svellmann

Since several high-profile bloggers posted about SB awards a few weeks ago and bookings probably shot through the roof, I wonder if FB just pulled online award bookings for SB altogether.

AJCNL

Could you give any further information about these posts? What was said? I too am curious as to why there is no SB availability showing.

svellmann

Mostly TRAVEL IS FREE on August 11:
http://travelisfree.com/2016/08/11/f...n-the-pacific/
I played a lot with award search for SB flights for a week or two following that post which showed great availability on many routes until suddenly not a single flight was showing availability anymore since then.

The Points Guy made a short mention of using FB miles on SB as kind of a sweet spot on June 17 already:
http://thepointsguy.com/2016/06/top-...ng-blue-miles/

While view from the wing noted the possibility of using FB miles on SB on August 2nd:
http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....m-flying-blue/

I could swear that Matthew from Live and Let's Fly as well as Lucky's One Mile at a Time blog picked up on this topic sometime in the last 4-5 weeks but can't for the life of me find the related posts right now. Maybe I'm delirious already after reading too much about this in the past couple of weeks.

svellmann

[deleted] sorry for duplicate post

AJCNL

Thanks for your quick reply. I don't follow any of those, and don't quite get why they have suddenly been posting this, SB has been a FB airline for quite a while. Shame if this has stopped SB from offering awards tickets.

TravelingRabbit

There is no aeroloft availability on FB. If you check delta, it is wide open.

Ditto

Then there might not be any, or you need to call to book it.
Either way, that's different to "it shows up on the first screen and then vanish"

TravelingRabbit

I called, they said there is no availability (literally on any day ever). Tons of availability via delta.com though.

azepine00

FB has been blocking aeroflot awards for many months - i recall trying to overcome this issue last year... they just pretend there is no availability

that regular award space is perfectly bookable via delta or su itself

Ditto

The fact that you can book an award ticket with SU or DL doesn't mean it is available to book with Flying Blue, why do you think they "pretend" there is no availability?
I see a lot of availability with SU on other routes, e.g. AMS-SVO, BKK-SVO, TLV-SVO

azepine00

SU makes award O and X space available - meaning it is bookable by any ST partner unless of course that partner blocks it (fully or partially).

I have vivid memories of United pulling this kind of cr@p with starnet over *A inventory a few years ago - also with selected routes and partners - getting partner awards required "manual sell" and agents were instructed not to do so... (amazingly now i think overall the program was better back then so everything is relative)

anyways i firmly believe this is of FB making as they dont want to pay SU for those seats but ymmv of course

irishguy28

???

The first route I looked up there is only SU availability on offer...

And how can you tell that it is Flying Blue, rather than Aeroflot, that is "blocking"?

What route are you looking for?

I was waiting when "Starnet" would be mentioned

If there is an equivalent "Skynet" - then please let us know!

But FB designs the programme and adapts it to meet their needs. If there were such "sweet spots" in the programme that meant offering these SU awards would somehow leave them out of pocket, then they would adapt the programme.

They have shown themselves to be adept at changing the rules to their own advantage. FB aren't simply going to "block" awards for the reasons advanced here. They are not out of pocket for the awards they "sell"; and while they would much rather you let your miles to expire or devalue, they are also glad to write off the outstanding liabilities by having you "cash in" your miles.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions abroad about reward flights. AF and SU codeshare on flights between CDG and SVO, for example. Delta, however, won't sell you a ticket (for revenue) on an AF-coded SU-operated flight between CDG and SVO. Therefore Delta is clearly "blocking" flights - right???? Because we apparently have this notion that every single alliance-member or partner-member flight operated anywhere in the world should be available without fuss or comment to any other alliance-member??

AJCNL

For those interested, SB award availability has reappeared.

zboub345

thx for the info: SB is back, at last!!

michaelr

I booked five coach tickets OMA-CZM today. I had the required miles in the account and the flight dates were within the 10 month window. However, when it came time to book the tickets, a "technical issue" prevented the online completion. I called and the phone booking process took about 25 minutes and was relatively painless. The fees breakdown ended up $5 higher per ticket than what was showing online. The flights were all on Delta metal and Delta's ticket receipt showed the higher fees. The AF website still shows the incorrect fees. Not sure who the culprit is but 2/3 times I had to actually call to issue a ticket because of 'technical issues' with AF's online booking process.