rosenkavalier

I also thought the same thing, but somehow this thing called life gets in the way, and thats just how the cookie crumbles. I don't think there is any need for any customer to justify the timing of their purchase, as long as its within the prescribed timeframe and going by the rules. Anyway, the main point of my rant was that if a retailer/travel provider promises a certain price/fare, and on top of it, that the fare is valid for the 72 hour hold, then there is no reason why the consumer should have to spend hours on the phone trying to get what they were originally quoted and also no reason that they should be told they should have done it earlier.
The most frustrating part was that, on my fifth and final call, the agent put me on hold for about 10 minutes and managed to ticket with no problems. Which means, it is somehow possible and I just encountered bad agents previously.

meflatow

It was very useful over the years. I was happy to pay the 15% premium to open up seats on specific routes I needed to fly. With this variable pricing, it appears you are right that they have no further purpose.

Keter

I wanted to waste my miles to La Premiere (MOW-PAR-DXB) for 160K miles but the payment failed on the last date of the old scheme and I did not have time to follow up (I wanted to have a flex award which are now not available from what I understand). Now the price is weird 360K miles one way (was 160K)... On the other hand there are routes priced much better, so maybe as usual I shall look into this change as an opportunity

And as some mentioned its really stupid to see J awards more expensive than F on some days, hope they revise J pricing down rather than increase F cost,

Keter

How to find upgrade prices to La Premiere now? I think I saw it mentioned that F upgrades rules will be relaxed (more booking classes eligible and less elite requirements) but I see nothing now.

Keter

Strange that the calculator (for example available on Polish version here) is showing from 160K, but I never saw cheaper than 360K.

julien2062

I'm just so frustrated now with my 200k worthless miles in my acc...
I cannot even afford a decent business return ticket for literally ANY intercontinental flight.

TProphet

I'm seeing a couple of routes that are sometimes cheaper than before, mainly flights to StarAlliance hubs in Europe where Air France/KLM compete. Otherwise, pricing is up across the board and it's not a minor increase, it's 200-500% increases. Asia was hit particularly hard, and the pricing wasn't cheap there to begin with.

Additionally, no calendar search is available anymore so the only practical way to search for availability is to call. That's what I'm doing now - just calling to search everything, unless I'm looking for a narrow set of dates where the clunky search engine works (most of my searches are for more flexible dates where calling in is a practical requirement).

It seems that Air France/KLM doesn't really want business from credit card transfers anymore. Given that the program is now only marginally less difficult to use than Korean, but Korean allows both longer holds and much better pricing, I'm likely to switch to Korean as my go-to program for SkyTeam bookings. If Korean sees this as a competitive opportunity and decides to allow one-way bookings and relaxes some of their ridiculous family registration requirements, they'd be a slam dunk now vs. Flying Blue.

The upside, if there is one: This move has likely taken at least 1/4 of the redemptions out of SkyTeam in general, and when combined with Delta's moves, it could be as much as half! This may make it easier for me to find partner availability for my award booking clients going forward. I also think that the move will be good for our business and industry overall; the harder airlines make miles to use, the more people are willing to pay us to book their awards.

irishguy28

They never did; but they should have set it up in the same way as Alitalia does it, whereby a minimum of 25% of the mileage amount for any redemption has to have been earned by flying.

FB flyers have been punished enough for sticking with the programme, without having to see customers who churn credit cards and earn hundreds of thousands of bonus points [neither of which is really possible in AFKL's heartlands] swoop in and nab all the good deals

Again, frequent flyer programmes are, or were, intended to reward loyalty to the airline. They weren't brought into existence to allow people to "profit" from them by charging others for services such as yours.

newflyer27

To make it more fun, sometimes you choose a J ticket but you end up having only one of the legs on J and the other on Y or W.

ranskis

Where can you see the booking class? have you paid for the ticket or was it just put on hold and you could see the booking class?

newflyer27

I did not buy it nor put it on hold. On the app once you select the flight, it gives you the option to see details with booking class in the next page(the one with cash&miles options) . At first I noticed when choosing the seats that I was in economy. Only way to be sure all legs are in J is put J in the search criteria. It can be really misleading...

Klems

I was kind of holding on to my points to plan for some specific redemption but now that the price varies, I think I'll just blow my 100k+ points on my next roundtrip JFK/CDG... Managed to find something in J for 57,500 points each way, which is actually better than before so I guess I should jump on it while it's still possible. Most other dates, it starts at 92k each way (!!!).

I might even use the cash and points option to hit the $1000 threshold, since Amex (in the US) currently has that offer that if you spend $1000+ on Air France, you get 20,000 MR points as a bonus.

ranskis

Beautiful and smart AF: they reward their customers with AC/BA/EY award flights rather than with AF flights!

Sjondorn

Let's not forget there are 5 points per dollar spent as well, so you'll at least get 25000 points

beachmouse

The 'problem' is that the earnings from selling miles to the US card issuers are too large for an airline or FFP to pass up, especially during a down business cycle. There have been times when the literally only profitable part of United ( Alitalia might take note) was the business division selling bulk miles to third parties for resale; it significantly helped keep the airline operations side of the business afloat. I suspect that as long as AF is a little bit financially wobbly, the relative ease at which the Americans can generate miles via credit card will continue.