For the past few days, Flying Blue has been offering award flights on Air France and KLM flights in three fare categories, similar to paid tickets: Light, Standard, and Flex.

The old award prices now apply to the Light category. The Standard category corresponds more or less to the former award tickets with checked baggage and the possibility of rebooking/cancellation – but now costs around 30% more in miles.

It gets interesting with the Flex option, which costs almost twice as much as the Light option, but on long-haul flights, the surcharges are halved – further highlighting the arbitrariness of these amounts.

It should also be noted that with a premium ticket in the Business Light category, you no longer receive lounge access unless you are entitled to it through your status anyway.

For tickets with partner airlines, everything remains the same, making it often a more interesting option.

While most European airlines have still suspended their flights to Dubai (and elsewhere in the Middle East), Dubai is being served more or less normally by Asian carriers, albeit presumably often at lower load factors than usual.

At least, this is how the current offer from SriLankan could be understood, which offers its FlySmiLes members five times the miles for flights to Dubai, booked by September 25 and completed by November 30.

But we do not mean to insinuate that the FlySmiLes program is soooo attractive that one should now fly from Europe to Dubai via Colombo. However, if you are travelling from South India, it might be worth considering!

Global Hotel Alliance is known to be a coalition of smaller and medium-sized hotel brands that use a common loyalty program with GHA Discovery. Currently, the alliance includes over 50 brands – the Turkish Marmara Hotel Group is the latest addition.

To make this variety of brands understandable to customers, members will receive a bonus of 50 points (=50 USD) per stay of at least two nights in a brand they have not yet used in 2026, until the end of October.

Also until the end of October, there is a raffle for 10 times 5,000 bonus points and 10 lifetime Platinum memberships. For simply signing up for the prize draw, you get a ticket for the draw; for every stay, you get 5. Additionally, you receive a ticket per brand if you scan the promotion’s QR code in a participating hotel – without necessarily having to stay at the hotel.

Happy hunting!

The so-called preferred partnerships between Frequent Flyer and hotel programs are becoming increasingly popular. Often, however, they are limited to a status recognition between the two programs or weak status benefits on the other partner.

Only Accor stands out a bit here with ALL, which offers double dipping with its various partners, also available to base members.

The assessment of whether the announced switch from Hyatt’s preferred partner from American Airlines to Delta Air Lines represents an improvement or a deterioration is left to each individual. For most, however, it is likely to be more of a no-event.

At least with the major cruise lines, the loyalty issue has often been treated rather neglectfully until now. There are corresponding programs, but they largely serve only to differentiate status.

Carnival has now perhaps set something in motion with the transition of its Carnival Rewards program into a genuine loyalty program with an accrual currency and rewards, which could benefit many cruise customers in the medium term.

Carnival Rewards is only applicable on Carnival Cruise Line voyages, not on the various other brands of the Carnival Group, such as AIDA Cruises, Costa Cruises, or P&O Cruises.