airberlin topbonus - Free rebooking on Air Berlin / dba

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Starting May 1st gold and silver card holders can change dates and times free of charge on all dba flights - even on the cheap E-class 29 Euro flights. However, fare differences (if any) have to be paid.Hopefully this will make Lufty think once again about their policy.

I just wanted to let you know that Air Berlin might cancel the benefit of free rebooking for Silver and Gold card holders after 31. Dec. 2007. (Evidence was on their website for a few days)

I think one reason is to make the new flex fares more attractive, because otherwise they do not make any sense (far too expensive).

The other reason is that they finally might have realized that a lot of people just use vouchers (Rafaello etc.) to book flights 6 month ahead for 29 EUR. In conjunction with Zanox it looks like this then:

29 Eur oneway flight
-10 Eur discount voucher
-8 Eur Zanox discount
= 11 Eur per oneway

I was wondering over the last years how they can afford this. I still remember the times where you could change the name for free without paying the fare difference.

Furthermore I heart that since Jan 2007 award seats have different availability compared to revenue seats.

In my opinion the TOP Bonus program will loose a lot of its benefits in the next year. I think the next step will be to charge taxes for award flights.

Facts vs. speculation... This just shows how outstanding AB's program and service is at the moment! Let's all enjoy it while it is there. I also recall a statement by AB that they will not charge taxes on award tickets in the future either, but I know it is not guaranteed in the rules.