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Old Sep 13, 2007, 5:16 am
  #12  
pbarnette
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: SEA
Programs: UA Silver, BA Gold, DL Gold
Posts: 9,779
Originally Posted by delmargal
Yes, I'm just curious how easy any award bookings are through CO or KLM. I've never gone through anyone but Delta. I'm happy with any airline that has bonus opportunities, can transfer AMEX MR points and I can book an AF business ticket for 90k.
Well, the short answer is that you will not see much difference between availability between CO and DL. The CO program has a poor reputation for availability. I can't comment on Flying Blue, but I suspect the availability (or lack thereof) will be consistent.

However, I would offer the following main pros of each program.

Delta:
1) AF business awards are 90k vs 100k for CO.
2) You can redeem with Singapore Air. I have no conception of availability.

CO:
1) They partner with Virgin Atlantic, which offers a great J product, and tends to have pretty good availability, at least out of New York and Boston. Getting to those gateways is the hard part. They also partner with Emirates, but rumor has it that you cannot book the Emirates flight from JFK to Hamburg with CO miles.
2) If you reach Silver elite, they offer 50% bonus miles, rather than 25%. On the downside, though, cheap Y fares on partners and on CO (if not booked at CO.com) only earn 50% elite qualifying miles, so you would have to fly 50k miles on cheap Y tickets to get Silver status with CO, versus DL.
3) You can redeem with Qantas for flights to Australia.

Flying Blue:
1) They are the only program of the three where you can use your miles to book tickets in First on Air France. As neither CO nor DL offer an international First cabin, Air France will not let you book into F with either CO or DL miles.
2) You can earn Gold status with 40k elite miles, as opposed to 50k, and that status gets you lounge access for international itineraries. With DL and CO you don't get that access until Platinum (75k elite miles).

Good Luck!
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