Flying Blue (Air France, KLM, and Other Partners) - Converting Flying Blue Miles

My wife and I both have a reasonable amount of Flying Blue miles. Our next trip with KLM is not until January 2013 and some of our miles are due to wxpire before then. Does the fact that we have a live booking with KLM stop these miles expiring? If not is their a way to convert Flying Blue miles via, say AMEX or Carlsson Hotels to Avios?

No, it won't stop them from expiring. It's the date of the flight that counts.
I don't think you can transfer miles out of FB.

It is not "some of your miles" that will expire, it is all of them if you don't take a qualifying ST flight before the deadline.

It is not "some of your miles" that will expire, it is all of them if you don't take a qualifying ST flight before the deadline.

Not completely true. When -for example- your last flight was about 20 months ago, all miles earned up to then will expire. If you collected miles a few months ago for a car hire, hotel stay or whatever other source, these miles stay valid for 20 months from that date.

Not completely true. When -for example- your last flight was about 20 months ago, all miles earned up to then will expire. If you collected miles a few months ago for a car hire, hotel stay or whatever other source, these miles stay valid for 20 months from that date.

This contradicts everything that Flying Blue says about mileage expiry, and to the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever reported this here on Flyer Talk.

Flying Blue does not differentiate between Award Miles - they are all the same, regardless of whether they were earned from flying, earned through a hotel stay or by hiring a car, or purchased. They all have the same expiry date - calculated on the basis of when the last LEVEL mile was earned - and they do not each have individual expiry dates based on when the Award Mile itself was earned. Award Miles earned this month, for example, would be due for expiry next month - along with the total amount of Award Miles in your account, regardless of when they were earned - if your last qualifying flight was in December 2010.

At present, the lifetime of Award Miles can only be extended by earning at least one new Level Mile (and FB certainly differentiates between Award Miles and Level Miles). Award Miles themselves do not extend the lifetime of your Award Miles - only LEVEL miles can do this - and the lifetime of the entire balance is counted from the last "extending" activity. You are therefore NOT guaranteed to have each individual Award Mile valid for a minimum of 20 months. Depending on when you last took a qualifying flight, the Award Miles that have just been posted to your account could expire almost immediately.

If no Level Miles have been earned within a 20 month period - and unless there is any other reason not to do so (holding FB status, or an Amex FB card) - all Award Miles will be cancelled, regardless of when and how they were earned.

It is, I guess, technically possible that a hotel stay or car hire that took a while to post hits your account after the expiry and deletion of your Miles balance - but if a new qualifying flight still hasn't been taken, I would also fear for the validity of those miles. But it is certainly possible that Award Miles earned today could expire tomorrow.

From the T&Cs:

1.2.9 For Ivory Members, Award Miles are valid for 20 months. Only accrual on flights of Air France, KLM, SkyTeam Partners and Participating Carriers, or any other activity designed as extending in the FB Communication, is considered as an extending activity. The Company reserves the right to cancel the Award Miles after a period of 20 months with no extending activity registered on the Member’s account. It is up to the Member to check the expiry date of his Miles.

This means that when Award Miles expire, your entire balance is deleted.

This contradicts everything that Flying Blue says about mileage expiry, and to the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever reported this here on Flyer Talk.

It does not contradict.

From the T&Cs:
1.2.9 For Ivory Members, Award Miles are valid for 20 months. Only accrual on flights of Air France, KLM, SkyTeam Partners and Participating Carriers, or any other activity designed as extending in the FB Communication, is considered as an extending activity. The Company reserves the right to cancel the Award Miles after a period of 20 months with no extending activity registered on the Member’s account. It is up to the Member to check the expiry date of his Miles.

Bolding mine.

This means that when Award Miles expire, your entire balance is deleted.

No, because when the entire balance was deleted, there were Award Miles which were valid less then 20 months.

And yes, I know of a few cases in which the biggest portion (20 months old or older) was deleted, but all award miles from later date remained.

And yes, I know of a few cases in which the biggest portion (20 months old or older) was deleted, but all award miles from later date remained.

No-one has previously (to the best of my knowledge) reported such an occurrence. Have you personally experienced such an occurrence with regard to your own account? If this is true, then the system is fairer than I had thought. But it's strange that it's taken so long since the implementation for such a report to be made (or if it has, I missed it, and I suspect a lot of others did, too).

Perhaps it's just down to the fact that there are probably so few people (particularly on a forum like this!) who earn miles into FB by means other than flying but go for so long without ever taking a mileage-earning flight.

While I concede that the statement you highlighted in bold above does indeed appear to indicate that each Award Mile has a lifetime of 20 months, I think the later statement is a bit less positive:

The Company reserves the right to cancel the Award Miles after a period of 20 months with no extending activity registered on the Member’s account.

After 20 months of no level miles, the company reserves the right to cancel "the" Award Miles. No differentiation is made here as to the "age" of the Award Miles. They're referred to in their totality.

No-one has previously (to the best of my knowledge) reported such an occurrence. Have you personally experienced such an occurrence with regard to your own account? If this is true, then the system is fairer than I had thought. But it's strange that it's taken so long since the implementation for such a report to be made (or if it has, I missed it, and I suspect a lot of others did, too).

I guess that's because this is FT so most of us travels a lot, and even with FB is once every 20 months not a lot.
And those who abandoned FB don't put hotel/car/othersources-miles to FB but to their new program.

I know this because I handle the accounts for some friends and family members. Most of them don't travel often (once a year) and when some of them travelled on an award ticket last year, the 20 month period was reached earlier this year.

In one case the miles earning was flying-related: my niece travelled on a full flight (9 hours) without IFE (was broken) and very cold (the airco was a bit leaking). When I heard about this months later, I told her to sent a letter to KLM, which she did and received some miles. All other miles disappeared, but these miles are still in her account.

If you have a FB Amex card and buy a chocolate bar the 20 months will be extended.

If you have a FB Amex card and buy a chocolate bar the 20 months will be extended.

Better do that abroad, then; you'd have a very hard time finding any shop in the Netherlands that would sell you a chocolate bar and accept payment on Amex.

Better do that abroad, then; you'd have a very hard time finding any shop in the Netherlands that would sell you a chocolate bar and accept payment on Amex.

Every store at Schiphol will. I use the Amex card for everything there - even a postcard or newspaper for one buck :p

Every store at Schiphol will. I use the Amex card for everything there - even a postcard or newspaper for one buck :p

Of course! You're right.

But if you're at Schiphol at all, chances are* you'll be abroad very soon....

*Yes, I know you may be passing through, changing trains, or dropping off/meeting friends/relatives, or working there, but it you're at Schiphol there's still a good chance you are going/have just been abroad

Better do that abroad, then; you'd have a very hard time finding any shop in the Netherlands that would sell you a chocolate bar and accept payment on Amex.

Lol!

Every store at Schiphol will. I use the Amex card for everything there - even a postcard or newspaper for one buck :p

Yes, this is true.:)