Award Upgrades European Legs
 

Flying from Manchester and London we have made several advanced requests for Reward Upgrades recently. FD have always been able to upgrade the intercontinental sector but never the european hop. Still of course get charged the full number of miles. The most recent is MAN to CPT 25th Dec; unable to upgrade MAN to AMS or my parents LHR to AMS. Any one else had this problem?

Award Upgrades European Legs

I am not aware of a business-class anymore on inner european legs ...

No problems here ex-GVA.

The Europe Select connecting flight is still useful, for upgradees without status.

I am actually a bit confused here... Simon, do you mean that when you request an upgrade from AMS to CPT you get a complimentary upgrade on the MAN-AMS leg?

Papa Hotel, with the zone system in effect since last year, a MAN-AMS-CPT upgrade costs the same as an AMS-CPT upgrade, as both MAN and AMS are part of the same Europe zone.

Yes, this is a constant battle I have with FD and am in the middle of one now. I have upgraded back from NBO to MAN and it's confirmed to AMS. I KNOW the flight I am on is a mainline KLM 737 with the European Select section and I asked to ensure that I am in that section.

The FD agent said to me there is none available and it a Cityhopper F100. I advised her it was a mainline KL 737 flight but she wouldn't budge. Gave up and have emailed them. :mad:

A few months ago I upgraded back from IAH but this time FD agent said that the flight to MAN was closed but she would waitlist me for it. When I got to the lounge in AMS I asked how many were in the 'front' and when she said only 4 (!!!!) I asked to be swapped. She said it would cos 10000 miles. I explained I was waitlisted for it but she denied this. I stood my ground and 10 minutes later she called me back and had moved me to ES.

For a 55 minute flight it's hardly worth worrying about I know but if I'm supposed to be entitled to it......

Interesting!
 

I always thought that a miles upgrade was for ONE leg only. This shines some new light on my future travel plans, thank you! ;)

Papa; It is 35000 miles for a AMS CPT upgrade and 35000 miles MAN to CPT via AMS. Sector based now. Trouble is my problem is that they never seem to honour the short hop upgrade. Ive even been waitlisted but this dosnt seem to happen any more and even when it did becuse it was miles rather than a normal booking the gate were unwilling to help.

Hmmm, it sounds like another KLM "enhancement" (the priority boarding comes to mind). In theory it is available, but the practice learns us otherwise.

I rang again to see if availability had opened up on the coonecting flights. I was told however that even though I had requsted two MAN to CPT and two LHR CPT upgrades because at the time they could only upgrade the AMS to CPT legs and are no longer able to waitlist that even if they did become available I would have to pay an extra 10000 miles each for the hop upgrade. He agreed that this was rather unfair especially as no discount was given for not getting the hop upgrades in the fist place. Would not even put a note in the booking for the gate!

Are the upgrade charts to be found on-line. Flying Mex-Pvg andthey want two awards to upgrade one time and just one award another time I spoke with them. Using two awards the upgrade costs more than a free Biz ticket.

They are, but you really have to drill down, and since FD is addicted to "frames" you can't link a URL.

Here's what they say about awards between North America (which includes MEX) and Far East (which includes China):

So, it seems the answer to your question is that one upgrade, costing 25,000 miles, is needed for one way from MEX to PVG.

It may be that the reason you were once told you needed two upgrades is that they routed you trans-Atlantic via Europe (so one upgrade NA - Europe, and one upgrade Europe-FE) instead of trans-Pacific (one upgrade NA - FE).

Great, thanks. Where did you find the info on the web? What did you click on? Thanks

OK, here's what I do
 

Here's what works (some of the time) on the website I use:

http://www.klm.com/de_en/index.jsp

Warning: Other websites may not work the same.

Anyway:

1. After you get rid of the pop-ups, go to the left-hand side and click on "Flying Dutchman".

2. This will cause a drop-down (expansion) menu. Click on "Award Booking".

3. This brings up some choices in the right-hand frame. Way at the bottom is "Miles Finder". Click on the "read" link.

4. This, for unknown reasons, cycles you out and requires you to log into your account. I've never been able to figure out the (alleged) thought process here - are the awards differently priced for different members?

5. After you've logged into your account, you will (sometimes) be brought back to the "Miles Finder" page. Other times, you will not. In that case, dispose of any pop-ups and start over from step 1, above.

6. For unknown reasons, this link still won't give you a chart. It requires that you enter your origin and your destination and then will give you a limited chart for that region-pair only.

I know, it makes no sense to me to do it that way, but it apparently made sense to whomever laid out and approved this process. I have no idea why they don't have a mileage chart that can be accessed with one (or at the most two) clicks, like the other major airlines do.

If anyone knows of a shorter way, or one that gives you the entire chart (all regions), please post here.

Thanks, I see now why I could never figure it out!