Something strange was going on with Air France KLM Flying Blue award pricing on partners. Flights would come up for redemption at regular price, and then short-distance flights were dropping in price once you selected them – as low as 1,500 points each way for short Delta flights (4,000 miles for first class!).
I wondered whether there was something funny going on behind the scenes, like pricing changes afoot that got out into the wild a bit too early and not the way they were intended.
Shortly after this, Flying Blue partner awards went up in price quite a bit. One Mile at a Time reported on an apparent devaluation ‘of as much as 100%’ with:
| Economy | Economy | Business | Business | ||||
| From | To | From | To | ||||
| Aeromexico | Mexico City | 5,000 | 10,000 | 15,000 | 20,000 | ||
| – Oaxaca | |||||||
| Qantas | Sydney | 5,000 | 10,000 | 15,000 | 20,000 | ||
| – Melbourne | |||||||
| Delta | Toronto | 7,000 | 10,000 | 18,000 | 20,000 | ||
| – New York LGA | |||||||
| Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur | 6,000 | 10,000 | 15,000 | 20,000 | ||
| – Bangkok | |||||||
| Etihad | Abu Dhabi | 26,000 | 28,000 | 51,500 | 55,000 | ||
| – Seoul |
Loyalty Lobby called the changes “borderline criminal.” One Mile at a Time called the increases “mostly mild” but said it was “pretty low to implement this change on Christmas.” Live and Let’s Fly called for 90 days’ advance notice of changes like these.
On the other hand,
- Reports of some routes, like Mexico City – Cancun, becoming less expensive.
- And here’s a report and another report and still another of award price increases being rolled back.
So something strange is going on with Air France KLM Flying Blue partner award pricing. And with it Christmas week it’s a tough time to be sorting out exactly what’s going on.
All business class awards DFW-CDG seem to be 100k+ one way until the end of the schedule which would represent a massive devaluation.
@Howard Spector – that is more an availability issue I think, Flying Blue inventory has been tough lately. I do expect higher prices coming there, but the changes we’ve seen in recent days have been with partner awards rather than Air France or KLM awards specifically.
@Howard – you do know only the saver rates are much lower right? As Gary mentioned it is likely inventory. Personally I booked 2 AF business class tickets CDG-IAD just last week for 50,000 each so there are discounts although the next day the same seat was well over 100,000 miles. All about dynamic pricing and availability of saver rates just like any other airline.
Follow the links to the FT thread. Ben Lipsey basically states that some reports (e.g., yours) of super low redemption rates broke on Christmas and the quick fix was to boost all rates. Expect a correction post-holidays.