Ditto

From eastern Europe (e.g. OTP, WAW, PRG) to the US you can book flights for 53.000 miles, so potentially with promo awards you might be able to get that for a r/t.

johan rebel

Which begs the question, who does?

I happens to me only very rarely, but as a PE I have been turfed out of the my pre-selected seat and given an inferior one on occasion. On boarding, my original seat was then occupied by another pax.

Johan

caliform

Gate agents can do this. I've had it done before when I politely asked if there were two adjacent seats available since I hadn't selected a seat for me and my wife, and they seem to have the power to move people to a new seat. Not that I asked them to do so... they sometimes do it proactively.

johan rebel

But when you discover that you have been moved at OLCI, or when checking your reservation even earlier, the GAs are not the most likely culprits.

Johan

Fabo.sk

Which makes me wonder, if I called a Platinum number, that let's say I could guarantee went to PRG, and started speaking Czech...
What would happen?

Well the thing I think is, the fact that they will not to it doesn't necessarily mean they can't do it. If a sufficiently important other person asks.
and I think we understand that means personally important in this case, not commercially important.

Macaron54

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobTL

Regarding award J tickets, i have not seen anything that came close to 40.000 return. If that would be the case, the critisism would have been different and the system would be fair. Now we earn 1/3 of our miles and the prices went mostly up, in rare cases slightly down. But I haven't seen any return J ticket for under 62.500 miles from Europe to USA:
What route was that?

I am equally puzzled. The current trend is, indeed, towards an overall increase of the miles requirements for both award tickets and upgrades. There might be unusual exceptions, but with dynamic pricing, we have unleashed the beast (read revenue management & pricing), and reached unprecedented levels of miles to either book a flight or purchase an upgrade. I have previously given the example of a CDG-to-BOS route, for which an A-to-O (lowest premium-economy booking class to business) upgrade skyrocketed to 110,000 miles , when traditionally (see the upgrade scheme AF/KL marketing flights spreadsheet) the same upgrade was worth 30,000 miles. As commented on by BobTL, since April 1, depending on our flying pattern, our miles accrual has reached a historical low, earning as little as 1/2-1/3 of what we used to, while the price of award tickets and awards on some routes, at certain dates (stepping on eggshells here ) went through the roof, resulting in a net devaluation of the FB mile.

flyingjapans

Macaron54

That would have been a reasonable explanation, flyingjapans, but apparently, this is not quite how it works (and what was illuminated to me). You are correct that the quota of seats open to O is very small. Once these seats are gone, it is nearly impossible to predict what happens next. On line, you get the usual message All eligible seats for upgrade have just been booked. We are unable to complete your request anymore. It does not mean, however, that you do not have access to an upgrade. The Travel Assistant (TA) team helping the Ultimate customers is empowered to request an upgrade from Revenue Management & Pricing, which will honor or deny this request (in all likelihood based on their yield-management algorithm). In the past, however, regardless at what point in the timeline the derogation for an upgrade was granted, the amount of miles required for that upgrade would be a constant. Today, upgrades still remain limited in quantity, but Revenue Management & Pricing has also added an obfuscating variable, whereby their price can fluctuate dramatically to the extent that no one can really understand anymore how the whole process works, let alone predict how much the customer will be charged for an upgrade. Just like you, I am also under the impression that we have reached a turning point, where even the Platinum Service Line/TA team is at a loss, but perhaps will Lurd kindly illuminate the abstract concepts and subtleties that we might have missed.

flyingjapans

Interesting, Macaron54. Obviously the RM has full power in deciding to open fare buckets for both revenue and award/upgrade classes, and I have had a few instances on which the Platinum Service Line requested the RM to open up O class seats, either because of IT bugs making the upgrade appear as available (while it actually wasn't, and I had already purchased my ticket) or for commercial gestures.

It would indeed be interesting if Lurd gave some more insights about upgrade pricing and how much freedom they have in requesting/being granted upgrade space for some customers on specific occasions. Thank you very much in advance.

ranskis

Some fares have market or ticketing restrictions and need to be bought on selected POS. The good old FRA JFK at 999 EUR in J was a typical example, it could only be bought on some (if not all) German POS, including airfrance.de.
However, depending on the POS (and therefore the AF website) availability for a given flight may vary. Once I was hunting a D class availability to change a ticket, I ask the the PSL agent what POS she had access to and it was most of Europe except France. Then we stared hunting D availability, her with her own system, me with public AF website, country by country. Finally we could find a POS where my flight had D availability, she added it to the PNR from this POS and then switched back to the POS of the country of original issue to process the reissue. Another great example of PSL service

Wunk

Lurd, I've sent you a PM for something non-public

Zembla

I had called the platinum service line with the same question, and a couple of weeks later I got a personalized email reply. According to the reply are two parameters at play which determine the required miles. The booking class, and the actual price. To me this partly explains why we don't see a correlation between the prices and required miles for tickets. But what it doesn't explain, is why we sometimes see outrageous mileage-pricing in J when there are Z fare equivalents available!

Meneer Guggenheimer

I had to call the Platinum line as I booked 'wereld deal weken tickets' but realised 2 days later I booked the the wrong dates. I told the story and was trying to explain what happend but the agent rudely interrupted me...!!!!

She asked me to check my email. Which I did... she already issued new tickets!!!

I have had nothing but extremely nice and good service from the Plat Line. They know I (we) are good clients. I think being nice and honest will get you very very very far with them. She really made my day! It could have been a real mess for me if she had not helped me. And it was my own fault. I made the mistakes....

siw

Lund, How is it possible as a FB Platinum member to speak to a FB call centre person rather than the PSL call centre person?

I find the PSL help a bit of a lottery: sometimes the person is very helpful and knowledgeable and other times the person is very blunt and cannot help with anything I ask. I have noticed that on a few recent calls I have made to the PSL the person will say that they have to send my question to FB when they do not know the answer, because they say the PSL is not part of FB and they have a different system. So I ask them if I can bypass the PSL and speak to FB directly (I guess just as a FB Gold/Silver member would) as I may get the assistance straight away but I am told the PSL cannot reedirect me to FB and I must use a telephone number not noted on my FB account (only my mobile number is logged). However, when I use my home phone to call FB I have to enter my FB memebership number (which is Platinum) and that sends me back to the PSL, in Prague I think even though I call a London phone number (I guess no FB people there) and I thought all FB people were in Paris/Amsterdam. If I do not enter a FB membership number when the telephone robot prompts the phone call is disconnected. So there seems to be no way I can contact FB. Any advice?

Ditto

Open a new account and use that number when calling FB?