Dear FTers, welcome to my 5th trip report on this forum.
Earlier than I imagined, I flew Business Class for the first time. After reading so much TR’s on FT about the most amazing flights in J or F, I developed a craving for something more than Economy. Even if it was on KL.

I have decided to publish this TR first on the KLM board, as it’s here where my frequent flier obsession has begun. Maybe later I will ask to move to the general trip report forum where I will add my other flights and possibly some hotel reports.

I don’t have many photo’s of the ground and lounge services because I am still uncomfortable with taking photo’s with so many other people. Please bear with that. I do have plenty of photo’s from the onboard services, which is what counts.

But now on to the actual trip, starting with the preparation.

It was time for planning the summer holiday again. The rest of the family did not want to go to Asia again (to my regret, as I love Asia) mainly due to the fact that Ramadan would be during our trip and that’s no fun in Indonesia and the likes.

Luckily, the tour agency with which we have been travelling the past 2 years just started tours in the USA. We decided on the ‘Highlights of the Wild West’ roundtrip. Starting in LA, it would then take us along the SoCal coast up to San Francisco and then via various National Parks and Las Vegas back to LA. We opted for the Deluxe variant (better hotels) and rented a car with Alamo for the 17 days.

I had been to the US before, to New York, but my sister had not. After a lot of debate it was decided we would try to add NY to the trip instead of making it a separate vacation later. We started with NY because we thought it would be to stressful and tiring if we went there after the tour through the West.

I looked up a multi city itinerary and found that KL together with DL would make this possible. We sent the desired flights to our TA and luckily they were able to book them. I was especially happy as the flights for the normal tour were otherwise most likely on UA. No thanks.

For the longest LAX-AMS sector, we bought 2 Exit Row seats in advance, using my discount as a FB Silver at the time.

We got the e-tickets and I was surprised the AMS-JFK sector was in a ‘high’ fare bucket which earned 50%. I couldn’t do anything with it at that time though and the flight was still months away.

Then, unfortunately although luckily (stay with me here) Flying Blue announced radical changes to their long haul awards. Most routes and cabin classes mileage fares went sky high. A big devaluation.

The small bright sight of the changes were that in theory more Y fares were upgradable with miles. I immediately noticed my H fare would now also be upgradeable. I sent KLM a message through Twitter to ask about the amount as nothing was published online. They said it would cost me 35k miles to upgrade the JFK flight. Well then, how lucky am I that I just have that 35k with only a few hundred additional miles to spare!!! Now I only had to find award upgrade availability for my flight which is the O bucket.

I set up award ticket alerts via Award Nexus Premium, which I was generously provided with by its founder. For months there was nothing but I knew space would likely open closer to departure. Two weeks before the flight I started manually searching multiple times a day and noticed how earlier flights that week would show availability closer to departure so I was hopeful.

It was my last day of school when I was off early and immediately checked the Flying Blue calendar at home. I freaked out when I saw the flight sold for 65k miles, meaning it was low level thus available for upgrade. I called the KLM Elite reservation line without hesitation to be transferred through to Flying Blue (to hopefully ‘cut’ the line and also without toll). The KLM agent at first commented my fare would not allow for mileage upgrade. I asked him to double check and he came back apologizing because it was new policy and he indeed was wrongly informed. I was then transferred to the FB ticketing desk agent who asked for my PNR and FB details. With me confirming the award upgrade, 35000 miles were deducted and I was in possession of a Business class ticket. I think they heard me cheer at the KLM HQ.

The new ticket popped in my email a few hours later and I went online to select my seat. Sadly no window seats were available so I choose 3C with 3D and 3E being free so I had to opportunity to change to 3D if the center seat would remain empty on board. I also noticed I had a new PNR for the entire trip meaning I was split from my family. I was not happy with that as I feared for our baggage allowance and free EC (thanks to my Skyteam Elite+ status) on the domestic leg which were tied to my FF number.