stevento

I've seen FB display phantom bookings in the past, wondering if that's what it is.

FB shows availability on SU SVO-JFK for every day in August. I wanted to verify with an agent before I transferred the miles - booking for 8 people (4 different flights), not an insignificant amount of miles. FB agent saw availability, but when she tried to make a booking she was told "waitlist is closed". Her suggestion was to call back in 2 weeks as it's too far in the future (November for following August).
Now that doesn't seem right. 9 months is not that far ahead... and AmEx 25% bonus is ending in 3 days. As I need half a million miles, I would very much like to take advantage of the bonus.
Is this a phantom booking that will never materialize? if it helps, Expertflyer shows plenty of availability for SU...

irishguy28

If they can't book it now, then you must assume that they won't be able to book it either the next time you ring up. (Did it occur to you to "test" the agent's theory by having them attempt to book the same flight on a date two weeks/months ahead of your intended travel dates?)

When using miles, you need to be flexible around the flaws and failings of programme involved, rather than trying to bend the programme around your wishes. While of course you should be able to book any Skyteam flight showing up in the tool, you will find that this is, sadly, not always the case. If you want to use FB miles, then I would suggest you book an alternate routing on an airline more suited to the use of FB miles. If you must travel on Aeroflot, then I would suggest you look at acquiring miles in Aeroflot's programme, or buy a cash ticket.

I would say, however, that trying to book a group of 8 on miles was always going to be a tall order, on any program!

stevento

it did occur to me, but I didnt have time and had to drop the call at that point.

I've years of experience in redeeming miles, and all of my redemptions have been "tall orders", as I was always booking for 4, on the same flight, with very inflexible dates that always coincided with school vacations. I'm actually much more flexible on this booking than ever, in that the dates are somewhat flexible, and 8 people can travel in groups of 2. That's why I was so excited to see availability on SU, 3 flights per day, 2 seats on each flight (I was going to figure out how to send the remaining 2 later on). But the phantom availability is ridiculous - how can you know the seats are not available? If I did transfer half a million miles into a program that's become almost unusable after they dropped award charts, and miles that expire in 3 years with no way of keeping them alive - that would really really suck.

irishguy28

Flying Blue miles don't expire after 3 years.

You can keep them alive indefinitely by taking an XP-earning flight at least once every 2 years.

Beware that Flying Blue is a program primarily intended to reward loyalty of flyers (not buyers!), and therefore not a good match for people transferring in miles from other programmes who - despite your claims to flexibility - are really interested in one particular ticket only, and who will therefore be at great risk of rueing greatly any decision to transfer miles in when their one desired redemption proves impossible.

(The default Flying Blue user will shrug their shoulders, and use their miles another time, for another ticket, if "phantom availability" strikes. But, as I was trying to indicate, the default Flying Blue user wouldn't be getting too excited about using their miles on Aeroflot. FB works best if you stick with the "main" airlines - AF, KL and to a certain extent, DL)

Concerto

I don't know, irishguy28, I've had a number of excellent redemptions on Aeroflot to offbeat places in Russia and elsewhere, saving me thousands of Euros over the last 3 years or so.

irishguy28

You didn't transfer in 500,000 miles from credit cards, though. And you're a "regular" FB user, who didn't run up against "phantom" availability, and even if you had, you would come up with other ways of using your FB miles on other trips. That makes you (and I) quite different customers than the OP.

The OP is far, far more constrained, despite the mention of "flexibility". The OP won't tolerate any route other than JFK-SVO direct on Aeroflot, which is quite a strong restriction, despite being willing to spread all tickets over a minimum of 4 such flights. When you found your good Aeroflot redemptions, it wasn't quite so critical - you had plenty of other potential options on plenty of other potential future trips, and didn't *have* to commit to the same extent to obtaining a particular ticket on a particular airline.

If the OP transfers in his/her points, and can't buy these 8 (!) tickets on this particular route, then he/she won't be able to "recover" as easily as you (or I) can. We didn't accumulate our FB pile instantly with a single outcome only in mind, and select FB solely for the purpose of booking this one single trip. We can relax and play the odds on your stock of miles.

The OP can't.

stevento

Umm... OK... I don't think I ever mentioned not tolerating anything.

Frankly, I don't understand how my flexibility, or lack thereof, has anything to do with FB's ridiculous ineptitude at showing true availability.
It is downright deceptive to show availability where none exists. I am not tied to specific routes, specific dates, or specific airlines or alliances, but based on what I saw on FB site, I booked JFK-ZRH-KBP on LX outbound counting on MOW-JFK inbound.

I know full well limitations of award travel. I understand buckets and dynamic pricing and needing to be flexible and all of that stuff. But if an airline's website tells you something that turns out to be false - yes, I guess I am less tolerant of deception than you.

What a strange direction this thread has taken...

stevento

Called FB twice today.
Was told that all SU availability is phantom.
Found 2 seats on AF SVO-CDG-JFK for 62.5K, put them on hold. Strange experience as seats kept coming in and out of inventory.
Called back in 1 hr to check, the agent found 5 more seats. Put on hold.
Asked the agent to check again, she found one more seat. Put that on hold.
So now I have 8 seats on SVO-CDG-JFK on hold... which totally didn't match web availability.

Very strange experience. There seems to be a total disconnect between .com availability and what the agents see. At least the hold times are very short (after spending last 5 days trying to get through to Aeroplan, and spending 1hr+ on hold, this has been amazing).
Is there a reliable way to check FB availability? And what is available to partners at this point (delta.com didn't see any of those seats)?

aviationbuff

O / X (FB reward) booking classes were structurally made unavailable by Aeroflot to North America and Havana, TLV, CDG, AMS, LHR and long-haul Asia since at least the beginning of 2018.
Scope of destinations with availability is limited pretty much to continental Europe and domestic Russia.

irishguy28

I would suggest that Flying Blue pulls Aeroflot from their web search tools entirely.

stevento

that would be massively helpful.

In general, what is the most reliable way to check FB availability? I found even airfrance.com to be unreliable, as it most certainly didn't show 8 available J seats I ended up booking.

irishguy28

As you have seen, when using Flying Blue to book on airlines other than AF or KL, there is no reliable way to check for availability other than to call.

This is why I continually advise people to adapt their strategies based on the airline, not on the programme. Flying Blue will generally work for you if your desired ticket is on AF or KL. For anything else, it's generally not a good fit - and certainly when you come with very, very specific requirements.

stevento

I ended up booking on AF - and the website was inaccurate for it as well. It showed 2 seats available, when in fact there were 8. And the seats seemed to be coming in and out of inventory, because every time the agent checked, there was a different amount.
Started with 4, went down to 2, then added 5, then added 1... Over 2 diffeent calls over 2 hrs.
So it seems even on its own airlines calling isn't reliable either 😂
But I did get an awesome booking of 8 Js on the same plane so I'm not complaining..
Thanks for your help.

Concerto

I hope not... it's one of the most useful parts of Flying Blue for me!

maxvor

I don't think this is true. I've had multiple redemptions to AMS, CDG, TLV on SU in the last two years. In fact I hardly had any experience with phantom availability on SU until this "new web-site design" nonsense. Since it went live, don't even get me started how broken pretty much everything in award searching and booking functionality.