853

I booked a return business class ticket with Turkish Airlines between Asia and USA. The outbound leg faced IRROP so TK rebooked me on KLM services (marketed and operated by KLM, booked in J, an elligible fare class under Flying Blue).

As per my understanding of the Flying Blue 'conditions generales', the fact that the underlying ticket stock (235-) is on a Star Alliance airline/ not a partner of Flying Blue, is not a cause for not being elligible to mileage accrual, but FB insists I am not entitled to any mileage...

What can I do at this point to escalate the matter? I can't see any sign of this rule in the program's terms & conditions...

irishguy28

If you were booked in J on a KL-coded flight, then you will earn miles for the sector regardless of the ticket stock. The issue here is probably that the system cannot determine the "price" of the flight (as you know, KLM flights now award miles not on the distance and class of service, but on the fare paid) and hence the request failed. (It may be that, in this case, they will have to revert to the old tables to determine the miles awarded, if they cannot determine the fare paid to KL for the KL sectors)

You should request credit from Flying Blue the old fashioned way - send a scan of the boarding pass along with your Flying Blue account details; or call the FB line and explain the problem and let them tell you where to send the boarding pass to.
If instead you are passing through AMS anytime soon, I'd advise to sit down at the Flying Blue desk, bringing the boarding pass and the printout of the e-ticket and they will be able to sort it out for you.

Please be more specific. Do you mean that the automatic retro-claim facility failed? Or do you mean that you spoke to an agent already?

853

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, they are adamant that this is not elligible... See below their response from the manual retroactive claim process:

This is news to me and I have never seen such exclusion explicitely mentionned in their T&Cs

irishguy28

I fear this may be a case where you volunteered too much information; I wouldn't have drawn attention to the fact that the ticket was booked by another airline as a result of IRROPs, as this has apparently given at least this agent an "out" for denying the claim.

I would advise you to call Flying Blue and just request the credit without explaining the "history" of the ticket. It shouldn't be an issue, so there should be no need to automatically go into the whole backstory of what is, after all, a simple request. Now, of course, if the agent starts enquiring in this direction, don't lie - but if they make the same claim that the ticket can't earn miles, then ask which part of the Flying Blue T&Cs support that view.

However, if you are travelling through AMS I would recommend talking to an agent at the Flying Blue desk in the lounge.

(in the above, I assume you already pressed the "Claim Missing Miles" button in your Flying Blue account and tried to obtain the credit automatically)

EDIT:
The following highlighted sentence in the FB T&Cs may, afterall, provide them with an "out" here, though I don't think this should actually apply in your case. It's generally accepted that Original Routing Credit (ORC) is provided when you are rebooked, but this generally assumes that you are not being booked across alliances as in the current case, but rather end up with two different itineraries, both of which can earn, and this is how they decide which of the two to credit to you. However, a strict literal reading of this line could possibly be used to uphold the answer that you were already given.

As such, it would be better in such cases not to draw attention to the reasons why Turkish Airlines bought you this flight.

flyerCO

Issue is that you are eligible to claim Original routing credit with TK despite being rebooked. There was a time you could double dip. However this is no longer the case.

irishguy28

Double-dipping is always possible when you are rebooked onto a completely different airline in a different alliance!!!!

At least, I have not yet failed to get the ORC from an airline in one alliance, while also getting the miles in a different programme in a different alliance on the rebooked ticket.

Back in the days of bmi, it was even possible to get miles in more than one *A program in such cases

flyerCO

Yes, this used to be very common. However nowadays they can see that the ticket was given credit elsewhere/know about double dipping. The days of doing this have gone. I've argued this with both DL SM and AF/KL FB when happened for me and another co-worker. (They had FB, I'M of course DL SM)

irishguy28

Absolutely, if we are talking about cancelled and replacement flights that both can be credited to, say, Delta Skymiles and Flying Blue. They want (and need) to make sure that 2 Skyteam-aligned FFPs don't both give credit.

However, KLM have no way of knowing whether Original Routing Credit had even been requested, let alone granted, in some Star Alliance-aligned programme for the original cancelled TK flights. TK flights cannot and do not post to Flying Blue, nor (to the best of my knowledge) to any other Skyteam-aligned FFP, and therefore the issue of "double dipping" isn't (or shouldn't be) a concern to KLM or to Skyteam more widely. From KLM's point of view, they sold a day-of-departure ticket to a non-partner airline on behalf of the passenger, and mileage can (and should) be credited on that basis alone.

They do, and always have, watched out for this when both the original and the replacement flights are all in the same alliance and there's the potential issue of getting miles in more than one Skyteam-aligned FFP.

carnarvon

How can they?

saraoutou

Don't know...but I believe they have a way to.
June 2018, I was due to travel CDG-ZRH-GRU-EZE with LX (metal and ticket- GRU EZE on Aerolineas arg.).
Due to thunderstorms CDG-ZRH was late and LX rebooked me on AF direct CDG-EZE.
About a month after the flight seeing no credit either on FB or M&M, I try to retrocredit on FB (as I do use more these miles) sending my BP and oculting the rerouting, just sending my BP to AF customer service in Beauvais.
The credit was denied, they told me as it was a rerouting bought by LX, I had to claim the miles through LX...
Did it and got them without any trouble

Xandrios

Probably they cannot check if you actually got credit or not. However they can see that this was a rerouted flight. With such rebooking the new carrier receives the coupon value of the original ticket. Which may be below the regular fare price that the new carrier would typically charge. I'm expecting that FB can detect this scenario and on that basis deny giving out any additional miles. Forcing the pax to request ORC from the original FFP.

I may be mistaken, but hasn't that FB desk been eliminated years ago?

NickB

IF the miles post spontaneously, yes. But if they don't, then it is a different kettle of fish. You are entitled to credit if you buy (or somebody buys you) a ticket on a ST airline or partner. If you are invol rerouted onto a KL flight by a non-partner airline, I do not think that it is stated anywhere that you are entitled to miles and XPs. KL may insist on your providing a copy of the ticket with the KL flight to credit and you will not have such a ticket if you are rerouted by another carrier.

In that situation, you would normally claim ORC on the FFP for the corresponding original flight. Whether this is eligible for ORC on a * Alliance scheme will depend on the rules of the specific schemes (some are quite difficult with ORC). THis, however, does not address the issue of miles/XPs on FB.

CyBeR

Possibly they made an agreement that in case of rerouting onto other airlines they don't provide mileage accrual to prevent double-dipping as a matter of policy.

irishguy28

I really doubt that non-partner airlines have gone to the trouble of partnering in the background on thwarting the crediting of miles on last-minute bookings made due to IRROPs, given that a) these airlines weren't sufficiently motivated to partner together in the more usual constructive and meaningful ways that airlines partner up, and b) the number of such cross-alliance rebookings is so tiny as to make it meaningless for those airlines to get their panties in a twist like this over potential double-dipping. After all, KLM received ample payment for this last-minute J ticket; as such, the miles have been paid for and it is no loss to KLM to credit miles for this sector(s).

I wish the OP would clarify where the issue first arose - it's still not clear to me whether the FB number was quoted to KLM at check-in and whether the flights showed up in their FB account somehow showing as "0 miles, 0XP"; whether the OP attempted to make an automatic retro-claim; or whether the contact/quotation given from the FB representative was in response to a first direct approach where miles were requested together with the "story" of the ticket.

If the "normal" claiming process led to a rejection, then it lends some credence to the view that Flying Blue is now looking out for last-minute purchases made specifically by non-partner airlines on reroutings. However, I also think it's just as likely that the automatic crediting falls over when it sees a KL flight on strange ticket stock and cannot automatically figure out how many miles to award; and that the OP's explanation regarding the rebooking gave whatever agent viewed the query an easy way out to simply reject the request, rather than going to the further effort of having the miles and XPs recorded correctly.

(Never attribute to malice what can be put down to laziness/ignorance!)

flyerCO

Nowadays, something is marked on the ticket I was told. (For most airlines anyway) (I also don't know if this "marking" is not instead something noted in airline GDSs)

When airline goes to give credit they can see that ticket segment was credited to another account. True even if they're not even partners.

As for being rerouted, as long as done properly, it's clear that it was a reroute.

Lastly, ticket stock is no issue. While airline might not be able to change OAL ticket, they can see it/look at it.