Spending airmiles at the moment.

[Mr Quite Happy]

So I called M&M direct, rather than LH the other day and asked for a flight ZRH-BKK-SYD-SIN-ZRH in F departing next week, returning two weeks later. Amazingly, for the first time, I got 3 of the 4 legs in F, the SYD-SIN could only be done in C/D. But they wanted the full 240,000 airmiles.

But because of the 4th leg being only in C/D I kinda ducked out and said that I'd do the whole thing in C/D and save myself some 80,000 airmiles.

Out of interest, is anyone with good experience on spending airmiles able to tell me if 3 out of 4 legs in F is a good average? I got the impression from the nice lady on the phone at M&M that someone would be VERY lucky to get the full trip in F.

Still cost me 600 CHF in taxes and surcharges. Or to be more accurate, 400 in surcharges, 200 in taxes.

[Final 3 Greens]

I can't answer your question, but I do hope you will be 'Mr Very Happy' after your trip :ok:

[Mr Quite Happy]

2 x Asian airlines, 14 days, 3 wonderful countries. I am sure I will be.

[er340790]

Yep - by and large it has been easier to get the air miles flights you want this year. Decided to play safe and use 200,000 of my BA points for 4 x transatlantic flights this Summer.... mainly driven by the thought that I didn't want to lose them if/when the go bust.

Interestingly, BA sent me an on-line customer service questionnaire this weekend - one question was "Do you care about the fate of this airline?"

Well not now, obviously! :E

[raejones]

Also just used FF miles to book MAN-ZRH-JNB-ZRH-MAN with Swiss. Outbound in F and return in J. Had a choice of dates/flights... Very helpful staff in the call centre as well. :ok:

Never flown Swiss though...are they any good ??

[manintheback]

Cant comment on Swiss but assuming all the players are in the same boat I booked 2 upgrades today to Jo,burg next Feb - a couple of years back even a whole year in advance you would be struggling to get 2 seats even close to the day wanted.

Sign of the times

[smandkjc]

Have been trying to get Bus class flights on Aeroplan from New Zealand to Hawaii a year in advance.
I can get there ok but there are NO return flights and naturally you can not fly one way.
Have been checking the system daily for months.
The system is designed so you cant use your points.

[ZFT]

Never had a problem upgrading on TG whether to F or J. If there are seats available, then FF upgrades available.

[PAXboy]

I was able to get a BA WT+ LHR/JNB/LHR at about six weeks notice but it was winter in South Africa. The only limit was that I wanted to come back direct from CPT and that was fully allocated.

If FFMs could be used for free flights - everyone would want them.

[Mr Quite Happy]

G'day guys, regards from SYD half way through my trip.

I've flown LX shorthaul and been underwhelmed. LX longhaul never flown, I imagine it is the same as the LH product and as such would always aim for a BA, ME or APAC carrier in preference. I know that they've been getting new seating so perhaps it'll be OK.

That said...

Now I have flown them, I'm not a fan of TG. I'll post more when I have had a chance. The entire F was empty of both legs (ZRH-BKK-SYD) but upgrading was impossible. Apparently as there were no paying customers (and C/D half full) they had closed the class for the flights.

The first time I have ever heard this happening. Sign'o the times...

[Businesstraveller]

Currently I have a healthy balance of BMI miles. Hadn't got plans to use them this year, but wonder what will happen if BMI gets brought into LH in some form. Presume they would likely transfer BMI accounts/status across to Lufty?

[smala01]

Interesting question Business traveler. I too have a mountain of BMI miles as yet unclaimed.

Smala01

[Mr Quite Happy]

unclaimed? or unspent? two very different things

[PAXboy]

As a general rule of thumb, companies that operate a loyalty points scheme (in whatever industry) periodically offer a sweetheart conversion deal. I have learnt to my cost that these often presage a closing of the old one!

With mergers and acquisitions, it is very much in the interest of the acquiring company to simultaneously ensure that the client feels that their points will all be honoured and to clear as many of them out of the system as possible! That said, the two companies are both members of Star Alliance and so they already have reciprocity of their FFM schemes. If they make a muck of it and you lose out, I would be VERY surprised.

[Businesstraveller]

Paxboy - what you say seems reasonable to me. I'd be a little irritated if I ended up watching 300,000 miles go down the plug hole.

[ConstantFlyer]

The Brussels Airlines FF programme, Privilege, is being subsumed into the LH Miles and More stable as from the end of October. I'm a member of both programmes, and have been told that points are being transferred, but I don't know quite what this will mean for FF members.

I had a bit of a quandary recently. I've got lots of Brussels points but not many LH miles. I wanted to make a booking in September using Privilege for a trip in November on LH, and the system couldn't do it for me. I was also a bit perturbed that the route I wanted to fly would have cost EUR112 in taxes and charges on top of my points; in the end I booked RYR and EZY for UKL36 including tx & ch. Sorry Brussels Airlines, but what's the point?

[Businesstraveller]

Constant Flyer - completely agree with you. In my mind it's almost a complete waste of airmiles to fly anywhere Y class as the amount of money you actually save is small. Best using airmiles to travel C or preferably F class for as long distance as you can.

[PAXboy]

It has long been established that using FFMs to upgrade from Y to C or C to F is THE most cost effective use. I try to use this method wherever possible. One example of low value is the UK company 'Airmiles'. I have been waiting to use up the last couple of thousand (stopped collecting several years ago) but each time it is cheaper to use EZY due to the magical word 'surcharges'. Planning one trip (LON-AMS, I think) and found that Airmiles on BA and paying BA FOR THE VERY SAME ROTATION was cheaper.

[Businesstraveller]

Interesting article in the Times about Flybe being a dark-horse pursuer of BMI (discussed in the BMI thread). Would be interesting (though not desirable) if this occured, as it would either a) render BMI airmiles pretty useless (as they would presumably be brought into the underwhelming Flybe Rewards for All scheme) or b) transfer it all across to Oneworld as such an expansion of Flybe's route network could better place them to be a member of Oneworld (being 15% owned by BA). Both unlikely however due to the competition aspect of a partially BA owned company getting all those LHR slots.