tya

Not sure how many of you here on this thread care, but flyers on Taiwanese forum recently found out Flying Blue now seems to consider flights between China (mainland), Hong Kong and Taiwan to be all domestic in their new 2018 program. I personally tested MU and MF for TPE-PVG, TPE-XMN, and PVG-HKG, and all three showed only 2XP.

Awkwardly, China Airlines (CI) is not working on FB calculator now, only showing up error messages.

Some suspect the change associated with the recent Marriott incident. Nonetheless it is indeed a terrible news for travellers in the region who rely on these flights frequently...

CosmicGirl

This was in the media last week, it is indeed a similar situation to the Marriott one. However, I was not aware they would take it as far as FB earnings...

irishguy28

Perhaps it's time to switch to a different Skyteam programme.

There are no shortage of carriers in the region!

brunos

Many airlines have been "punished" because their website pointed to "country" when referring to TW or HK. They now moved, including AF, to "country/region".

But counting 2XP for any "domestic" Chinese flight would be awful. Distances in China can be huge.

swiss_global

As others have pointed out, the new FB rules are very unfavorable in large countries (e.g. the US, Russia or China), but very favorable within Europe. I don't think this is coincidental. AF/KL are to some degree depending on connecting traffic within Europe and therefore incentivize this. On the other hand side, they couldn't care less about pax flying long domestic routes within the countries mentioned, as they maintain a fairly extensive network themselves (at least in the US and China). If someone flies from Beijing to Europe, they want them to use their flights from PEK and not to travel down to HKG to catch the longhaul flight.

orbitmic

Indeed, but that part is not new and has been discussed in the 'new rules' thread (where perhaps this discussion should be merged?) thread. With the new programme, CAN-PEK or for that matter JFK-HNL will be counted the same as JFK-BOS or CTU-CKG). Again, I fully agree with you that it is harsh.

fifty_two

Not only china ! For instance Russia or USA are in the same sh*t

Russia = SVO to VVO = 4000 miles = 2xp
USA = ATL to HNL = 4500 miles = 2xp

However

France = ORY/CDG to PTP/CAY/FDF = 4000 miles = 10xp

CosmicGirl

The same thing is true in the US unfortunately... a 20-minute BRU-AMS will earn 5XP in Y, yet JFK-LAX or LAX-HNL will only get you 2XP. It's ridiculous. In other words: connections will have to made in Europe via CDG and AMS to force higher XP earnings, whereas you can currently still force extra segments in both Europe and the US to make the counter go up.

Edited to add: I just saw others have posted the same thing in the past 10 minutes, missed that.

olivedel

I fully agree, I do not think it is incidental at all.

NickB

I very much doubt that Af would be in trouble because they attribute 5/15 XPs on HKG-Mainland China flights rather than 2/6 XPs.

I have an upcoming HKG-HGH flight where I had the choice between KA and MU. I decided to sacrifice the XPs and go for KA for a nicer lounge experience at HKG and a nicer flight. Just as well I did as I would not have been a happy bunny had I gone for MU and later realised that it would be treated as a domestic flight for XP purposes.

NickB

I would not be so sure that it is deliberate. After all, the miles earnings will be much more generous on non-AF/KL flights for the majority of flyers (except for those on very expensive/fully flex fares). If they really wanted to favour AF/KL over other ST airlines, they would not end up in a system whereby flying AF/KL rather than other ST airlines will result in a slashing of the miles you will earn. In addition, if they wanted to favour AF/KL flights, they could do it more directly and openly by linking some advantages such as tier bonuses to flying on AF/KL or selected partners (pretty much like BA do, for instance).

bodory

Bolding is mine.

True. Then the question is: why did they build a new scheme favouring their partners and not themselves?

NickB

We should not assume that every aspect or consequence of a decision is a deliberate choice.
Presumably, the reason for the move the new system is that it will result in the award of fewer miles for AF/KL flights and, therefore, lower costs for AF/KL (whom, I assume, have to notionally 'buy' the miles from FB). In an ideal world, the new system would apply to all flights. However, in reality, this may not be feasible due to lack of access to data on price paid by the passenger on tickets issued by other carriers. In itself, this is not a huge problem per se given it is these other carriers that have to pay for the miles rather than AF/KL so the lack of extension of the new system to other carriers flights does not cost AF/KL anything. One downside is that it might make flights on other carriers more attractive to some flyers owing to greater award of miles. However, if this downside is expected to be less significant than the gains expected from the new system, it is not an argument not to go for the new system for AF/KL flights and/or tickets even if it cannot be implemented on other carriers flights and/or tickets.

To put it another way, AF/KL may well consider that a greater or lesser award of miles is a marginal factor in the decision whether or not to fly AF/KL versus another carrier and therefore not worth bothering about.

brunos

I had not followed the whole discussion, apologies. I would suggest making a sticky for the new FB program, so that one can easily find the rules for XP.

Miles credited is another story. But XP credit confirms that AF does not care about Asian members and prioritize European ones. IMO this is a clear decision.I do understand the logic. But being based in Asia, there is no way I would now prioritize AF on my longhaul flights, knowing that it becomes almost impossible to earn elite status as my numerous regional ST flights will earn a meager 2XP in Y and a few more in J. That and the new rules to move up status by step means that I will never prioritize AF anywhere and keep flying OW whenever possible. To illustrate, I earn 280TP on BAEC when I fly business return to Jakarta or Bali.
Again, I understand and accept the logic, but I can tell you that a lot of French/Dutch flyers based in HKG are not happy. No wonder that French banks and luxury companies here move their corporate contracts away from AFKL ( it's an observation not a guess).

NickB

With due respect, you are not comparing like with like when comparing with BAEC. You are extremely selective in your comparison, putting side-by-side the least attractive aspect of FB XP earning within Asia with the most attractive aspect of BAEC earning within Asia. As you very well know, the vast majority on intra-Asian routes will not earn you 280 TPs within BAEC. It is only a small handful of long routes (>2000 miles) that do. On the vast majority of intra-Asian routes, you will earn 80 TPs return in business (40 TPs for each segment).
Let us do a more sensible comparison and let us see what one woudl earn in BAEC on what you seem to regard as evidence of AF not caring about "Asia", viz. the "meager 2XP in Y and a few more in J" on flights within greater China. Now, in discount economy with BAEC, you would earn an even more paltry 5 TPs, which would mean 300 segments to achieve BA Gold. By comparison, you would need 150 of these segments to achieve the equivalent status with FB (FB Platinum). Admittedly, in fully flex economy, you would only need 75 segments with BAEC. So, in other words, the FB earning in Y on flights within greater China with FB are halfway between earnings in discount Y in and fully flex Y in BAEC. In C, one is better off with BAEC, since you only need 37.5 segments to achieve BAEC Gold versus 50 segments to achieve FB Plat.

However, if we now turn to sub-2K miles flights within Asia other than within greater China, then the situation is reversed: it is easier to achieve FB Plat than it is to achieve BAEC Gold and this is true both in economy (60 vs 75 segments) and in business (20 vs 37.5).
Now, on the handful of intra-Asia long flights (>=2K miles), BAEC takes the lead again.
However, if you look at inter-continental flights, FB again takes the lead (for instance, on LON/PAR/AMS-Hong-Kong direct: 25 segments vs 75 in discount economy and 8.3 vs 10.7 in C).

All in all, the suggestion that BAEC is more generous for status acquisition than FB after the changes for those based in Asia simply does not stand careful analysis. In individual situations, one might be better than the other but they are broadly similar in this respect, except in discount economy where FB is very clearly more generous than BAEC, even on those routes were FB is particularly stingy. When it comes to miles earning, FB is undoubtedly more generous than BAEC on partner earnings (not least because of the exclusion of elite bonuses with most partners in BAEC).

So, if one really wanted to to rank BAEC and FB as to which one "cares less" about Asia, I would have thought that, on balance, it would have to be BAEC. The truth, however, is that neither are primarily designed with Asian flyers in mind.

It is undoubtedly the case that FB rules were designed primarily with European flyers in mind. But that is pretty much a universal truth of FFPs: North American FFPs are designed primarily with the North American market in mind; European FFPs are designed primarily with their own markets in mind and similarly Asian FFPs are designed primarily around local customers rather than those on other continents.

Your own personal equation might make FB less attractive but one should not assume that one's own personal experience can be generalised to everybody.There are several factors that might make FB less attractive in your personal situation: HK is a oneworld hub so you are more likely to find yourself on a OW flight when flying within Asia. Second, HK is within greater China and therefore will be directly affected by reduced earnings within greater China. However, Asia is a big place. Flyers based in, say, SEL, BKK, CGK, SGN, MNL, SIN, etc... might not have the same perspective as you have.