Goldorak

siw

Would that drive more people away from Flying Blue? I am one of those who flys mostly discounted long-haul Business tickets from LHR. Now I avoid AF/KL via CDG/AMS as the revenue based Miles earned is so very low now and now I take, where possible, SkyTeam partner flights including ST partner codeshares on AF/KL aircraft if possible. I already climbed to FB Platinum and it is nice having the tier status (for lounge access/SkyPriority etc. for short-haul weekend breaks) and earning reasonable amounts of the old Award Miles but since earning AF/KL Miles is now very difficult and if they do with JV to revence based I'd move away from airline/alliance loyalty and just fly with whomever. And just going on a point raised above: I have never found an AF/KL ticket that earns more Miles in the new FB than in the old FB. It seems to me that FFP are a dying breed and FB has been redesigned to reduce membership numbers.

Goldorak

Even if they were aligning some ST partners to the revenue-based scheme, this will not change your status qualification/requalification as this is based on the XP earning table which is the same whatever the flight is AFKL- or partner-marketed.

delanotre

AF has changed the earning sheme because the number of unused miles is included in the company's debts; most of AF/KL clients have lost in this new earning scheme, excepted the highest fare contributionners
Personally, as I fly only on cheapest fares, (as Ranskis) but in business and First class, I earn many more less miles on AF/KL than before. Therefore, excepted on AF "La Premičre" (my only luxe) I choose only ST partners for my flights because of the better earning scheme.

Sjondorn

The reduction of mileage earning in F fare for first isn't that dramatic (was doing the math for Z / F trip the other day, and it was only a few thousand miles less).

Concerto

But let's face it, the values for business class redemptions have been absurdly high for a decade now. Even within Europe, where there is no product to speak of (unless you count an empty middle seat and a school dinner as a product) the miles rates are ludicrous. So I never look at business class redemptions, apart from the Promo Awards, and mostly book award tickets in Economy. I mean, of course I always look at the business class mileage figures and they just blow my mind, so I would never book them. Hope the Promo Awards continue, because without them the programme is nada.

Sjondorn

You can't be expecting to fly deeply discounted Y and get miles for a long-haul J ticket. I'd say best use of miles is in fact on long-haul J tickets (if under the new system you get it cheaply, like 50k - 80k miles).

ranskis

Not even sure. There are so many offers nowadays that you can fly business Europe-Elsewhere for 1500-2000 EUR with a bit of flexibility in time and space. Since you have 500 EUR of taxes for a round trip award ticket, paying 100-200k miles mainly offsets 1000-1500 EUR.
Miles are more useful for the odd trip when you need a one way ticket, a last minute ticket that is wide open in J (so cheap in miles) but no cheap fare is available due to the short notice, direct J flights from/to CDG or AMS that are almost always expensive or for upgrades from premium economy to business when/if available.

irishguy28

I think you can forget about them "developing two levels of XPs for domestics".

And if they did - why pick 2,000 miles as the cut-off? (That would seem to suggest that only the US and Russia deserve having "differentiated" domestic valuation - are there any other countries in which Skyteam airlines can operate such long domestic flights? I'm not entirely sure either China Eastern or Xiamen Airlines operate flights to any destination in the north-eastern corner of China, the only part of the countrz that would be more than 2000 miles from their respective bases). Even for Delta and Aeroflot, the number of domestic flights that fall outside the 2000 mile limit would appear to be minuscule in comparison with their total domestic network - making it a very unusual choice of "cutoff".


2000 mile radius from selected Skyteam hubs.

And why "reward" customers for flying on this (or any) subset of "long" domestic flights? (I know, FB as it currently stands tends to over-reward customers for flying on other airlines or for booking on other airlines - but making a differentiation in "domestic" flights doesn't make sense for Flying Blue as its native airlines don't have any "long" domestic flights.)

I don't see any logic for Flying Blue to differentiate any kind of "domestic" flight.

(though yes, the 2000 mile cut off would suggest entirely removing the separate "Domestic" column entirely, which might make sense)

NickB

AF does have domestic flights above the "long" cut-off point but you are correct that these are not "domestic" flights for FB purposes as FB classifies them as international flights even though they are in fact domestic.

siw

Isn't it rather that the Flying Blue change now under-rewards customers on AF/KL? Where the rewards on other airlines has remained the same - thinking about the earning of Miles.

Concerto

Well it wasn't a very clearly thought out plan on my part, I just picked an arbitrary figure. I don't expect them to change the domestic XPs situation, certainly, but I think the whole thing merits a bit of thought. I suspect the discrepancy of mileage earning on partner airlines is something that is likely to be attended to sooner than the XP question. It's funny, I never thought this revenue model for miles earning could or would work outside the USA, given the different markets at play.

It is equally absurd getting so many XPs for short hops like CDG-AMS or AMS-DUS, but I hope that situation does not change, obviously! As for other airlines with long domestic flights, maybe Aerolineas Argentineas? Or Garuda Indonesia?

Oh I see...I have just studied your 2,000 mile radius map now. It does seem that the countries with long domestics are Russia and the USA. So no, that won't change probably. Nice map, by the way. I like maps.

Sjondorn

We'd first need to know the exact rationale for domestic flights XP earnings being irrelevant of distance and for the partner mileage earnings, such things are determined by market situation, not geography. Then figure out what's likely to get adjusted.

Maestro Ramen

Thanks everyone for the replies and constructive opinions. Thanks to you, pretty much figured out by now that FB is not the wtg for redeeming my amex miles and that upgrades are not a viable way to use miles. Looking towards flying club now for the miles. But ill keep using afklm where i can as they're cheap, and it looks like I can easily make silver this year as im already on 80 xp.

Fabo.sk

Personally, I think it's a question of unintended consequences, more specifically unintended benefits (on part of AFKL).
I believe that the programme designers were mainly thinking of AF domestic flights, which, as we know, used not to get segments at all (under normal circumstances). 2XP I would say is a decent compromise in the end. RO and KQ might have complained, and then they got 4XP for their domestics instead. UX maybe would have complained as well, but they went away from FB so they get no say.

But then the obvious big question hit. What of DL and SU (and Chinese partners), them's big countries, 2XP flying JFK-SFO?
Except... for AFKL, it's actually good this way. Because they want people to actually take their long TATL, instead of just hopping over to the Eastern Seaboard (or Moscow) and taking the domestic option. If CDG-SFO-SAN gives more XP than CDG-JFK-SAN, that's just fantastic for AFKL.