On Wednesday I argued that Flying Blue, the loyalty program of Air France/KLM, may provide a model for an acceptable dynamic-priced award program. I’ve got a new data point to bolster my argument.
I’m in Italy on business this week. Yesterday morning, I flew from London City to Milan Linate on Alitalia with a seven-hour connection before a connecting flight to Naples. I had meetings in the area.
Unfortunately, those meetings went long. And it was raining. And traffic was horrible. Long story, short I missed my flight to Naples.
While I hoped for a flat-tire rule, especially in easy-going Italy, I’ve never seen a generous Italian working an airline ticket counter. Since I bought a restricted ticket, I was promptly, succinctly, and sternly told my unused flight coupon had no value. If I wanted to go to Naples, I’d have to buy a new ticket.
How much, I asked?
369.85EUR (my original ticket was only about 200EUR). Yes, 370EUR for a walk-up ticket on a flight on a short domestic flight. In fact, the airport wanted an extra 25EUR just for the pleasure of ticketing it for me.
My mind started racing. I’d drive to Naples or take an overnight train before I wasted that kind of money on a regional jet in economy class.
But then I remembered my trusty companion for last-minute intra-Europe SkyTeam tickets, Flying Blue. The stupid wi-fi was non-functional at Linate, but I was finally able to tether off my phone. I only had a little over an hour before departure. My fear was that it would be too late to book anything on Air France if anything was left…
Thankfully, Flying Blue had an award seat on the late Alitalia flight for 7,500 miles and $28.59 in taxes. I quickly booked it and within two minutes it was ticketed and I had my boarding pass in hand.
Going off the 369.85EUR retail price (~$414), that meant my Flying Blue miles achieved a value of 5.1 cents each! Even if I would never have paid the $414, a train ticket or car rental plus fuel would have cost at least $250. I came out ahead and enjoyed a quick trip to Naples.
CONCLUSION
What a lifesaver Flying Blue was once again. And with the current 25% transfer bonus from AMEX, my ticket was even cheaper.
image: Valentin Hintikka / FLICKR
Did you transfer points that evening itself, or did you already have points in your FB account? Wondering bc it may take time to transfer points.
Points were already in account, but are generally an instant transfer.
If your meetings took place in Milan city center area another option would have been to take the train to Naples, which is one thing that actually works in Italy (somewhat). They have non stop trains that can do the distance in 4 hours 20 but I think the last train departs Milan around 7pm.
I understand you were already at the airport but … did you consider taking a train from Milan to Naples, it takes around 4:20 minutes…and it’s usually cheaper than Alitalia.
My final destination was a small town halfway between Rome and Naples. I already had a driver waiting for me.
Do you credit all your Skyteam Miles to Flying Blue? Don’t miles expire in that program?
Flying Blue seems like a nice program, but I need to mentally prepare for ten minutes of reCAPTCHA games each time before being allowed to sign into my account…
Definitely annoying!
+1 on FB here
It is the only one of the 3 alliance programs that I feel gives me good value.
Esp on *A I am still in search of something better than Krisflyer.
OW is not too relevant as I credit my Qatar flights outside OW anyway
Does Flying Blue dynamically price awards that don’t involve AF/KLM (or JV/ATI partner) flights, like your Alitalia example?
You’d think this is the type of situation that a dynamic pricing program would want to avoid — where even buying the miles at full price is still considerably cheaper than buying the cash ticket.
To my knowledge, no.
The usual fare for this is about €60. They prey on people needing short notice travel.
I’d always take the train in this situation, as I did last week: Rome to Florence in business for about $40 USD, downtown to downtown. Plus I enjoy observing the liveliness/theatricality of Italian railway stations, never seen at the airports.
How is it never mentioned that FB has the absolute worst redemption rates on Skyteam awards? Example Asia to EU 100k miles each way in J vs 115k miles round trip with KE skypass? What a ripoff.
I did mention that some regions are far more valuable than others. Asia is a poor award redemption, though I thought SFO-AMS-TPE-HKG-CGK for 100K was acceptable.
While it is nice to have the points and use them in the time of need, I wouldn’t give them a value of 5¢ right off the bat. You compared it to the walk-up-to-counter-price. Did you do any other research for any other flights that night to purchase online? Was the official online-price of the fight you ended up using points for the same as the counter-price?
I don’t collect points, which some might say is a task in and of itself. I have been stranded in airports around the world before, but I ended up buying a flight on my phone for half of what the counter-price was.
Granted that may have not been the case at that point of time and place, but a full disclosure would be nice.
Congrads on Flying Blue miles being able to help you. However; after they changed their program last year from miles to points it seems that the program is failing their US members and they don’t care. It is a shame since I love flying thru Amsterdam but now search other airlines.