Airline Mileage - the next mis-selling scandal ?

[jotape]

A post I wrote on another thread has started me thinking...

There is clearly a massive "scam" going on when it comes to airline charges/surcharges/taxes and the so-called "free" mileage tickets.

I am old enough to remember using miles for free flights when the equation was just that and nothing else: miles = free flight. Nowadays its the miles PLUS nearly 100 quid for a European flight and well over 200 quid for a long-haul flight for the "free" mileage tickets.

I hear LH is offering to absorb all the charges on redemption tickets in exchange for a few more miles - perhaps that idea will catch on elsewhere.

I might even write to my MP about the mileage issue. I know its not a major public or popular issue, and most people view those with miles as the lucky few, but surely there is a serious case of misrepresentation when airlines and credit cards peddle the mirage of miles for free flights. Yet in reality its mileage for only a small part of your flight.

Its the same as Tesco advertising a great discount, except to get it you have to pay for the parking and the trolley hire and for the lighting in the shop. Or more seriously its like a great loan where you have to pay for an expensive insurance on top (where have we heard this one before ?).

Look at the maths:

assumption here is an early booking (because you have to be early to get mileage availability), which is also when the fully paid for tickets are at their cheapest
also assuming a regular European economy flight (yes I know its different for business etc, although I imagine the biggest volume of redemptions, especially for the non very frequent flyers, is precisely for Euro flights)

typical fully paid for flight to Europe return costs £120 of which £90 charges + £30 flight ticket
typical mileage for the same flight costs mileage + the £90 charges
WHICH MEANS THAT MILES DO NOT GIVE YOU FREE FLIGHTS, THEY TYPICALLY GIVE YOU 25% OF THE COST OF THE FLIGHT. Shouldn't the advertising and promotions reflect this fact correctly then ? "Join the Executive Club and earn mileage that will discount your typical flight by 25%", "Get this credit card, spend like mad on it, and then one day you will have enough miles for about a quarter of the cost of your flight". Not such an attractive selling propostion after all, eh ? Yet its all true !!

In sum, where I am going with all this is that I think we have case for mis-representation or mis-selling.

Any thoughts ?

[TightSlot]

Just for clarity - is it your position that the airline involved should pay the relevant taxes on behalf of the passenger?

[Carnage Matey!]

Could the airlines not claim that your miles were accrued when fuel was much cheaper and the real cost of flying has gone up which has devalued your miles? I would imagine they would say that the baseline price of the ticket represents the value of your miles when you accrued them and fuel surcharges represent the increased cost of transporting you in the present climate. If you are unhappy with the taxes then best write to your MP to complain about Gordon Browns shameless tax grab!

[raffele]

I have one thought. Airmiles.

Not very knowledgeable in ff schemes, however the Airmiles scheme is fantastic from the point of view that when it says 7000 miles for a return flight to the States, that includes all taxes, fees, fuel supplements, rather than BA's 50,000 miles plus taxes.

And of course, you can earn Airmiles on a lot more things than just flights and a credit card... Weekly shopping, your mortgage, online shopping, utilities, juice for your car...

[PAXboy]

jotape, this is indeed a complex and thorny subject. There are some websites dedicated to the subject and it is oft discussed in here.

I think that you will find that no action can be taken as the FFMs are a free gift with the original purchase (or other qualifying purchase). The small print is very small and very long and the carriers occasionally rehash their schemes so as to reduce the value of the FFMs that you already hold. Such is life.

Since there is no such thing as a free flight, you are asked to pay extra for gas and taxes. We all know that the taxes are the area where the scams are taking place and THAT is the subject on which politicians may get excited because everyone pays airport 'taxes'. This link should;d take you to a thread where old, not bold explains one of the problems. His post is #3 in the thread and ignore that it starts as an RYR thread. http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf-self-loading-freight/336757-ryanairs-taxes-fees-charges-again.html

In this forum, consensus is that FFMs are ONLY useful for long haul (LH) as the carriers have all jacked up the cost of short haul to make them non-viable for the experienced FFM user. Example, 2.5yrs ago, I wanted to use Airmiles (probably the same brand mentioned by raffele) to take two people to The Netherlands for a week. Airmiles (as the ex-BA FFMs) promote BA flights first and I looked at the cost and the extras of taxes. Then I looked at the identical flights in BA's regular booking engine and, guess what, the taxes were lower. Airmiles chose not to explain this to me and we went with EZY for a prices that was lower than the 'taxes' that Airmiles were going to charge and the FFMs remained for another day.

Lastly, the second consensus in this forum is that very best deal with FFMs is to use them for upgrading. That is, buy a Y ticket and move up to Club or buy Premium Economy and move up to F with the points. Because the carrier is getting some hard cash from you - they give a better deal.

I no longer use FFMs for shorthaul European flights as the LCCs are cheaper. There is no scam going on, they offer free flights and if you agree to the criteria in the small print - and book early enough - you will get the seat for free.

[Rush2112]

The problem for me is using the damn things: I bought mrs R an economy ticket SIN-CDG back in March, for travel outbound later today, return 1 Nov, intending to use my Krisflyer miles to upgrade her so she can be with me in business class. Eventually got the outbound but inbound still on waitlist, despite a number of calls and "but I am PPS member!!" How can it be so hard to get a confirmation 6 months in advance?? I do not believe the flight would have been fully booked already. I now face the potentially embarrassing situation of sending the mrs up the back while I swill champers in 15F...

[Final 3 Greens]

I can't say I had considered this before, as I use FF miles for upgrades only, for the reason Paxboy explained.

If one follows the principle that airfares should be all inclusive when advertised, then I think the OP raises an interesting and probably valid point.

[Impress to inflate]

I am looking at using my airmiles for a freebie from Syd to LHR with Quantass. I have enough but they want $650 tax. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Not quite a freebie then.:ugh::ugh:

[manintheback]

Having to pay the tax is reasonable, fuel is not.

Anyway, trying to use the damn things is so difficult now and often the upgrade costs more than just buying the premium ticket in the first place.

[Avman]

I now face the potentially embarrassing situation of sending the mrs up the back while I swill champers in 15F...

I see male chauvinism isn't dead yet! :)

[jotape]

Thank you for all your comments and thoughts. Keep them coming ! Let me reply to some, if I may:

Moderator. Its less about whether the airline should pay for them or not (however I do believe the airline should pay for them, perhaps increasing the redemption rates to account for this), its more about the lack of fair and reasonable advertising and promotion of these "free" miles and flights. Thats where I think the "fraud" lies...

Raffele. The long-in-the-tooth BA Exec Club members like myself were offered a massive incentive to switch to BA Miles from Air Miles when these were launched. Looks like we should have stayed with Air Miles !!

Paxboy. Concerning the consensus that its best to use the FFPs for long haul premium flights, I agree completely and that is what I do. However, most people in the "real world" (not our surreal frequent SLF world) are aiming for a handful of free short flights or maybe long haul cattle flights, and this is precisely where the "scam" occurs. My point is that this issue has become so farcical (see my 25% analysis) that it needs to move from the small print into the very large print - in the same way as other significant terms have to be highlighted in many other areas.

[raffele]

Quick reply to paxboy - the reason why Airmiles promotes BA flights first is because Airmiles is part of BA! You can tell it which airlines to search for through the advanced search feature - Air France, BMI, Lufthansa, Singapore Air and Virgin are just some of the airlines you can choose to search for flights with... Or spend them on Eurostar if you can't deal with LHR...

[13Alpha]

On recent BA flights I've noticed that while the cabin crew still welcome Executive Club members on board in their post take-off spiel, they no longer plug membership (they used to say something along the lines of "The BA executive club is designed to reward frequent fliers with free flights, lounge access, blahblah...,for more details see Highlife or go to ba.com...blahblah").

I wonder if this is a tacit admission that the FFP benefits and "free" flights ain't what they used to be.

13Alpha

[happyjack]

Did a FF with Qantas to OZ about 6 years ago return which cost me about £60 in taxes if I remember. Did a SYD-BNE-SYD last month, paid a few more miles and got it for nout.
I can get around Europe for around £50 in taxes but it does depend alot on who you are flying with. Also note how the TAXES are different with different carriers????????????????????:confused:

[c2lass]

With regards to Airmiles they do sometimes have some excellent deals using Airmiles. For example I had been pricing flying from ABZ to MUC (either via LHR or AMS) for next June. Lowest price was with BA at a cost of just short of £450 for the two if us.

Airmiles had a deal for the same flights for 2020 airmiles plus £160. 1000 airmiles equates to £60 therefore using airmiles if you want to put a cost on it would be approx £280 for the two of us. A great saving therefore I booked this last month.

Upon checking both BA and Airmiles websites just now I see BA have reduced the cost to a total of £392.20 and with Airmiles you could get the same flight for 4000 miles (£240).

[PAXboy]

raffele I knew that Airmiles was still linked to BA but I thought that it was an independent company part owned by BA. It was certainly many years before they offered any carrier other than BA.

jotape Sorry, did not realise that you knew your way around the FFMs. Whilst I would agree with you in principle, I cannot see authorities getting too wound up about a scheme that CAN deliver (almost) free flights. The number of people that might feel they have been 'done down' are, I am guessing, too small to warrant action.

[Globaliser]

Current BA language from BA website:-As a member, you can collect BA Miles to spend on reward flights and upgrades ...You can spend your BA Miles on reward flights with British Airways and our airline partners.You can use your BA Miles to book a reward flight to any destination across our worldwide network.13.14. Members will be liable for all taxes and other charges associated with Award travel on British Airways or a Service Partner airline, including without limitation, airport departure tax, customs fines, immigration fees, airport charges, customer user fees, fuel surcharges, agricultural inspection fees, security and insurance surcharge or other incidental fees or taxes charged by any person or relevant authority or body.Not a single occurrence of the word "free" in any of these excerpts, although I can't claim to have read every word of the website.

Although others may have longer memories than I do, I cannot remember any occasion on which I have ever redeemed any airline's mileage for a ticket and not had to pay the TFC. But I only started joining FF schemes in 1991.

[fireblade2000uk]

Having recently booked first class using miles and a very handy Amex companion voucher for my wife and I to Oz, I did feel slightly aggrieved having to pay £920 tax but when compared with the actual cost of seats I am still getting good value.

[VAFFPAX]

My soon-to-be-booked reward flight works out quite well. A flexible PE ticket is, in July anyway, worth around the 2 grand mark (incl taxes). I pay around 50 miles/£ for the ticket, which is not bad.

Of course, earning miles at 18 miles/£ or worse, at the airline itself 10 miles less, is a bit of a b***h. But that's life.

S.

[dubh12000]

Personally I would prefer to use my BA miles for upgades but I have the problem that the majority of my flights are booked through the company's travel agents. I can't then approach BA for the upgrade. However, last week the BA supervisor in Newark said that we will soon be able to do this at check in. Anyone know any details?

[parabellum]

Rush2112 - If SQ operate a similar system to QANTAS you may a lot longer to wait. When I wanted to upgrade my wife on the leg SIN-MEL we had to wait until check-in to do it as the upgrade was subject to load, not confirmed, only the economy ticket was confirmed.

[Katamarino]

Why should passengers have to pay the fuel charge, which is a standard cost of running the plane, completely different from specific taxes upon the traveller. Why is it any different to having to then pay for the cleaning of the aircraft, the catering, the crews salary in addition to the taxes....

They might as well just come out and say that you'll be paying all the actual costs of the flight, and by redeeming the miles all you're doing is not having to pay the extra small slice that ends up as 'profit' :ugh: