Originally Posted by lixiaojuventus

I'm currently a FlyingBlue Gold member, and I enjoy the combination of Delta/AF/KLM for my travel needs. However, I am very disappointed with the FlyingBlue program, especially after their change this year. My biggest complaints are twofolds:

1) The incredibly harsh elite qualification requirements for non-European members (I'm mostly flying in the US and TPAC, but with one or two trips to Europe each year). In particular, each domestic segment earns only 2XP (while Gold status requires 180 XP). Therefore, I'm often forced to fly through Europe to Asia if I want to requalify the status, despite that Delta has a better schedule.

2) Their customer service has an incredibly slow response. For example, if you want to claim missing miles, you have to send a secure message to them (phone support cannot even resolve such issues), and then they will send their first reply after ONE MONTH. This is how they treat their Gold members, and I don't know how suffering it is to flying them as a general member.

Therefore, I would like to switch to SkyMiles. Since I am not bound by PQD requirements, elite qualification should be relatively easy for me (at least much easier than the FlyingBlue program). I would like to ask your comments about your experiences as a SkyMiles elite flying with AF/KLM. Any particular inconvenience? One thing I can think of is that it is not possible to redeem First Class on AF (or any First Class seats) as a SkyMiles member. Anything else?