The note by Dambus relative to a possible difference in award flight booking privileges for Silver Wing and Royal Wing was discussed in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum28/HTML/000725.html. I found the question intriguing enough to get into investigation mode again. Here is what I found.

KL has for Economy the following booking classes : S (full fare intercontinental economy, goes first in operational upgrades to business in case of an overbooked flight), Y (full fare economy), B, M, H (all three not full fare intercontinental economy & with restrictions), Q, V (both not full fare economy & with restrictions), G (National NL-airmiles programme awards in economy class, with restrictions), W (KL awards economy class, restricted i.e. a change costs 5000 award points), K, L & T (all three action / promotion fares economy & with heavy restrictions). Booking classes G and W are not for sale and will not pop up in web offers.

For Business KL has the booking classes : J (full fare business & fully endorsable), C (not full fare business & only slightly restricted), D (KL awards business class, restricted i.e. a change costs 5000 award points), and Z (KL partners' awards business class & KL special offers, restricted). Booking class D is not for sale and will not pop up in any web offer.

Assume a Blue Wing member or a Silver Wing member requests an award flight. FD checks seat availability for Economy in W class, and for Business in D class. In case there are no seats available in either of these the Blue Wing or Silver Wing FD member receives the FD answer : Sorry, no availability.

When Royal Wing member requests an award flight, FD checks seat availability for Economy in W class, and for Business in D class. In case there are no seats available in either of these, FD also checks seat availability for Economy in B class and M class, and for Business in C class. This is a great better service for the Royal Wing FD member and often results in getting a flight award where others receive a nope. Remark that B, M and C booking classes are paid classes and per flight in larger numbers available.

[This message has been edited by kurz (edited 06-07-2002).]