Frequent Flyer news released on November 15, 2009
Flying Blue has introduced a new option for international award flights within Europe on Air France or KLM. Members can now pay all taxes and surcharges for a supplement of 7,500 miles - however 7,500 miles per segment! So if you use a roundtrip award flight on KLM from Munich through Amsterdam to Liverpool, you would pay 20,000 miles for the award ticket and 30,000 miles for the surcharges… That makes the offer not only considerably more expensive than the two other comparable offers in Europe (12,000 miles per roundtrip with Miles & More and 5,000 miles per one-way flight with Air Berlin’s topbonus), but it should also be recalled that award flights as such should be free of charge anyway if the initial promise of all airlines is kept in mind. And irony of history: KLM was indeed one of the last major European carriers to maintain that promise until little time before merging its program Flying Dutchman with Air France…
Victoria members have still until December 15 to reserve all award flights and upgrades on TAP Portugal at a 50% discount. Corresponding journeys need to be completed until March 31, 2010. At the same time, Victoria members can transfer miles between themselves free of charge as part of that promotion, but also really need to use those miles for such a discounted award flight. Finally, also the purchase of miles is discounted by 50%, what makes that 2,000 miles now cost 29 EUR and that the purchase might become a viable option. Both the transfer and the purchase of miles are limited to 20,000 miles per year. The award promotion does not apply to flights on partner airlines.
Dividend Miles members (US Airways) get a bonus of 100% for the purchase of miles or transferring miles between different accounts until December 31. That makes especially the purchase a highly interesting option if the miles are used correctly afterwards. One can purchase up to 50,000 miles (plus 50,000 miles as bonus), whereby the price is 25 US$ per 1,000 miles plus a processing fee of 30 US$. A Star Alliance Business Class award flight between North America and Europe or between Europe and Japan, for instance, costs 80,000 miles, for which only 1,030 US$ need to be paid now. It should also be noted in this context that US Airways will introduce a 4-tier pricing structure for its own flights on January 06. If you don’t travel in off-peak periods, award flights will then generally get more expensive.
Germanwings will become a partner in the Miles & More program of its mother Lufthansa on December 01. The same award levels as for the other (full service) partners apply thereby. At the same time, Germanwings will continue to offer its own program Boomerang Club, which represents at least the clearly more attractive choice for regular Germanwings customers since the program grants one award flight after eight roundtrips only. Moreover, Germanwings has a further alternative since the airline also partners with the Payback program, the largest retail loyalty program in Germany. Lufthansa, on its turn, will not become a partner in the Germanwings program at this point.
There is a good opportunity to get to know the still fairly young program of Accor Hotels, A|Club, until January 31, as one can now exceptionally accumulate points in the program as well as miles in the Frequent Flyer Program of Air France KLM, Flying Blue. The number of partner Frequent Flyer Programs, which allow a conversion of points from the Accor program into miles, has already increased to 12 in the meantime.