another_shot

Follow up: upgrades to business were cleared no prob, however this is to Southern Europe which is leasure route with light or nil business class demand.

It is literally impossible to get through to BalticMiles customer support by phone, all the time after some waiting you redirected to BT bookings who can do very little about awards, email works but it takes 1-2 days for them to respond, so if you need a last minute award or upgrade this can be a problem.

Buicis

Now you can spend your miles in BalticMiles Shop:

http://shop.balticmiles.com/bmloyrewards/home

Buicis

100 easy baltic miles.
Don't forget in page 6 put your Baltic miles card number.
http://lv.mysurvs.com/aptauja/387251790/

vilntrav

Baltic miles program just changed : before there were fixed amounts of miles rewards one needed to redeem to fly, depending on destinations (for example 15000 miles for one/way to Western Europe). We could only "pay" with rewards miles.
Now it is not clear anything is fixed, and one can mix cash and miles to buy a ticket.
However the site (at least in English, I don't speak latvian) is not up to date to understand the modifications, and as I don't use Facebook I could not ask directly for details the Air Baltic person who answers questions on Facebook.

We should look at it with attention to see if this new change results in a devaluation of reward miles.

another_shot

New BalticMiles site is a just a mess. It has anything but not award tickets and required redemption info. Mind you, you can stilll find the redemption table on airbaltic.com website under baltic miles -> earning and spending. However it looks you no longer can access your acount statement from airbaltic.com, you have to go and login at balticmiles.com, there is not even a link!.

Yesterday was flying in C, was served a tray with chicken salad from BOB, without any word or asking. Later asked FA if somebody failed to load C-meal onboard, after some hesitation she admitted so. I had this experience before, but I can understand the case with buying ticket 2 hours before departure. Now I've bought the ticket around 12 hours before departure, still not enough???

dabee69

Fixed redemption rates are still present. There is an addition to that, they say there is a points & cash available. It didn't find it on the website though.

tsastor

Yes, although I would be surprised if they started devaluing the program before it has even gotten off ground. Besides, it doesn't seem too great even now!

Has anyone here used some Baltic Miles for flights or upgrades yet?

If yes, are the required points mentioned for one segment or for the whole one way as with normal ffp's? What about upgrades? Is Baltic Miles one of these lousy airlines where you have to pay the "fuel surcharges" even for "free" tickets?

another_shot

As I've posted earlier in this tread, I did. I've bought a very cheap economy for me+family and upgraded it to business with miles. Althouth I haven't checked specifically, somehow I'm 99.9% confident that you will be required to pay all taxes and surcharges on award ticket, this is exactly why I figured out upgrade with miles is much better than award ticket. If you look on a typical BT cheap economy ticket, the roundtrip fare could be something like 50 EUR and taxes/surcharges/transaction fee another EUR 80-100. So taking economy class award is just a waste of miles, business is better, but overall I would only go for upgrade.

Points are required PER SEGMENT both for award and upgrades Kids are 50%

Toli

The T&Cs say that miles can be used for part-payment for awards (at least the wording I checked last December said that) which I'm sure mean exactly that: award miles pay for the ticket (which can cost as little as 30 EUR in some cases), taxes need to be paid with real cash.

I am also planning to use any miles accumulated for upgrades only. And do it as soon as I have enough, to avoid repetition of the TE scenario.

tsastor

I've seen tickets for 0� + hidden additional price on airBaltics website...

dabee69

I've done upgrade to business to IST for my wife and myself for 11250 points per person. No additional charges.

I just bought two RIX-CDG-RIX in Business award trip for my daughter and myself. 45000+22500=67500 points. ~55 LVL in taxes for both os us (~78 EUR).

I don't know airline that gives completely free travel for miles/points. BT is ok in that respect. BT doesn't follow the unreasonable several hundred EUR taxes with YQ included or alike.

vilntrav

How did you do the upgrade to IST ? Did you buy Economy tickets on the website and then call or email AirBaltic, or did you do otherwise ?

another_shot

Just buy eco tickets on the web and drop email to BalticMiles that you want to upgrade. It is virtually impossble to get through the phone to them
On the other side their C-class award/upgrade availability looks quite open at least on south-bound routes. I've now upgraded another whole famility trip - no probs.

dabee69

Yes, bought economy tickets on website and then just called BalticMiles phone. They upgraded me instantly and e-mailed confirmation. Later I decided to order my favorite SFML and did that successfuly over the BalticMiles e-mail. Pretty smooth experience.

It took me 6 weeks to get award trip. Computer system issues, ash clouds, no luck, etc, etc...

ILS2

I received an e-mail from airBaltic the other day with an "unbeatable" offer: 50 miles if I signed up for BalticMiles.

I declined.