GenevaFlyer

Hi all,

Haven't seen it mentioned here, but reading the Holland Herald this morning, I saw that Flying Blue is having a special for upgrades to F using miles. It's half-price (i.e. normal award price instead of flex price) until April 2011.

Cheers,

GenevaFlyer

orbitmic

???????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! Please give details!!! Thanks!

brunos

In French:
http://www.flyingbluenews.com/news/7...en_moins_.html

It basically says that you can get an upgrade from Affaires to Première for 50% of usual miles from Oct 15, 2010 to Apr 15, 2011. So to get an award in F you need the normal miles for J (e.g. 160 000 for a RT HKG-CDg) plus 50% upgrade (e.g. 120 000 instead of 240 000). In my example a total of 280 000 instead of 400 000 (a discount of 30%).
While this is better, this promotional rate is still much higher than non-promotional rates at BA. For 240 000 BA miles I can fly RT on the nonstop CX F suites HKG-CDG, and for 150 000 I can fly RT on nonstop CX F suites HKG-JFK (16hours flight). And when BA does a 50% promotion , it is 50%.

rajsbasi

I couldnt see anything F specific but here is what I can see when going in through the AF UK site http://www.flyingbluenews.com/promot...omoawards.html

brunos

Oups. Apparently, I was wrong. The upgrade from J to F only applies to paid tickets. The F award levels are unchanged (e.g. 400 000 in my illustration above). So the promotion only applies to upgrade on full fare tickets, not to F awards.

ranskis

The good thing, compared to before, is that the upgrade bucket is F and not A. So rather good availability for upgrades from J to F. Perhaps they noticed J was getting full with the economy taking off again, and they had to upgrade too many elite passengers to F for nothing (like they did with me once). Here, elites can pay for an upgrade, and even if 60000 miles for a SIN CDG upgrade to F is still not cheap, if I have a rather long connecting time in CDG, it is absolutely worthwhile for the ground service and the OK flat bed.

I have flown EK F, SQ F, QF F, LH F, OZ F, AF F and LX F in the last 2 months, and AF has actually the best end-to-end F service, LX being quite close though. If seats, screen IFE and food are upgraded for real, and prices get more reasonable, they can be a real competitor on the F market.

delanotre

A is not yet BC for First since several monthes: it is now Premium economy BC.
F is now the award bucket for First but also a (reappeared) discount First BC on, for the moment, flights from SIN to Europe and (only!) NYC in USA.

delanotre

AFAIK, there is no link to know the amount of miles for upgrade from full fare J tickets to First...

ranskis

that is exactly what I meant. Before, you could have P7F6A0 thus impossible to upgrade a full J ticket with miles. Now, we get levels a bit higher than what they used to be, but the upgrade bucket is F => much better availability, and a few days before departure, almost guaranteed upgrade if there are still a few seats for sale (like P3 and more) since they open up the F bucket had it been closed earlier.

F revenue bucket has never disappeared, just most F fares have disappeared. But there has always been F revenue fares and F revenue booking code.

delanotre

Apart from SIN, I can't find any F fare on KVS. And the price is now always above C full fare.
Could you help us to find others outbounds, as you tell?
Thank you.

delanotre

I find it on the AF website: 120.000 miles for one way.
So with this promo, 60.000 miles for one way.

http://www.airfrance.us/X02/en/local...er_aeriens.htm

ranskis

there is also
BEY NYC FLBRT 12180 EUR more or less

and all the skyteam F round the world tickets that book into AF F.
but indeed, AF prices its P way too high compared to competition.

it is not because there are much fewer F fares that the F bucket became an award bucket: it is a revenue bucket that is also used for flex awards. Normally upgrade awards use the normal award bucket but for F, they need to use the F one, which is better than it used to be with the A bucket.

delanotre

from Beyrouth LH is half price...