Great Avios hotel deals in Scandinavia – a real-life example

One of the benefits of Finnair adopting Avios as its reward currency in March, and British Airways Executive Club allowing two-way transfers of Avios into Finnair in May, has been access to Finnair’s exclusive Avios hotel redemptions.

I touched on this back in early May, but at the time you couldn’t transfer Avios from BA to Finnair. Now that transfers are possible, you can take advantage of these redemptions.

Let’s take a real-life look at the value available.

I need to be in Copenhagen on Monday 16th September to see SAS. Copenhagen hotels, and indeed Scandinavian hotels in general, are never cheap. Rooms also tend to be small with many hotels still offering single bedded rooms.

This seemed like a great opportunity to try out the value of Avios for Scandinavian and Finnish hotels.

You can see the Finnair Avios hotel redemptions on this page of the Finnair website. Most are single property deals but the Scandic and Sokos chains are also there. Sokos is Finland only, so I turned to Scandic.

There are two types of Scandic hotel redemption available via Avios:

• ‘Scandic Basic’ hotels for 2,000 Avios + €68 per night

• ‘Scandic Premium’ hotels for 2,000 Avios + €106 per night

The key thing to note is that you can search for availability, and book, via the Scandic Hotels website BEFORE ordering your voucher. You have zero risk of ordering a voucher and then finding that there is no availability.

Redemption rooms can also be cancelled without penalty although you can’t get your voucher refunded. You would need to rebook your stay before the voucher reaches its six month expiry.

One other thing to note is that, whilst the Finnair website says that vouchers can only be used at weekends, this is not actually the case. Some hotels accept bookings for other dates.

What options did I have in Copenhagen?

Searching for availability is easy. Go to the Scandic Hotels website and search using the following promo codes:

• ‘VOY’ for Scandic Basic redemptions
• ‘VOFINN’ for Scandic Premium redemptions

There are no Scandic Premium options in Copenhagen but searching for Scandic Basic for the date I need brought up three options out of the 13 Scandic hotels in and around the city.

This is what you see:

What value do I get?

I ignored Scandic Falkoner because I don’t want to be 2.5km from the centre.

At Scandic Palace, the voucher books into a Standard Room. Note that the vouchers seem to automatically ignore single bedded rooms, which is great.

As you can see here:

…. the cost of a flexible Standard Room (17-22 sq m) is DKK 2,033 (£230).

I can book for 2,000 Avios + €68 (£57) including breakfast. This works out at 8.6p per Avios.

The other option is Scandic Copenhagen. The voucher books into a Family Room which sleeps four, although at 26 sq m it still isn’t huge. Despite the name, this is the cheapest room type if you don’t want a cupboard with a single bed.

The Family Room is also, by coincidence, DKK 2,033 (£230) including breakfast. This works out at 8.6p per Avios.

Conclusion

The value you get from using Avios for hotel redemptions in Scandinavia and Finland will clearly jump around from day to day.

You won’t always get 8.6p per Avios although I’m sure that you can even beat this occasionally. I wasn’t looking for the date with the best deal – I used a date when I genuinely needed a hotel in Copenhagen.

If you are heading to the region, this is definitely an option to look at.

If you weren’t planning to head to Scandinavia or Finland because you’ve been put off by the high hotel prices, it may be time to change your mind.

To learn how to link your British Airways Executive Club and Finnair Plus accounts, so you move across Avios to redeem for a voucher, read this article.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.