How to spend FB Miles?
 

It almost feels like a big scam. I have a few 100K miles, but I'm pretty much unable to use them.

Whenever I look for Award tickets it always offers me ridiculous flights with like 2 long layovers, while in many cases they (and/or their airline partners) do have direct flights on that route. And if you do happen to find some good flights they charge double the miles + super high taxes.

When I try to book upgrades there is always something wrong with the ticket, like wrong booking fare, so that it's not upgradable. Or you book the highest fare so you can upgrade only to find out that there are no upgradable seats left.

So what is the best way to use these miles? They seem almost worthless to me?

When I fly Emirates everything works so smoothly. It's very easy to book awards and like upgrade business class to first class with the click of a button, even if I booked the cheapest fare.

The online booking tool is really only optimised for AF and KL (and some DL) routes.

For routes where you are better served by another Skyteam or Flying Blue partner airline, you would be better off ringing Flying Blue to book.


That's the way it works on most airlines. You can always "buy up" to a fare that allows upgrading, though of course this should only be done after verifying that there is a seat available for upgrade on that particular flight.

See some more discussion on this recent thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/klm-f...ess-class.html