Just to add my whinge to the list has anyone else noticed that the web@wards flight to Sao Paulo is listed as being 40,000 miles on the KLM site but with Air France it's just 35,000?

As regards the Nairobi flight my guess is maybe it isn't bookable until 15th February like the Lima, and Sao Paulo awards so maybe it's worth trying again tomorrow. Saying that though I tried booking a different award on the first available date once before and lo and behold the booking engine hadn't been updated to take account of the reduced mileage required.

It's not just FB that's having problems though. I recently took a flight to Recife, Brazil with Air Portugal and despite making the booking via the internet and entering my TAP Victoria FF number the award miles were added to my Varig Smiles account! A dozen phone calls, four faxes and countless e-mails later and diddly squat has changed.

Let's face it folks, all FF programs are just a bribe to attract business accounts but once they have your money they really have very little incentive to start dishing out free flights. Personally I'd rather these schemes didn't exist and EVERYBODY got cheaper tickets from the outset. That way you could ditch the whole FF department and really make some savings. It won't happen though because then the savings would go to the shareholders and the execs would have to pay for their own holidays (shock, horror )