It has been a good time to burn down miles balances on various frequent flier accounts, and it baffles me how different award availability sometimes is between Delta and Air France-KLM.
It is not unusual that the operating airline, either Air France or KLM, has better availability for redemption from its own loyalty program, Flying Blue, than from partners, such as Delta.
Here are a couple of recent examples:
KLM Toronto – Amsterdam
Flying Blue
SkyMiles
The direct Toronto KLM flight is wide open using Flying Blue miles in business. At the same time, there is no availability using SkyMiles other than in economy for only 5,500 miles less than in business if using Air France-KLM’s program.
Air France Helsinki – Paris
There where it gets fascinating.
SkyMiles
Flying Blue
The direct Air France flight is available for 25,000 SkyMiles or 139,000 Flying Blue miles? Makes absolutely no sense.
Conclusion
You should have miles in several programs because there are similar differences within Oneworld and Star Alliance airlines, with which I am more familiar with.
Delta and Air France-KLM are the only two SkyTeam member airlines with whom I have had or currently have status and have miles sitting on relative accounts.
However, you don’t usually see these levels of differences with other programs I have participated with as SkyMiles and Flying Blue.
Delta is a well run airline with good service, excellent reliability and an engaged staff who generally do the right things for customers. However, there is such a disconnect between that their SkyMiles program. These award abnormalities and the lack of transparency with award chart and overnight changes really undermines the good work Delta does.
Delta is a well run airline with good service, excellent reliability and an engaged staff who generally do the right things for customers. However, there is such a disconnect between that their SkyMiles program. These award abnormalities and the lack of transparency with award chart and overnight changes really undermines the good work Delta does.
I don’t think if you had tried to book HEL-CDG via Skymiles you would have gotten it ticketed. Phantom award space.
I have it ticketed using SkyMiles. Errored out in the first try but tried again and ticket was issued.
Glad to hear that! Still I tend to think it’s one off or some kind of glitch that worked to your advantage. It would be interesting to see logs of the reservation when it was created and ticketed.
Delta may ticket an award on AF only in O. If O is available AF wouldn’t charge 139,000 miles for O seat HEL-CDG. 139K intra Europe biz looks more like last few available J seats pricing. At the same time it’s noted still 5 seats were available on your screenshot. Maybe DL managed to ticket it in O breaking married segment pricing somehow. Anyways I wouldn’t call this case a typical one and the one could expect to repeat itself. It’s great it worked for you this time around.
These AF flights HEL-CDG only has one row of business (four seats).
Hello John
first i would like to point out one mistake = “for only 5,500 miles less” . You can’t compare it this way cause one SM mile is not worth the same as a FB mile.
You could compare the cost of miles , as both programs are revenue based , but keep in mind that’s super easy for anyone in the US to collect tons of miles by shopping in tesco or amazon compared to europe
Also as you are probably aware , FB has changed few years ago , which means that for rewards , there is no chart , so its all dynamic and depends on a lot of factors which are not revealed by FB , but we suspect that it includes profile and recent history
I found the same one way HEL-CDG in J for 33k miles (if thats what you are looking for) , so you are probably not lucky
Also as you correctly pointed out , availability depends on many factors , then each partner is free to “resell” the seats allocated to them for the price tag they want , so i definitely agree with you that having more than one FFP is good , but someone needs to be able to collect significant amount of miles in both , then it allows to search for best offers , otherwise its useless to spread your miles between them
Hello John
first i would like to point out one mistake = “for only 5,500 miles less” . You can’t compare it this way cause one SM mile is not worth the same as a FB mile.
You could compare the cost of miles , as both programs are revenue based , but keep in mind that’s super easy for anyone in the US to collect tons of miles by shopping in tesco or amazon compared to europe
Also as you are probably aware , FB has changed few years ago , which means that for rewards , there is no chart , so its all dynamic and depends on a lot of factors which are not revealed by FB , but we suspect that it includes profile and recent history
I found the same one way HEL-CDG in J for 33k miles (if thats what you are looking for) , so you are probably not lucky
Also as you correctly pointed out , availability depends on many factors , then each partner is free to “resell” the seats allocated to them for the price tag they want , so i definitely agree with you that having more than one FFP is good , but someone needs to be able to collect significant amount of miles in both , then it allows to search for best offers , otherwise its useless to spread your miles between them
Quite peculiar post. A lot of words and nothing worthwhile is said. Sorry but it’s like a first grader tries to lecture a professor.
well if the professor comes and get surprised cause of something he is not aware or probably forgot, what would you do ???
Going into details is the reason why we are all here , otherwise we would just believe the PR campaigns airlines gives us and never find ways to optimize our trips
well if the professor comes and get surprised cause of something he is not aware or probably forgot, what would you do ???
Going into details is the reason why we are all here , otherwise we would just believe the PR campaigns airlines gives us and never find ways to optimize our trips