Originally Posted by
EricBauman
They could know the status at the time of flight in a lot of cases, though!
They do know; if you're logged in on the website or the app, you will be shown your "full" baggage allowance, including your status benefit (if any).
(In this post, by "full" baggage allowance, I mean: the inherent ticket baggage allowance plus any potential status baggage allowance)
Originally Posted by
EricBauman
On the other hand, with KLM's IT systems, I'm not sure this seemingly easy thing is actually easy to do
In
dynamic views, KLM 's IT shows you the "full" baggage allowance.
The ticket - however - is a standalone,
static document. It's issued at a certain time in the past, and it cannot be known in 100% of cases what additional status baggage allowance may actually be deserved on the future date of travel.
Hence the ticket shows only its own inherent/included baggage allowance.
As much as people seem to think that the ticket itself should show the "full" baggage allowance, it can never do so correctly in 100% of cases. Obviously, for people who go up in status, the ticket cannot have been issued with the "full" baggage allowance (Even if enough future flights had been booked and associated with your Flying Blue number such that you should acquire status prior to the date of travel of this particular ticket, there is no way to guarantee that you will have taken all of those flights and actually earned status by that date).
For this reason alone, it is not possible to issue the ticket with the "full" baggage allowance that is accurate in all cases.
It doesn't matter that there are cases where, when the ticket is issued, it is an absolute certainty that the passenger will still have that status at the time the ticket will be used;
that would lead to a scenario where some tickets were issued showing the "full" baggage allowance and others were issued showing only the inherent ticket allowance; that's inconsistent, and could then lead to further confusion.
Even in this scenario, you could never be entirely sure that the stated baggage allowance on the ticket was what you were actually entitled to. You'll have the people travelling on a Light ticket who are carrying a ticket that says they have 1 checked bag who will then insist at check-in that their status allows them to check in an extra (2nd) bag.
It seems to me that it is far easier to do things as they currently do:
- the ticket itself only ever shows the actual inherent baggage allowance of the ticket
- when you are logged in (to the app or website), you will be shown your "full" baggage allowance
This system operates correctly in all potential scenarios (loss of status, gain of status) for all customers.
The following shows:
1) the e-ticket for my next KL flight
2) and 3) the views when logged in on the KLM website using my FB credentials
Status customers just need to log in to their account to check their allowance; or to remember that their e-ticket shows only the inherent luggage allowance of the ticket while remembering that their status - if valid on the date of travel and if travel includes only Skyteam airlines - gets them 1 extra piece of luggage.