announce new prices for these new products later:

From economy to premium economy (starts 2.5.2022)

From premium economy to business ( starts 2.5.2022)

From economy to business

Finnair will announce the point upgrade prices from Economy to Premium Economy, and Premium Economy to Business on May 2^nd.

Upgrade certificates can continue to be used to upgrade from Economy to Business bypassing the Premium Economy altogether.

If economy to business upgrade continues to be 50,000 Finnair Plus points, the upgrades from economy to premium economy and premium economy to business will likely cost 25,000 to 30,000 points.

Conclusion

You obviously would like to upgrade from Economy to Business, but Premium Economy could be an acceptable option in instances where there is no upgrade space available in business, but there is in this new cabin.

I am actually surprised that Finnair allows upgrading more than one cabin. It would probably make commercial sense only to allow one cabin upgrade and not two. This is what I have used to with airlines, such as British Airways.