Originally Posted by
nawatts
The problem I have is that it is not economic to use any of these miles. The taxes are always higher than buying a flight. AMsterdam from London is £117 whereas a FB flight is 10,000 miles plus €122 tax - the tax is the same as the normal (albeit cheap) fare. There are other examples I could quote.
There are definitely situations where using miles can be (very) valuable. These are a few examples:
- One way tickets (Half price of a 2-way, while paid tickets are much more expensive)
- Last minute / Discount classes unavailable (When the discount classes have sold out, the price of your flight to London might be 3-4 times as high)
- Long haul flights, especially in Business class (Paid ticket would be 2500+ euro, whereas an Award can be as little as 250 euro + 50K miles)
I also now have another problem. I have moved to the Turks and Caicos Islands (PLS). The KLM site does not have PLS listed even though their parent company Delta flies there a number of times a week. I wrote to them and they added it to the FB's website (to claim an award) but still not to the main website. Regardless of this I cannot book any flights out of that destination as there are never any options so I cannot use my miles. They told me they were upgrading their website but this has not happened I assume this may be because they are merging with Delta and will probably use the same website eventually. I am rather frustrated and if I am not careful will lose my miles soon.
Delta is not the parent company of KLM. KLM and AF together are the AFKL group and are the european partner of Delta.
You say there is a Delta flight available, but not bookable through the KLM website. Have you tried the Delta website? Often that is 10 euro cheaper as well (No booking fee).
As for awards, if the online engine does not allow to book the award, call the FB hotline. They will arrange the award booking on Delta metal and you can probably convince them to waive the booking fees since its not possible to book online.