mike turnbull

Hi folks. Just looking for any updates for a Delta reward.
Do you need to look on Delta's site first to find award availability ?
And then call FB to make the booking having found a reward ?
And is there a simple way to convert Delta's mileage requirement to FB ?
Lastly, should the 'charges/taxes' be the same whether Delta or FB ? e.g. A one way from Boston to Amsterdam?
Thanks.

ok986

I booked four DL awards recently. Always looked them up on KLM app (the website would not pull all the inventory), then called FB to book (be ready to tell them exact dates, flight nrs, times etc). From what I've seen, FB has its own mileague requirements, and they tended to be fixed (in my case, I either saw rewards at 15000 (or 18000?) miles for a domestic economy ticket, or none at all).

irishguy28

If you are booking using Flying Blue miles, then you should consult the Flying Blue website.

The Delta website will only show you details for cash prices, or prices in their separate SkyMiles frequent flyer program. It will not show you any useful or usable information regarding Flying Blue bookings.

mike turnbull

My questions I thought were straight forward.

The example you show can be booked, for example, by members in the UK ,of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club as a reward. Their members can do a search on the Delta website, like you have done, and seeing availability, can call the Virgin club line to book the shown flight and more to the point, are charged the exact same amount of charges, ie €8.97. (Everywhere that is, in mainland Europe Delta destinations but not the UK.) The mileage requirements are of course different with Virgin.

I was interested to know if this works with KL/AF, (as very long time partners,) but I can't see a straight forward way of doing this on their web site.
BOS / AMS just brings up their own flights with no way of looking for alternatives, together with heaftier charges.
Searching for internal US domestic flights obviously brings up Delta options, but not International.

irishguy28

The above screenshot is from the Flying Blue website. It is clearly not from the Delta website as you allege.

If there are seats available on the direct DL flights at the lowest available rate, then you will be able to book them directly from the Flying Blue section of either the AF or KL websites, as shown above, and here once more:

mike turnbull

Thanks, I am now clear that you are now showing the KL site, whereas your earlier screen shot I assumed was Delta as that was what I was talking about.

Your example Delta flight shows charges of €8.95
However, BOS to AMS on a KL service eg, Jul 24 brings up €58.95 (An exact €50 difference sounds suspicious)
This was basically my question...why the difference ? Not only in mileage requirements, 22.5 with DL but 35 with KL.
Pretty substantial differences between the KL FB program and a partner able to drastically undercut.

irishguy28

The €50 is the carrier-imposed international surcharge. (Reduced from €147 to €50 from June 1, 2013 - see Changes to long-haul awards)



There are no such charges levied on Delta award flights departing from the US.

The €8.95 represents the two taxes highlighted below. These are priced in dollars, and therefore these conversions to Euro will change daily at the IATA rate, if not paid in Dollars. (The "real" amounts are, respectively, $5.60 and $4.50)

mike turnbull

Thanks for that.
Going back earlier to my question however, it is nigh on impossible using the KL site for an award, to bring up or try to easily determine the Delta flights that are available without trawling through day by day.

My understanding is that....by referring to the Delta site for awards, that the only awards made available to their partners for Business is any redemption availability shown at 105,000 Delta Miles one way. This is certainly easier than looking on the KL/AF for seats.
Having found Delta availability, it should then be easy to call KL to request that seat, as just trying it out, still did not show on the KL site.
This was part of my question.....does this make sense ?

irishguy28

I had no difficulty finding availability on Delta for the route you proposed - in Economy only, though.

If you want to travel in Business Class, and there are no flights offered by the Flying Blue booking tool on the date or dates that you want, then I don't see what purpose is served by looking up the Delta website.

Edit: took a couple of attempts, but found a seat on DL in J.



But you can pick up the phone at any time and speak to a Flying Blue agent.

mike turnbull

Shame you didn't show the rest of that page.

KL 179000 Miles ? Absolutely ridiculous, compared to Delta @ 56500 AND €180 less expensive.

Goldorak

mike turnbull

Not at all....I was asking about booking Delta using my FB miles, and the above example is a very good reason why.
Why would you pay way over the top with KL if there is substantial savings to be made using a partner as in Delta ?

irishguy28

If being the operative word.

You have honed in on the one day where I was able to find a Delta J seat open - rather than, say, the hundreds of days for which not a single Delta seat is available.

Perhaps you're not aware, but both Delta Skymiles and Flying Blue programmes have switched to models whereby more seats are available for redemption - but only the same, or a fewer, number of seats are available at the old "fixed" prices. What used to be a single fixed price for a small number of seats, is now a "starting from" price which is pushed ever upwards as seats sell. As these "cheap" seats sell out - which in the old days would have meant no further availablilty for redemptions was offered - the price for redemption increases, quickly and considerably as you have seen for FB, and I believe anecdotally the same is true for DL seats booked in the Skymiles programme.

Additionally, you will only ever find Delta seats offered in Flying Blue at the lowest price - unlike for Skymiles customers, or for AFKL flights for FB customers, Delta seats are not made available to FB customers at increasing mileage amounts once the cheapest seats are gone.

Therefore, on any date for which a Delta seat is offered on this route, then of course it has to be the cheapest. There is no carrier surcharge on Delta, so the best that any other offer in FB will be to come within €50 of the price.

(Note also that you picked a route on which DL operate 14 weekly services in summer, against KL's 4 weekly services (with KL service being summer seasonal only), so there are far fewer options for an open KL seat on direct services).

mike turnbull

I'm fully aware of Dynamic Reward seat offerings nowadays, but I would have thought that FB would be more fully aligned with partner offerings like the above example....not exactly of course, but when you see such a major difference it is totally ridiculous.

As I said earlier, in my opinion, it is always best to check on the Delta award site first to see what partner seats are available, (which they show at the 105,000 mileage level....any other levels are not for partners.) In my experience I was unable to access a reward shown doing it this way on the KL site, however a call to KL confirmed it for me. The call handler I spoke to was either not aware or unsure and went away for a few minutes before confirming availability, KL mileage, and more to the point, the Delta charges, which is a flat rate to anywhere in mainland Europe, but not to the UK unfortunately . But then it's easy to get a short haul positioning flight to AMS or CDG.

I also have just enough Virgin Atlantic miles for a US round trip, but not 'up front' , and calling them this morning , they also said, if it's showing on Delta and the seat/s haven't gone, then we can book it.

I was interested to see if anybody had any experience of going this way, but obviously not it appears.

irishguy28

Think about what you are actually saying here.

You surely don't expect KLM to override their algorithms, and to offer a matching "cheap" seat, even if only on the vanishingly few days for which Delta still has "cheap" availability. As such, the way to remove this perceived "ridiculousness" would be to stop advertising any alternate routes for as long as a "cheap" DL seat is available, or to jack up the prices in Flying Blue for Delta flights to the same prices available on alternate carriers.

That would mean that rather having access to those same few DL seats at the "cheap" rate, FB members would have access only to those same few DL seats, but at prices potentially twice or three times the current pricing in miles.

The other option would be to do like Alitalia and others, and have a separate award chart, with higher pricing, when "partners" are used in a booking.

None of these alternatives strikes me as being beneficial to the traveller!!!