mitflyer

I have been earning and saving my miles with LH and LX to acquire 2 tickets in either business or first class from Mexico City to either Brazil or Chile. The award is priced in the * alliance chart (and also in the M&M on-line calculator) at 50,000 for business and at 75,000 for first. However, when I called the M&M CS number in the U.S. they wanted to extract 130,000 for each business class ticket and / or 210,000 for a first class ticket.

They stated that as there seem to be no direct flights from Mexico to South America on a star alliance partner, they would have to route me either through the U.S. or Canada -thus the double award (and new levels) required.

The agent offered to fly me from Mexico City to Buenos Aires, and from there on "I would need to buy my tickets to my desired destinations on my own" regardless of whether Mexico City, Rio, and Sao Paulo are star alliance detinations. Naturally my reponse was an unqualified NO (not a star alliance airline, no good business product, not my destination).

I find this appalling. If LH is uncapable (or unwilling) to provide a defined product offering (the CA/Mex- SA award) at their own defined price (50 -75k), they should delete it from the chart, otherwise they expose themselves to have misunderstandings with their customers -who as in my case- will not fly with them until the issue is sorted out.

As i'm sure I'm not the only experiencing this kind of trouble, I would be thankful with any suggestions on how this issue can be dealt with.

Kiwi Flyer

Welcome to Flyer Talk mitflyer

It is unfortunate that Varig failed and there is now no *A airline for south america. Last I checked the award chart was clear that awards requiring transfer in a different region from the origin and destination cost more. So while I sympathise you are disappointed, I do not think M&M is hiding anything or being deceptive.

All frequent flyer programs have pluses and minuses - with M&M one minus is transfer through another region cost more. However some other programs are worse - eg UA Mileage Plus has (unpublished) maximum mileages for each origin and destination pair - exceed those and you need 2 awards.

I don't think you have any recourse with M&M. If you are unhappy with the award cost your choices are to use a paid ticket, or to use any miles you have with another program (for example with AA Aadvantage the award cost is based on distance between origin and destination ignoring transfer points).

mitflyer

Kiwi Flyer thanks for the response although I beg to differ.

Checking again with the M&M people in the U.S. it is clear that it is not only my route the one they cannot offer, rather they are unable to offer ANY awards between Central America / Mexico and South America at the pricing on the chart with Star Alliances airlines.

To me this is clearly deceptive as Varig stopped flying, what was it? one year and a half ago?

This misunderstanding could have been avoided by simply updating their chart -long ago- to reflect this situation and thus avoiding my (and many others's dissappointment).

While you are right, all programs have +'s and -'s, we select programs and make flying choices based on the information the carriers provide. If this information is misleading, as its clearly the case, then its up to LH to offer recourse. A disclaimer or footprint is clearly not an adequate way to communicate the non-existence of headline offerings.

oliver2002

This situation has come up because Varig is no longer *A since 12/06.

The only other alternative is MX, but they don't have rights to GRU, GIG or SCL. AM has those direct rights. The only alternative right now is to get a 50K business award on MX to Argentina, Colombia or Venezuela and then continue from there on your own dime.

flysurfer

According to the latest set of rules, *A carriers and LH's partner airlines can now be combined in one award. @:-)

SASfan

mitflyer, I've been down here for a year almost, and it really is surprising how scarce the Star Alliance presence is in South America.

Unless you're in the US flying down to Rio, Sao Paolo, or Buenos Aires, you're out of luck.

LAN Chile has a pair of direct flights to/from MEX - SCL, LAN 621/622.

The metal is a 767, which has LAN's new Premier Business Class (180 degree lie-flat seats).

They are quite comfortable to fly in! ^^^

I did a dummy reservation in Oct for 2 seats in Business, it priced out at $4,486 per ticket. To use LAN Pass km would be 140,000 km per person.

IMHO, you'd be wasting your LH/LX miles just to fly from Mexico to Chile.

Much better to save those to go to Asia, Australia/NZ, or Africa in the future.

SmilingBoy

You might want to recheck your programme affiliations.

SmilingBoy.

SmilingBoy

I don't quite understand your problem. M&M offers an award Mexico - South America on MX. So this is listed in the table.

SmilingBoy.

mitflyer

New to the site. Perhaps you can help me:

United: Premier Executive
Delta: Million Miler and Silver Medallion
Lufthansa: Frequent Flyer
Aeromexico: Premier Gold

On your point about the flights from Mexico to Chile my point is still valid: awards that are being offered by Lufthansa simply do not exist (e.g. Star alliance transportation in first or business class from Mexico to Brazil or Chile). But if you -as per your advise- happen to trade your hard earned LH and LX miles for a Mexicana business class ticket, pls. don't forget to let us know how things go.

iwillflytheworld

Welcome to FT! ^

In FT (and airlines) lingo, Premier executive is "1P", and LH Frequent traveller (if that's what you are) is "FTL". May be you'd be better off by consolidating your LH/UA miles into one program and trying to reach SEN or 1K.

As for the topic of this thread, I do agree the chart is misleading, but it's not plainly wrong, so there's not much you can do, except for picking another FF program which you think is better. Although as mentioned here, they all have its pitfalls.

Since, as flysurfer says, it's now possible to combine *A and partner airlines in one award, you may be able to get an award MEX-EZE on MX, and then EZE-SCL on AC (do they still fly this route?). Also, TAM is now an LH partner. They don't fly to MEX unfortunately, but they fly for example EZE-GRU. Keep in mind agents may not be always aware of the new rules and partnerships. Hope this helps.

weero

While definitely not 'deceptive' as the amount is divulged to the customer. The ailing *A is definitely using false advertising when it comes to 'selling' South America and Australia.

Of course ads hardly ever touch the bleak sides of the business, so the dismal state *A manoeuvred itself in is not openly communicated. Still I agree with the OP that offering the award and then not providing it is somewhat fraudulent.

So I too consider following SmilingBoy's advice. While the *A sacrifices everything to fill its Asiamania, the alliance just became much less attractive than it has ever been the last 10 years .

airoli

On a related note, I have been trying to issue an award for JFK-DXB in Business. Both the Star Alliance chart and the online mileage calculator suggest this to cost 120k miles. But when you price it on the website (and I have reconfirmed this with an agent), it comes to 160k miles. Reason: You have to change flights in Europe, so it's a three region award.
Considering that there are no direct flights US-UAE on M&M partners, and never were, I find this information highly misleading.

Oh, and I did not tick the box "I live in the Middle East" as I know special rules apply to these members.

DownUnderFlyer

This is very strange. In the light of this, there are entire sections of the award chart which do not make any sense. There are no flights between Australia and South America on *A for example. This is indeed misleading.

whiskey_sk

Well, flying from Europe to Australia or vv also requires you to change flights in a different region, doesn't it? No problems there?

DownUnderFlyer

The flight from Europe to Australia is the same price as the three region award. So indeed no problem there because you pay exactly what the award chart says.