Vitali

Earlier today I had a chat with a friendly (yes) and competent (yes!) Flying Blue agent, who shared that the following cities should be on the upcoming list of Nov-Dec promo awards:

Buenos Aires
Montevideo
Panama
Rio
Santiago

Atlanta
Boston
Chicago
Cancun
Detroit
Houston
LA
Mexico
Montreal
NY
SF
Toronto
Vancouver
Washington

Singapore

Now, to me that seems like a lot of North American cities - but that's what he said. He did mention that tickets to some of these cities will be discounted by 25% rather than the traditional 50%. Namely: Boston, Detroit, NY and Singapore. There may be other cities (I only asked about the Americas).

Let's now hope that all this materializes, and that the booking system actually works!

brunos

With the 25% discount promo award in Biz will be more expensive than the full award earlier this year, right?

irishguy28

Yes, I believe so.

AF680

online!

irishguy28

http://www.flyingblue.com/news/1607/...mo-awards.html

As an amazing one-time offer, AIR FRANCE and KLM are pleased to present the Great Take-Off. By taking advantage of this unique opportunity, you can book Promo Awards@ to double the usual number of worldwide destinations, and still for up to 50% less Award Miles!

The new worldwide Promo Awards@ offered by AIR FRANCE and KLM as part of the Great Take-Off can be booked online in November 2013 for travel until 31 March 2014. That means you have 5 months to enjoy these special Promo Awards@ compared to the usual 2-month period.

Please note that Promo Awards@ can only be booked online and they are subject to availability, so be sure to book early.

■Booking period: 30 October to 30 November 2013
■Travel period: 1 November 2013 to 31 March 2014
Blackout dates are from 18 to 23 December 2013 and from 2 to 6 January 2014. To view all the worldwide Promo Awards@ and other special conditions please visit flyingblue.com/promo-awards

irishguy28

Some unusual European routings - not just the AMS/CDG/ORY-based routes of the past, eg

Malta-Toulouse
Marseille-Tel Aviv
Marseille-Moscow
Strasbourg-Toulouse

etc

orbitmic

Bar a few exceptions (mostly to some destinations in North America), the vast majority are 25% off only and economy only.

orbitmic

It's the specific ones of the 'bases province' routes which AF must find the hardest to fill. I know for instance that this is the case of the MRS-SVO which they were thinking of cancelling and TLS-MTA (same). I'm surprised by MRS-TLV which I thought had taken off ok, but maybe less so in the winter.

brunos

Sorry to be biased. But no business class promo from Asia on AF and only Xiamen-AMS on KL (twice weekly). And they expect to attract business pax based in Asia? No surprise their load factors to Asia are declining if they are only trying to attract European pax and disregard Asian-based pax.

NickB

I know that you are disappointed but, frankly, promo awards are hardly a significant instrument to attract business pax from particular regions. Fares, frequency, quality of product, etc...: there are the real battleground. If you use your FFP to attract business flyers, I can think of rather more significant ways to do it, such as very generous time-limited bonuses for flying in premium classes or one-way upgrades on full fare booking classes, etc..., i.e. the kind of thing that BA does in continental European markets. Promo awards, however, are just not suited to the task. They are only of significance to the already converted. Sure, they may condition whether you stay with the airline or not but I do not think that they have any special significance beyond other aspects conditioning the attractiveness or otherwise of an FFP.

brunos

Let's for a moment agree that a FFP serves the purpose of attracting/retaining pax. Sure we could see it as an unavoidable nuisance from AF viewpoint, and that they have greatly reduced the benefits of FB but kept it because other airlines have one. If pax did not care at all about a FFP, then AF would not have kept it. So let's assume that the attraction of a FFP sometimes guides consumer choices. I certainly enjoy offering my wife and family several free business/first class ticket between Asia and Europe every year, which I could not if I were using FB. Sure FFPs are not the major determinant of a choice, but it can influence choices.

I fully agree that promo awards are just a small part of the attractiveness of a FFP. But they are a not-insignificant attraction of FB compared to others. This "attractive" feature of FB is repeatedly mentioned on FT forums when FFPs are compared, so it must be of some value to posters. Rather than doing system-wide discounts as some airlines have periodically done, or offering other attractive features as I find on BAEC, AF is targeting some promo routes.
All I am saying is that these promo discounts have some value for European customers but none for Asian customers.
Sure it is not a huge benefit, but it can be significant if you use awards for your family to travel periodically longhaul biz. I can assure you that all the people I know on this side of the world regard FB as the most unattractive FFP to fly to Europe and might change their views if they could fly for half the miles (which is about what the pay for a normal award in OW). PS: the corporate contract blabla does not real hold in our competitive part of the world.

yorkacuk

Lovely! I'm going to try to book LAX -> CDG or try Zurich! I was about to transfer all my Amex points to BA, with the 20% bonus, but looks like I'll be transferring them to Air France! Awesome!

SeamasterLux

How can they say that Europe -> Asia is 50% off at 150k miles for a return flight in C??

The full fare is 200k, not (yet) 300k.

I'm hating FB more and more

Hobbes01

Has anybody every managed to use a promo award as part of a ticket, e.g. USA-Asia, with either the US-EU or EU-Asia flights being at promo prices? Or are they solely point-to-point tickets?

irishguy28

There is nothing to stop you booking each leg separately on the website, assuming that you can find availability on your chosen dates and that you leave sufficient time between tickets to account for most potential irrops. (That's really the only "benefit" of trying to book them all on one ticket - you will have greater protection in the case of your booked connection becoming untenable due to delays on any sector. But you can also book separate tickets such that you have a stopover that creates a buffer to prevent irrops from wrecking your plans).

I don't think the booking tool is sophisticated enough to book an entire itinerary traversing Europe all in Promo Awards - and Promo Awards cannot be booked over the phone.

If your proposed route is on offer at Promo Award level, by all means try this out yourself (once the routes are open for booking) and report back. I suspect, though, that finding availability on all sectors on the required dates will prove difficult and could undermine your efforts to book all in one transaction.