kevinflyaway

I don't think ALL promo's have been loaded, but at least for most of the continents they are showing a few promo's for booking in April...and again NO business promo's!

And did anybody read this part of the 'Promo Awards Outline' at the top of the page?

"Er zijn nu meer award tickets beschikbaar, voornamelijk in Economy Class, dankzij het uitgebreide route netwerk"

Translation:
"There are now more award tickets available, primarily in Economy Class, thanks to the broadened network"

Now it also says that you can look from the 1st of each month, so there is chance more destinations and/or business are added on (lol) April Fools....but I doubt it

@Gajan: Can you maybe check with KL what's up? Are business promo's cut from the program?

HasteFlier

Indeed, very little choice for now.. There even seems to be nothing for asia or central/south america so far, and only a few options elsewhere

If it stays that way, it's a bit disappointing ...

Cupart

I was thinking the same that the business promo's are none existent anymore, at least the times I have been looking at the flights available.

1) It all started with the devaluation of earning miles. I was kind of ok with this at the time.
2) Then the redemption miles sky rocketed, and now
3) The real "useful" promos are gone and only Y options left.

Typical, when I have miles to burn and was looking forward to harvest my hard work over the last few years... Again, glad I'm no longer in the claws of any FFP ;-)

Oxymore

It's just sad. I think we may imagine that the list is complete by now, and it's really bad. I remember that CDG-SGN last year in J for 40,000 miles... Or even IAD for 32,500... I've been thinking of definitely moving to AAdvantage for a while, but Flying Blue seems to try to make the decision easier for me.

FFlyerCDG

Maybe disappointing but much better than what DL offers

orbitmic

Well, it really depends on how you look at it. If you use a magnifying glass to indeed only look at the fact that FB offer promo-awards but SM don't, then yes, you would say that SM is even worse. However, the truth about FFPs is that most of them have strengths and weaknesses. For instance, while SM is a poor programme when it comes to award bookings, it remains much more generous than FB when it comes to accrual (both flight-related and non-flight related) even now. The same is true of BAEC, which also has very limited award availability, especially in premium classes but allows for generous mileage accrual especially for 'elite' members. By contrast, LHMM is not much better than AF when it comes to accrual, but I am always amazed by how easy it is to find award availability across routes and classes on *A (I saw it again this week when looking to use my UA miles. Amazing, dozens of itineraries show as available even at the 'saver' level for the various periods and routes I have looked at, including some rather 'creative' routings).

So you see, the problem is that with FB, there is simply nothing good any more. Accrual is absolutely pathetic (even worse than MM), award levels are absolutely atrocious in premium classes, and one of the few FB superior strengths (the promo awards particularly in premium classes, which I think is only matched by few airlines such as IB) is now ending in the rubbish bin like everything else. AF and KL consistently treat FB as something that embarrasses them and which they would really prefer to get rid of altogether if it wasn't going to lead to some major PR backlash rather than as an opportunity to ensure the repeat business of the few regular customers that they still have.

For what it's worth, over the past few years, in my view (and I choose on purpose an analogy to a political label some of you will recognise because some of the accusations are very strangely similar in terms of remaining moderate but being out of touch with the needs of voters, more interested in protecting the wealth of its own members than the well-being of the people it is asking for their support, etc), FB has become "the Nasty FFP".

cityflyer369

Unfortunately, I have to agree. For me, this is the year in which I will become Plat4life and FB has now become Europe's worst FFP.

ahar

Can these promo rates take a while to become available? I'm not seeing any 5K each way for FRA yet.

irishguy28

Which route are you looking for?

AMS-FRA-AMS is showing availability on most days in the offer period at the promo rate (only on AF routings via CDG)

orbitmic

(Bolding mine) Which probably explains why it looks like an awful lot of taxes all over again! You can probably get that price for a paid ticket!

irishguy28

Indeed, with a promo ticket having about €98 in taxes (assuming the return routing is a similar cash amount! I'm not going back to check!!) then you are almost paying out as much cash as you would be for a cheap revenue ticket (booked early enough, with a starting ~€99-ish pricepoint, you could just buy a Lufthansa or KLM revenue ticket (well, these days that route might be staring at €110 or €120 Euro)).

It just confirms how awful promo awards are for short haul European redemptions (in comparison to, say, BA redemptions in Europe - though these clearly are best enjoyed if you are based at LHR, or at least in the UK (the connecting flight to LHR is "free") A FRA-LHR-FRA return on BA costs just 9,000 Avios and €42 and those Avios are far more quickly earned than the 10,000 FB miles you need for this special almost-unique 50% discount!!!).

irishguy28

Is this false advertising?



None of Havana, Fort de France or Boston is available at 50%.

orbitmic

Nah, just another "innocent mistake", FB is so bad and worsening so fast that even FB people are losing track of how bad it has become!

ahar

Hi,
From NCL (which is served by AF)

I checked the other UK airports which have AF flights and found selecting LHR, MAN & BHX produced options at 5K, ABZ, EDI & NCL gave 10K and BRS splits the difference at 7.5K.
Thanks

Schwann

The BRS option is via AMS on KLM, which is on offer for Europe-BRS or V/V for 7,500 miles as you say. Air France left BRS quietly through the back door last week for good.

Anyway, after getting my economy promo awards to San Francisco and Houston for 12,500 each way anything else seems inferior!