Introducing myself... ( long )
 

I'd like to introduce myself having been on the list for a little while now - 12/22/99 actually.

I've feen a FFP member since Dec 1989 - the first time i came to the USA, which was also my first flight on NWA. Since then I have been at various times a NW Silver/US Chairmans Preferred/UA Premier/ AS MVP.

Currently a KLM FD ( Flying Dutchman ) Royalwing/CO Gold/AS MVP.

In all of this time i have never flown on business ! I have always travelled on the lowest fare possible, because at the end of the day I was the person footing the bill, nobody else ! I must point out that at one time i did some travel writing, but i am now just a frequent leisure traveller...

In the UK ( where i live ) airfares are very reasonable if you wish toi travel intercontinental, but extortionate usually for intra Europe travel. In fact i can often get stateside for less than i could to any destination North or East of Germany.

I started flying NW by accident originally - they offerred me the best deal, but since then when KL and NW got hitched I was ecstatic my fave US airline with my fave European !!! I became a KLM fan because once apon a time they took a passenger of a plane so that i was able to travel, when my father had had a heart attack. My ticket was not even on them !

So while i haven't flown exclusively with them, I have tried to ! On many occasions since then they have greatly p***** me off, with some of the strange things they have done.

I would still be a NW WP member if KL+NW had not cooked up this deal where all WP members resident in Europe had to belong to KLM's FD programme which is nowhere near as good as NW's ! If you read any WP publicity material you will see that European residents may not join/belong to WP - they must join FD ! All european members of WP were unilaterally switched to the KL programme a few years back.

There are many diffeences between the KLM programme and NW or Co's for example, but the biggest is the administration - which is totally incompetent, but i will tell you the pro's+con's of the actual programme first.

The disadvantage of the KLM programme is NO Elite bonus's !!! That's right NONE !!! NADA ! Nothing ! Bonu's of any kind are very infrequent, and usually on come with new routes.

Upgrades when it suits KLM only ( Although we get automatic upgrading on NW from ANY fare at time of reservation if seats available ! ).

Award tickets are always available in my experience, but cannot be changed AND officially must be made + ticketed 14 days prior to flight.

The one major advantage is that Lounge access is totally complimentary to Elite and does not even require us to be flying KLM or partners !

A further bonus of KLM itself ( rather than the FFP ) as far as i am concerned is that KL/NW for travel originating in Europe almost always have the best fares around, and all paid fares earn mileage. ( In addition, KL generally has the best possible connections from other UK cities. Schipol is widely accepted as a better hub than Heathrow or Gatwick for travellers originating other than London ! )

Not so good is the sheer incompetence of KLM to run their FFP - for instance my elite membership officially was renewable in Nov, but i still have not received a new card, and do not expect to befor March at least ! And then only if i keep on reminding them !!! This is not a one off example - there is a UK forum on the KLM uk website which is filled with stories of their incompetence.

As on this webflyer board there are many frequent posters on the www.klmuk.com, who keep posting horror stories about the KLM FFP administration.

How about waiting 6 months for a new card !!!
( BTW membership no's are changed each time a new card is issued ! ). How about never receiving an email response ( most of us, myself included !!)? How about not being able to get through on the phone AT ALL for 3 months? YUP, speaking from personal experience here ( and this is trying every day !). How about waiting 6 months for a pin no. to accss my account online ( YUP, speaking from personal experience here ), oh and having it unilaterally changed 3 months later. Still waiting from June to be told the new one !

This list could go on so far you would truly believe that i was making it up.

Many of the regulars there have recently ( myself included ) been comped to Gold Elite on Continental. And you have no idea how greatful we are - because CO comped me Gold from my joining date in August 99 to end 2000 ! and now that CO+KL are going to be tied, we can get the KLM fare, and CO status. Best of both worlds

All in all you guys in the US do not know how lucky you are.

Maybe i should've called it...you lucky devils you US based guys !

Interesting ... I didn't know those differences exist between NW WP and KL FD.

I am an Asia/Pacific member and I think NW has been quite generous in rewarding WP members, maybe because of stiff competition with UA.

We can now have award tickets booked and held (without having them issued) until the day of travel. But NW reservation agents in TYO say this rule will be changed (or may well have already been changed) and they will impose some sort of restrictions.

Asia/Pacific Platinum Elites are also have access to WP and KL business/RW lounges the world over.

WP, I find, is a good program as it treats NW, KL and CO almost equally, unlike Star Alliance, which has a very complex mileage accrual rules.

come with that nw upgrade rule again? you get upgraded on ANY nw flight at time of booking if seats are available?? is that just for connections in the us or also on nw planes leaving from ams to the us? if it works from ams as well, that's a helluva deal!!

how many miles(km?) does it take to obtain elite levels in fd?

Unfortunately thats only for US domestic flights.

Having said that - on my most recent NW transatlantic flight (LGW-DTW-PHL-DTW-LGW), once i was already in the USA, I phoned NW in the US, and was upgraded on request to World business. This was from a very very discounted ticket ( about $200 roundtrip ! )

As regards achieving elite status on KLM, they have a most complicated system of awarding points, because it is affected on certain routes by the airline flown as well

Points are awarded according to a published routing chart, e.g.

PER SEGMENT:
LON - AMS = 350 points ( 700 for business class). However if you fly KLM uk (a KLM susbsidiary ) from London Stansted to AMS all passengers earn 700 points.
AMS - DTW = 1950 points ( 3800 BC )
ALL NWA domestic US flights = 750 ( 1500 BC )

To reach Royal wing you need 24000 points or 40 segments !!

However to redeem points can be hard, as per segment :
LON - AMS = 5000 points ( 10000 for business class)
AMS - DTW = 17500 points ( 35000 BC )
ALL NWA domestic US flights = 7500 ( 15000 BC )

The one advantage of this method is that one can redeem a single segment or upgrade a single segment.

To upgrade any single segment on a paid fare the points redeemed are equivalent to the difference between the award points necessary, i.e. to redeem an upgrade on AMS -DTW is 17500 points ( 35000 - 17500 )

How on earth this table was first calculated is beyond my understanding as the points value of a flight has not a lot to do with the actual distance, but seems to be a combination of the economic value of the flights, as well as the distance, as well as the region of the destination.

For instance

Flight , WP mileage, FD earn, FD redeem
AMS - MSP, 4166, 2250, 20000
AMS - Bombay, 4266 miles, 2850, 20000

AMS - Sanaa,3331 miles, 2500, 17500
AMS - BOS, 3457 miles, 1950, 17500

AMS - Johannesburg, 5579 miles, 3600, 25000
AMS - LAX, 5584 miles, 2850 ,25000

The absurdities really appear when you need to change planes in the US, as for instance...

BOS-MSP-LAX earns me 1500 points, and to redeem is 15000, but BOS-LAX on a direct service earns me 750, and to redeem is 7500.


A very out of date table can be found at : http://www.klmuk.com/dutchman/pointsguide/table.asp