I've been a Platinum member with Air France... the kind of person who last year travelled enough with them to essentially qualify for 3 years of Platinum in advance. And would have qualified easily for their Ultimate level this year. I travel mostly in business with them. But now never again. I don't think you need to read the whole story below. The thing that matters is that the Flying Blue program even for customers that give them a lot of business get treated like crap and never get a response. This despite the fact that they are more expensive than other business options, and the product is actually not that great. What I'm going to do is focus on airlines that I know have good service and are more convenient (the flight is out of Orly instead of wretched Roissy). And actually frequently much cheaper for a similar or better quality product. Looked at holistically Air France is crap.

PS - if anyone has any tips of airlines to try and frequent flyer programs to try out do let me know !

And then you could read the craziness of the story below...

I have to say the service with Air France has always been bad. Last year I had an issue come up, I called their Platinum line over 10 times, talked to supervisors who told me that they didn't understand why I wasn't getting a resolution. And even after 10 calls nothing ever got resolved. I finally just let it slide. Their flights are okay. I've essentially travelled mostly in business. With their flights there are often dirty seats, I need to work during flights and the tables can be broken, and for a culture that's known for food the food on Air France is pretty bad. This was put in stark relief for me traveling with KLM, their partner airline, and seeing how the food was much better. Their on plane staff tend to be pretty good with a not so great product. And then there are many other issues that come up. But you know what ? That sort of mediocre product just seemed the way of things. And just went along with it even though there were frequent frustrations. The eye opening thing was when I traveled with their sister airlines like Delta or KLM whenever similar issues would come up the treatment was worlds - I mean WORLD's - better.

This January things got to a completely different level. I had three long haul flights cancelled in 10 days. This is bordering on banana republic bad.

After the first one - with a several hour wait - I had to stay in San Francisco for 2 days longer. The flight after two days got cancelled as well after several hours of waiting. And then I had to take five flights to get to where I wanted to get to. And then my next long haul flight with Air France got cancelled as well again after a 5 hour wait. The thing about all of this was their customer service was just the absolute worst. There are some nice people there but they are few and far between. For the most part they are rude and even downright insulting. I had several experiences where they have just downright lied.

On my second cancelled flight I got a message on the application that the flight was cancelled several hours before the flight. Their Platinum line confirmed that. And then an hour before the flight it said that the flight was boarding. High tailed it to the airport and somehow managed to board. That flight then got cancelled. I then saw there was another flight I could take with another airline that was a direct flight. I was going to buy that flight myself as long as I knew that Air France would reimburse me for their flight that was cancelled. Not even pay for the new flight. They would not do that. Again this is in business ! And I had to get to my destination. Instead I had to go through a mix of 5 flights to get to my destination. On my third cancelled flight they said we had to go to the hotel to wait there till the afternoon (9 hours later) and they would call us to let us know what would happen. I had to be back home in Europe the next day so I just bought tickets myself to get there.

I asked for my tickets to be reimbursed when I got back. I still have not heard from them after two weeks. There has not been a single apology and no note about the file being picked up. In fact I don't even know that they are doing anything with the file. These are for three full fare business tickets as a Platinum member. It's just MINDBLOWING. On top of that when I called to ask I get treated like they are doing me a favour by letting me be a client. And more than that there is a complete lack of empathy and then there are moments that are just downright rude and insulting. On a call to ask for an update today the person told me that her supervisors had told her not to take the issue seriously, and to ignore it. It was the final straw. I asked for my Flying Blue account to be cancelled right away. A pretty amazing example of how to lose a customer that meant a lot of business for them in 30 days or less.