FB: 40% increase in cancellation fee (now €70)
 

This appears to have changed very recently...

https://www.flyingblue.com/en/spend/flights/rewards

It is quite recent because I cancelled an award flight around 3 weeks ago and it was still 50€.

Would they honor the 50€ fee for existing booking? I believe the amount is advertised in the booking process.

I guess we'll find out soon enough!

They would have to. That's part of the fare (rules) that you booked - or at least normally for paid tickets it is.

For award tickets, it can get thorny: some airlines will/have let you cancel the award ticket for free but charge you a fee for redepositing the miles. DL pre pandemic was an example of that (the fee was waived for elites; theoretically it still applies to ex-Asia DL awards though the DL agents generally don't collect it).

Don't know if that's how FB does it, but it's a possibility.

Interestingly enough, the "old" €50 fee is still being shown throughout the FB booking process...at least on klm.com....

Do they usually waive that €50 cancellation fee for Platinums, or did I just get lucky last October?

It’s really disappointing that this applies to everyone and on both cancellation and change. As a reminder, on ba, from a certain status level we don’t have any change or cancellation fee.

given fb dynamic pricing I change award flights more often than on ba (as sometimes a very expensive itinerary becomes reasonable again) so we are basically punished twice…

They do. I canceled an Award ticket for €50 yesterday.

To be honest,
1) with further restrictions on Business tickets (the late invention of LIGHT fares)
2) the increased cost of changes even on FLEX tickets
3) the higher price for Award cancellations
4) the "announced" cuts on Award prices which lasted only few hours before going back to the sad reality of dynamic prices where there's basically no-limits to the non-sense....

Flying Blue is becoming less interesting as a loyalty program (like it happened to most programs of the hotels).
I know it's a way to reduce inflation costs impact on the account in a period of inflation (like shrinkage on FMCG) but it leaves a lot of bitter on the so called "loyal passengers" tongue.

no, they don't. I had to pay the fee for cancelling / rebook two business class award tickets

For normal cancellations, they do charge you the 50 euros. I've had a few instances were this was not done, for example to cancel within 24h, or I wished to change from an economy award to business award. The agent said did not consider a change as it was on the same flight, but technically the fee might have been due.

Other circumstances, like bad weather at AMS, may result in the fee being waived as well.

Same for me, but it was my first cancellation, maybe first one‘s on the house?

As of today, all change/cancel fees for reward
tickets made for Platinum members from their own account are free.