I just booked several award tickets in Business Class on KLM (actually 5, 3 of them on the Web Site and 2 with the call center).

Let me tell you a bit about my observations.

- The level of knowledge and customer service at the call center is extremely different. Most people where extremely unknowledgable and sometimes rude, finally i did talk to a very friendly and knowledgabee person who even called back as promised. So if you have the impression that you dont get the service you want hang up and call again.

- When you start asking about available seats it seems you get completely random answers. Sometimes the flight YYY-AMS and the flight AMS-ZZZ both have seats, but YYY-AMS-ZZZ has not. It is not random, it looks like. I will explain in a minute what happens.

- Married Segement Control: KLM is controlling how much revenue they make by restricting the availability of connections even when the seperate segments are still open. This seems to happen in countries where they have lower ticket prices (like Germany vs. Amsterdam). This system also affects the availability for award tickets.
A travel agent can get around this (if he is clever) by booking both flights in two seperate records, but issuing one ticket (it pays to have a good travel agent). The call center is not willing to do that, but there is a a solution.

- Business Award Class tickets are normally booked in D inventory. For gold and platinum member they can also book in C (if the call center agent knows this rule, seems not all of them do). For NW it is D only. This rule is based on the account the miles are coming from, NOT the person travelling. So miles in a Gold/Plat account are more valuable than in a regular account.

- When loggend in as Gold/Plat, the Web site seems to show C availability for Awards, otherwise just D (and D only on NW).

- You can get around Married Segment control by making a stop in AMS. This is allowed only on returns with several restrictions (same Start/Endpoint, only in one direction).

- In theory you can also get award tickets on Malaysia airlines. You call KLM, ask them. They ask Malaysia and tell you to check back after 5 business days. After 5 days you call and they tell you that they have no answer yet and call again in 5 days. Not sure what is next then because I have given up then. Seems to be standard procedure.

- Looks like they have a similar procedure for NW flights and Gold/Plat members when the system does not show availability. Again a manual process.

That is really helpfull, thanks very much. I must agree about the service from the helpdesk. The majority of the time I'll call the Elite desk and they seem to be more helpfull and knowledgable than some others perhaps, but there seems to be no guarantees!

maybe I am calling the wrong place. haven't got my new PE card. 31 204 309320 sounds right for the PE desk?

Do you know if this applies to rewards booked using CO/NW miles? I am trying to use my CO miles to buy a NYC-AMS-DEL ticket, and although the AMS-DEL segment shows availability, they can't confirm it.

Nice info! Thanks.

Do the same fare class rules apply to booking upgrade awards?


Under the old programme only RW members seemed to have access to C inventory. From your post it looks like this has been extended to GE members under the new programme which effectively means that all old SW and RW members will be competing with each other for awards this year.

-- Dambus