Other European Frequent Flyer Programs - Brussels Airlines Privilege - non-existent customer sevice??

I've tried for months to get a simple matter resolved via Brussels Airlines customer service. I've mailed them, faxed them, snail mailed them, tried to call them (hung up after 20minutes in line)..

THIS SUCKS!!!!!! Thinking of switching my loyalties.


The service was good before the merge.

Agreed, and they have changed most of their phonenumbers to expensive premium numbers (0.75 Euro per minute for the "privilege" of calling them from Belgium) and receive very average service. Had to call 3 times before I got an agent on the phone that was able to put in a request to AY for some award seats (the 2 first ones were just insisting that there was no availability...but the third agent knew how to put in the request and miraculously the booking was confirmed before I had time to hang up....).
I share your pain.....

Agreed, and they have changed most of their phonenumbers to expensive premium numbers (0.75 Euro per minute for the "privilege" of calling them from Belgium) and receive very average service. Had to call 3 times before I got an agent on the phone that was able to put in a request to AY for some award seats (the 2 first ones were just insisting that there was no availability...but the third agent knew how to put in the request and miraculously the booking was confirmed before I had time to hang up....).
I share your pain.....Now I am going to seize on the opportunity to have found someone to have used Privilege to redeem for AY. Is there any way to find out about award availability for Privilege on AY? In general, how is availablity? I am going to transfer over all my Eurostar points, and am looking for two seats on AY in business class to Asia... Any chance?

SmilingBoy.

Is there any way to find out about award availability for Privilege on AY? In general, how is availablity? ISmilingBoy.

Unfortunately, you should have an Finnair plus account with enough miles for a trip in business class to Asia to check the availability (www.finnair.fi). I think if there is place enough for Finnair plus members there should be enough miles Privilege members. Not a practical advice at all. Maybe a feloow member could assist? I would assume that the availability to India, Hong Kong and propably to Canton should be fine. May be to Osaka and Nagoya as well. The newish business class in MD-11 has fewer seats than before. Even the highest tier members aren't any longer guaranteed to get a seat with money in a short notice. The new airbus routes (starting May/June) might change the situation with more business class seats. That could have an effect on award seats as well. As a general advice, the propability for award seats increases if there are available business class restricted fares.

On the contrary to the others, I still find Brussels Airlines Privilege centre quite helpful, so just call them to have an exact answer.

booked 2 c class awards (>BRu - Hkg) on AY with privelege miles for september, got the dates i was looking for. It was 2 * 120,000 miles when i booked in february, but since 25 march (start Brussels airlines), but if you have the brussels airlines american express (gold or premium) only 115,000 are needed, i became aware of this advantage with the brussels airlines amex card, when 2* 5,000 miles were credited back on my privelege account.

I've tried for months to get a simple matter resolved via Brussels Airlines customer service. I've mailed them, faxed them, snail mailed them, tried to call them (hung up after 20minutes in line)..

THIS SUCKS!!!!!! Thinking of switching my loyalties.


The service was good before the merge.

Same for me - tried several times to contact them withouth much results...
What an unprofessional airline it has become ! The director of Operation was fired a while ago, the pilots are not happy with the business plan, business passengers have already switched to other programs....what a mess !

Now I am going to seize on the opportunity to have found someone to have used Privilege to redeem for AY. Is there any way to find out about award availability for Privilege on AY? In general, how is availablity? I am going to transfer over all my Eurostar points, and am looking for two seats on AY in business class to Asia... Any chance?

SmilingBoy.

I do not have experience with SN points and AY Asian award availability, but I just flew HEL-MAN-HEL on AY with a party of four on SN points.

We made the reservation roughly a month and a half before the flights. We first tried HEL-EDI-HEL but there was no availability. We managed to get the MAN seats after changing our return by one day and agreeing to fly out in Y. Overall, this was not bad as we were talking about four seats and fairly short notice.

SN service, however, was a pain. The agents were friendly enough, but:

* It took 20+ minutes to get through on multiple occasions
* The agents could not see availability on-line; in every combination, they had to submit a request to Finnair and wait for it to clear (or not).
* One one occasion, SN confirmed flights and dates and then called me a hour later to tell that they had made a mistake and the seats were not available.
* SN did not reply to one single email I sent (four altogether) except for the lovely automated system giving me useless tracking numbers.
* SN had two names out of four wrong in our reservations. In the end, this did not turn out to be an issue.
* Some of the agents had accents so thick I had major problems understanding them. Well, their English was still better than my French or Flemish, which are non-existent... So I suppose, this was my bad.

Taxes on the tickets were about 60 euros a person, which is much better than e.g. Lufthansa. I flew to EDI on LH points about three years ago and then the taxes were nearly 200 euros per person, which I thought was ludicrous.

On the plus side, Intra-Europe awards are an excellent value: Y is 20.000 points and C is 25.000. The combination was 22.500. The points came from my Amex Membership Rewards points, which can be exchanged to SN points at 1:1. To me, this was by far the best use of my Amex points after the Swiss bonanza (the MR to LX to LH conversion worked out great for me).

Overall, the end result was good but the process was a pain. The two things SN should improve are responding to emails and having at least some visibility into availability without the lengthy request-response process.

Cheers,
T.