Hi everyone,

I have been trying for several weeks now to obtain a budget for an Asia Air pass from KLM/AirFrance skyteam member.

-Im going to travel to southeast asia for some months and I was cheking the different options for flights within the region that could help me save some money. I found about the skyteam asia airpass and it looked at first pretty good. On one hand, the flights I was interested in where covered by airlines that belong to the skyteam alliance and secondly only the first flight of the whole pack had to be booked with a certain date. I am quoting from the skyteam website:

"advanced bookings are not required Except for the first SkyTeam Asia Pass flight."

http://www.skyteam.com/about/products/asia.html

- The first thing I dont like about these products is how difficult it seems to purchase them. In my home country (Spain) I was not able to find any travel agency that knew about these or could offer me this kind of pass. So you have to go to the source and call them (any skyteam member). Calls are of course premium rate numbers (call centers) and you always have to wait... After calling Air France/KLM (spanish call centre) several times they tell me they are going to prepare a temporary booking and a specialist will call me. Its been 3 weeks already...
And they told me I was going to get an answer in 48 hours!!!!

-Of course I got in contact with them again but I decided to call directly KLM Amsterdam offices thinking that they might be able to help me faster there. They check the booking and they tell me the same thing: someone will get in contact with me.
The booking has already expired and NOBODY has called me whatsoever.

-However, I have not insisted anymore because during the last call I was informed about a very important thing: once the temporary booking is confirmed (you have to provide temporary dates for each flight) and the purchase is done, the dates are not temporary anymore... This means that the information in the webpage is not true and you indeed have to provide a exact date for each coupon you are going to use for the airpass.

For me the pass does not make sense anymore because the strongest point of it was not having to book in advance every flight, thus being able to plan with a higher degree of flexibility.

- One last thing is about a price for the asia airpass you need an intercontinental flight bought from one the skyteam members. Therefore, they make sure that you bought the long flight with them and then you are able to decide if you want or not to purchase the asia air pass.

Please tell me if you have had similar experiences with the asia airpass or other passes from skyteam. I have the impression that they offer these products for the sake of it but it is very difficult to get proper information about how they work and the information is not very clear.

correct me if anything I said is not correct as I will appreciate any kind of feedback.

cheers