brunos

I understand your point.
But UX and AFKL are two different airlines with different accrual rules under FB.
No reason why one would earn the same miles on a given itin.
The world of FFPs is complex.

Concerto

Yes, of course, why not? Expedia gives a much bigger choice of flights, with the possibility to interline between carriers, plus there's no booking fee. I also get Payback points in Germany for each expedia booking. Additionally, all KL-coded options were offered much cheaper than on their own website (although, sometimes, when you click the booking button on expedia, the price can change).

Clearly it was a mistake on my part in this case, one lives and learns. But I am still not convinced that it is a non-earner, because it says that charter flights do not earn:

Flying Blue members cannot earn or spend Flying Blue Miles on charter flights operated by Air Europa with flights numbers between: etc.

irishguy28

The KL codeshares (UX3762/3763/3764/3765) appear in the excluded UX3000 - UX3799 zone so I don't think there's any point querying this.

My guess is that the UX200 - UX999 is used for charters, while the UX3000 - UX3799 space is used for codeshares. Why they feel the need to then list separately UX3065, UX3066, UX3154, UX3155, UX3160, UX3161, UX3164, UX3165, UX3168, UX3169, UX3170, UX3171, UX3174, UX3175, UX3333, UX3334 as non-earning (when they fall under the already excluded number range), I don't know.

I would have been tempted to say that perhaps ALL codeshare flights are excluded, but then they list the number UX3948 as excluded - an AF operated CDG-BCN - so there must be other codeshares which are not explicitly excluded based on what's written on that page. (Interestingly, all of the UX codeshares on BCN-CDG fall within the exclusion zones, so this 3948 number may for some odd reason be the only number used that does not fall in the 3000-3799 range)

But basically, earning on UX is a mess.

carnarvon

Yes I would...

Because UX is messy where crediting flights is concerned (especially in case of code share flights) and in case of any issue, bookings through third party websites are always harder to sort out.

I agree that FB IS UX's FFP, but for € 10, I'd play it safe.

But this is me....

Concerto

The only thing is, it says charter flights in the footnote, nothing about codeshares. But as you say, it's quite messy at UX and Flying Blue in general is not know for clarity.

The thing is, irishguy28, they specify charter flights and give the two ranges (UX200 - UX999 and UX3000 - UX3799), so I tend to read it to mean charter flights that happen to carry a number in that range rather than scheduled flights. Then they give a list of specific flight numbers taken from within that 3000 range that must be something other than charters...codeshares, maybe?

Or even trains? I had the issue a couple of years ago of not being able to get miles or segments for UX flight numbers operated by Spanish Renfe trains. So, as you can see, I am carrying the candle of hope very high.

So, when you say "I agree that FB IS UX's FFP, but for € 10, I'd play it safe", carnarvon, you mean you would have booked the KLM flights with KL flight numbers to be sure to get the miles, I presume? Certainly, I wish I could turn the clock back and do that now! Only thing was, the flight times I wanted did not show up at a reasonable price with KL flight numbers either on expedia or klm.com. So I guess I got what I needed, but will have to forfeit the miles and segments (will just have to somehow do 4 more flights to requalify as Gold!).
Of course, I will report back here about what happens in the end, as I think you need as much feedback as possible about this sort of thing.

irishguy28

Clear communication is not one of Flying Blue's strengths!

I think that you should read the text as:

- charters will not earn, regardless of flight number
- flights in the range UX200-UX999 will not earn (whether charter, codeshare, or other)
- flights in the range UX3000 - UX3799 will not earn (whether charter, codeshare, or other)
- flights UX3065, UX3066, UX3154, UX3155, UX3160, UX3161, UX3164, UX3165, UX3168, UX3169, UX3170, UX3171, UX3174, UX3175, UX3333, UX3334, UX3948 will not earn

If you do dispute the outcome, please let us know the result.

Concerto

Yes, of course I will, it's always interesting how these things turn out. For I was surprised recently on four Alitalia codeshares in O-class, cheapest fare possible: I ended up with 1100% miles plus bonuses for all the flights!

You are undoubtedly right about the text, it was just my wishful thinking. It will take quite a while for the whole thing to go through the system, my flight back is on 12th March, and I have always had to manually reclaim my Air Europa flights in the past. I do wonder, though, if KLM being the operating carrier will make a difference somehow (I've often had codeshare flights in the past post under the operating carrier's flight number, something I've assumed to be a mistake).

Concerning viewing the booking, using checkmytrip is the obvious choice and it works wonderfully. It is impossible to view it on the Air Europa site, because you have to list the airport of departure from a drop-down list, and Dusseldorf is there. It is, however, there loud and clear on the KLM website through my FB profile.

Concerto

An update: I called the Flying Blue call center today, and the agent assured me that miles would be earned on my UX (operated by KL) itinerary. I asked her if she was really sure, to check the footnotes, so then she disappeared a while to talk to her supervisor. Turns out he said that the rules had changed on October 16th 2012 and the Flying Blue website was never updated, so now codeshare flights in the 3000 series are eligible for mileage collection. The supervisor also said that it was a question of a Skyteam flight being operated by another Skyteam member, so there is no question of it earning miles (Q-class on UX is eligible for mileage accrual).

Turns out now I will possibly have to change the flight, because something has come up in an opera house (due to a sick colleague). It seems that canceling the flight which cost €161 would yield a refund of €81 in taxes, which is not too bad. To change to another date so I could be present to step in for the sick colleague, would only cost €50 on one date and €68 on another. These figures include an obligatory €50 change fee as well as change of tarif (none on the first date change option). So I think that is really excellent for such flexibility. Really, if I don't get the miles and segments, I am happy enough with what I am able to do with this ticket!

irishguy28

So the "old" KLM partner pages may be more correct in this regard:

No chance they'll update the Flying Blue website, I suppose?

Concerto

Right, here we go! I said I would give an update about this, and I have now completed my trip. Just to remind, I booked DUS-AMS-MAD and vv on UX codeshare flight numbers, all operated by KLM and KLM cityhopper, for EUR161 ai (the equivalent flights on KL numbers/stock were EUR175). Flights all booked into Q-class, so things looked good, until I saw a footnote on the FB page which excluded UX flight numbers in the 3000 range such as these codeshares. See above for the discussion.

I made sure my booking was visible at my profile on the KLM homepage, and I checked in online with KLM (which makes sense because it was the operating carrier). So I ended up getting 100% miles for all the flights, fare class seemed to map onto Y-class, and the flights were logged with KL flight numbers, no sign of the UX ones. So I either got lucky, or have discovered a potentially lucrative but risky way to score more base miles. Posters here have always advised against booking codeshares, generally, but so far they have been lucky for me. My flights on AZ codeshares (operated by AF) in January also yielded 100% miles from Alitalia's O-class.

I had a middle seat going and coming back, and the flights were perfectly nice and on time (don't expect anything better than a middle seat for this cheaper codeshare adventure, and I don't what all the fuss about middle seats is about: they were fine!)

Calchas

^ Perhaps we should start a dedicated thread on "good" deals such as these.

Last year I flew AZ 211 LCY-FCO in W class (deep discount for AZ), but somehow it got credited as though it were the AF codeshare in W class. I got 200% instead of 50% miles. There was another AZ flight I took too, and that didn't show up at all, so I manually claimed. The boarding pass only showed "Y" instead of the fare class so I got 100%. Hardly life changing in either case but I was pleased.

ovlaere

Ok, this weekend I flew UX BCN-PMI-BCN back to back return, my first mileage run (well segment run in fact). I am based in BCN and am running for gold and UX seems like the perfect 'tool' for making some segments, but their whole online thing is a mess and barely works.

I emailed FB to check whether 0% accrual is still qualifying, and obviously no miles = no segment. Most flights posted online are just the 0% classes, so I called them to book RT in Q class (25% and thus 2 segments). No issues at all during the flight, but the miles haven't posted yet. I was wondering if I have to claim them manually as my previous AZ/KLM/AF flights always post within 2 days and this is now 3 days. I can't claim as it's not 7 days yet, but I'm curious. If all works out, this is a nice tool to get the job done!

The flight booked over the phone posted immediately on my KLM login/FB account, but online checkin had to happen through UX. The confirmation email from the phone booking never arrived, and after the flight, it completely dissappeared from my previous flights in KLM, but I can still see it in the iphone/ipad app. It's clear, it's not the partner with the best tech infrastructure to post data efficiently...

I'll be flying BCN-FCO-VCE and vv on Alitalia in two weeks which will make me gold (and indeed, i've got flights with AZ that post surprisingly amounts of miles for the cheap fares!). I'm flying long-haul to the US end of nov and would like to see if I could make it before then to either accrue more miles and advantages on that flights (if Skyteam) or try to go for a UA challenge to Platinum: you get gold to gold matching and 90 days to do 12.5K miles and BCN - SFO RT is 12800 so I would make it in one round trip and thus have StarAlliance gold as well then for at least a year.

So yeah, UX, i really need that flights to post ASAP as I need to book those tickets in the next weeks!

ovlaere

My UX flight posted automatically today without claiming. Took 4 days, other partners I flew generally took 2 days.

So overall, quite satisfied. Had to call over the phone for getting Q class (lowest miles earning class, 25%), was marginally more expensive than any cheap flight available online. Turnaround at the gate, short flight. Left BCN 8:40 was back at 11:05. Good for a segment run.

Funny thing: I got credited 2 x 125 miles. Actual air distance is 126 miles. But there is a minimum of 500 miles to receive, and i got 25% of that, which is in fact the actual distance

Calchas

"Generous by nature"!

Concerto

This business about what you earn on AirEuropa is close to ridiculous in some ways. According to the table below, you only get 15% miles on a raft of booking subclasses listed at the bottom. However, I think all fare classes are eligible for mileage collection now, however few miles you get, irrespective of the flight being domestic or international. The good thing about that is you don't have to fiddle about being sure you book an eligible booking class any more. Do these 15% earning flights yield qualifying segments?

https://www.flyingblue.com/earn-and-...iraeuropa.html