Jenbel

No believe about it - it's all done in one go as you describe. So you can buy W or T, for the upgrade to J, and know you will get the MFU (miles for upgrade), none of this talking to half the world, only to be told it is not possible

And Aviatrix, you're entirely correct. To get into J on BA, you have to book into premium economy - but give the general price differential between WTP and CW, the quality of BA's long-haul business product, and the fact that you don't have any uncertainty as to whether the upgrade will be possible or not, I'm happy to do that. But I wouldn't like to play the KLM upgrade lottery anymore, despite the fact I used to do it in the past

NickB

Same thing here. I used to use my FD miles exclusively on upgrades. Now, I just use my FB miles on web awards C tickets. Result: I no longer buy long-haul tickets on KL, as other airlines will offer me a better return on my spending.

yocko

web awards c tickets.... am afraid they are a thing of the past... i never see them anymore ex amsterdam.... only web awards y here these days...

gjmv

Thanks Johan,

I have just spoken to them and the lady was very friendly but she was telling me that it was again a problem of Flying Blue. When I told her that I was very unhappy about the new FB programme, the KLM lady said "Ik ben er helemaal mee eens, sinds AF het heeft overgenomen, is het een absolute puinhoop geworden". ("I agree, since AF took if over, it turned into a big mess")

The only thing I can do now is call FB again! This is just ridiculous!

NickB

You do get some on AF, though. And one good thing about the new style web awards is that the connecting segment from Europe to the hub (LON/AMS or LON/CDG in my case) seems to create less problem than under FD. I am happy with the GRU-LHR C award tickets that we could get at 1/2 the miles.

ajamieson

The cleverest airlines are those that realise many customers are prepared to spend more money in exchange for clear, guaranteed benefits. That means getting more income from direct-booking economy passengers for business class seats that would otherwise go empty, be filled with operational upgrades or be sold at a discount through a third-party consolidator using paper tickets. Those same customers aren't prepared to tolerate the existing pot-luck process as described by others here.

gjmv

I do agree with the previous post - I would be more than happy to pay extra charge if I knew for sure that I would get the upgrade. The entire process I have witnessed now, was just pot-luck but I think it all ended ok if I may believe the last phonecall I had with FB:

Just a quick update on all of this - I have called FB again today and got a very friendly girl on the phone whom I explained the situation to again. She said she would email KLM requesting the seat and do her best. She would call me back in 1.5 hours if the upgrade was not possible and that no news, was good news.

So this afternoon - about 6 hours later, I still had not heard from her, so I decided to call back and to my amazement the person who picked up this time told me that everything was sorted and they had upgraded my B class to business.

The only strange thing is that I will not get any confirmation about this (which might be normal with the FB program) but they did take FB miles from my FB account. So perhaps it might all work out fine!

Falco Peregrinus

Well, the fact that they take miles doesn't necessarily mean that it works out fine. Did they assign you a seat? You should then be able to make sure that it is a C seat (enter your reservation reference and name in www.checkmytrip.com).

Jenbel

We'll keep our fingers crossed for you

johan rebel

KL have just increased their S fares to a number of destinations, and simultaneously published new I fares (which, by the way, are not really new. They just replace unpublished Z fares). An example.

AMS-BOS. S Class € 2512, I class € 2199.

I can't really imagine that anybody would be crazy enough to purchase an S fare on the off chance of being permitted to cough up a bunch of miles for an upgrade.

Johan