• Home
  • Reviews
    • Flight Reviews
    • Hotel Reviews
    • Lounge Reviews
    • Trip Reports
  • About
    • Press
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Award Expert
  • Advertising Disclosure
Live and Let's Fly
  • Home
  • Reviews
    • Flight Reviews
    • Hotel Reviews
    • Lounge Reviews
    • Trip Reports
  • About
    • Press
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Award Expert
  • Advertising Disclosure
Home  >  Air France • Flying Blue • SWISS  >  My Voluntary Downgrade From SWISS First Class To Air France Economy Class…
Air FranceFlying BlueSWISS

My Voluntary Downgrade From SWISS First Class To Air France Economy Class…

Matthew Klint Posted onJanuary 7, 2023January 7, 2023 28 Comments

After canceling our SWISS First Class trip to Zurich, I booked us four tickets on Air France to Paris…in economy class. The seasonably reasonable Air France Flying Blue fares offer great value for family travel.

Family Matters: From SWISS First Class To Air France Economy Class Via Flying Blue

One first class ticket on SWISS from Los Angeles to Zurich was 121K miles. Four tickets in economy class from Los Angeles to Paris on Air France were 84K miles.

That alone was not reason enough to book Air France (I explained my reasoning here), but I was delighted at what a great value the tickets were.

Flying Blue, the loyalty program of Air France-KLM and a number of other airlines, does not publish a fixed-price award chart. Instead, award tickets are dynamically priced and can vary from as little as 15,000 miles to well over 200,000 on the same route, depending upon the day and flight loads. That can sting you if you are trying to book a last-minute ticket on a popular route during a busy time, but can also save you thousands of miles if you are a bit flexible.

Furthermore, Flying Blue “sleeps around” so to speak by partnering with most flexible points currencies (like American Express, Chase, Capital One, and Citi). Therefore, getting the points into your account is quite easy.

Flying Blue used to be a pain to deal with it over the phone. Flying Blue is still a pain to deal with over the phone. Two things, however, have made it easier. First, the website has dramatically improved such that you can reasonably rely upon it to book award travel. Second, the Flying Blue call center is now open 24/7 so you can book a trip any time of day if you require telephone assistance.


Tip: If you are in the USA, call Flying Blue late at night and you will reach the far more competent European call center than the Mexico call center.


Flying Blue now offers complimentary stopovers, even on one-way awards. The plan was to stop over in Paris and then continue on to Basel or Zurich or even Frankfurt. Sadly, there was no connecting space at all available such that we could take advantage of the stopover (you need “saver” space on both segments, even though you cannot tell by looking at the website if it is available).

Ultimately, we decided to fly to Paris and then take a train to Basel. Train tickets were reasonable and going to Gare de l’Est seemed much easier than going back to CDG Airport.

CONCLUSION

From high rollers to budget travelers, we are shifting gears and heading to Europe on Air France in economy class. I look forward to bringing you updates along the way. This whole episode really has me thinking about the world of miles and points, especially as it pertains to travel with children. I look forward to addressing this next week.


image: Air France

Previous Article Why I Turned Down A Family Trip In SWISS First Class (Again)
Next Article Marriott Elites Soft Landing, Hyatt Globalists Back To 2019 Levels

About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

Related Posts

  • SWISS Senses Business First

    New “SWISS Senses” Business And First Class Seats

    March 4, 2023
  • Review: SWISS A320 Economy Class

    February 22, 2023
  • SWISS Free Wi-Fi

    Free Wi-Fi In SWISS Economy Class?!

    February 22, 2023

28 Comments

  1. Jan Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 4:06 pm

    How much taxes for those 84k?

    Everyone on the internet keeps seeing good FB deals (and I see them too) but since I don’t live near JFK/LAX/ORD or the like, I really can’t take adavantage of those deals.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      January 8, 2023 at 5:04 am

      $253, so about $63 each.

      • PolishKnight Reply
        January 8, 2023 at 9:53 pm

        Matt, perhaps I misread you but when you said, quote, “One first class ticket on SWISS from Los Angeles to Zurich was 121K miles. Four tickets in economy class from Los Angeles to Paris on Air France were 84K miles.”

        That strongly implies to me that you were scoring 4 tickets for 84K total compared to 121K each ticket for 1st class.

        That’s not just a compelling reason but one that begs sanity coming out at 1/5.76 the price of a first class ticket or perhaps 21K per passenger. If that’s the case, I’ll certainly start surfing Air France offers regularly.

        • Matthew Klint Reply
          January 9, 2023 at 4:17 am

          You read that correctly. That’s one reason why I cancelled my SWISS tickets. All four Air France tickets were less than one SWISS ticket. Claire Marie was the primary reason, but this made the decision easier.

  2. Christian Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 6:31 pm

    Can you book additional empty seats with miles? Coach could be a lot less onerous if you could book three award seats for two people, assuring that the middle seat would be empty.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      January 8, 2023 at 5:02 am

      Probably possible. It’s a good thought when there is a huge difference in price.

    • Jeff Eberhard Reply
      January 8, 2023 at 9:49 am

      I wouldn’t do that on Air France. My wife and I and children were all going to Paris a couple years back and our parents offered to take the kids. We didn’t cancel their tickets as they were nonrefundable and lo and behold my wife and I had random people between us, because “the other passengers (my kids) didn’t check in“

      • Matthew Klint Reply
        January 8, 2023 at 9:53 am

        You should have checked in! 😉

  3. Zara Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 6:32 pm

    I love the cheese on Air France! Actually Air France served my favourite in flight meal last year!

  4. MELODY SMITH Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 7:00 pm

    I’m a big Air France fan. I have sometimes upgraded to First Class. The food and drink are great and staff are fabulous.

    No matter the class, Air France always gets my vote.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      January 8, 2023 at 5:01 am

      I’ve also never had a bad Air France flight. Crews generally lovely and food good too. CDG not my favorite airport, though.

    • PM Reply
      January 8, 2023 at 7:54 am

      They generally are fine in the air (I have only flown business and short haul economy, so I don’t have a view on long-haul Y, Première, or Premium Y), but not so good at everything else.

      A few examples from 3-4 years ago: I had to sue them for a refund on a fully refundable fare because they failed to process my original request (apparently that was my fault because I had sent it to AF.FR and not AF.CO.UK) and deemed the follow-up demand for a refund to be out of time. I had to sue them again when they cancelled a KL flight, promised to reimburse me for a hotel at CDG and subsequently refused to come up with the money. When departing from CDG, they were not going to allow me to go through security because my carry on was a couple of kilos over the limit- never mind the AF ‘baggage cabine’ tag that I had gotten (same item, same weight) at MAN the previous night or the fact that the excess weight was attributable to the CPAP machine I was carrying. They then said that I was too late to check it in so I would have to miss the flight, and it was only when I asked the supervisor whether it was AF policy to discriminate against passengers on the basis of their medical conditions that I was escorted back to the security queue.

      Needless to say, I wasn’t in a rush to fly them again, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of a cheap business class redemption from NBO a couple of months ago, which went absolutely fine.

  5. SINJim Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 10:04 pm

    Check out FB award in business from Singapore to LAX. I’ve seen offers of 600,000+ miles one way, one person!

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      January 8, 2023 at 5:00 am

      Agree that Asia is not competitive. A shame. I once did SFO-AMS-TPE-BKK for 100K miles in J.

      • PM Reply
        January 8, 2023 at 8:00 am

        Basically nothing is competitive outside of transatlantic flights and promo rewards. They routinely price business class for Europe-Africa flights at 300k each way or so, and the rates for partner redemptions are shocking too.

        Worse still, the revenue-based earnings mean that you could fly business class all the way to Chile or wherever and end up with a pathetic amount of miles. The only reason I have a FB account is the double-dipping with Accor.

        • Matthew Klint Reply
          January 8, 2023 at 10:00 am

          Once in a while a deal shows up:

          • PM
            January 8, 2023 at 12:39 pm

            I paid 48.5k Virgin Atlantic miles for an AF journey for which Flying Blue wanted 121k!

  6. Mick Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 10:25 pm

    I’ve reassessed too. Honestly it’s not that exciting to be in j or f with the family. Ours are allowed unlimited screen time and they def sleep well… but one person in f or the whole family in j/f. Just seems too much of a splurge for me. Not impossible sometimes (eg the five of us flew aa biz on the red eye from Honolulu to ord after Christmas in 2020 and it made the whole holiday worth it.

    But 4-500k extra points to have a slightly better sleep for one night meh. Still have to navigate airports etc. Swiss first class is still a reasonably poor meal and seat compared to a hotel.

    Mind you. As a hobby, I’m happy to splurge on myself and/or my wife.

  7. B Reply
    January 7, 2023 at 11:41 pm

    Yes whenever I boom economy because business class costs too much it’s also a “voluntary downgrade” not because I’m poor.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      January 7, 2023 at 11:42 pm

      This wasn’t about cost and I think the word you were looking for was “book.”

      • Jack Reply
        January 8, 2023 at 12:59 am

        So you are going to bust on them for an obvious typo, which is just a jerk move, while floating out the subtly racist comment about the European call center vs the Mexican call center. So we can add racist to elitist in the list of your character traits. Good to know.

        • Matthew Klint Reply
          January 8, 2023 at 4:59 am

          Rotfl. Racist because I point out how incompetent the call center is? Have you ever called it? It was your racist mind that made the link between geographic location and the people (versus the poor training of the people or the long hold times due to inadequate staffing levels) I’m laughing at you Jack. Troll, troll, troll your boat.

          • Jack
            January 8, 2023 at 12:35 pm

            So as you can see based on Kiki’s comment, I am not the only one who questioned the comment. I still think it shows your true self, especially with the quick pivot to accuse me. “accuse others of what we do”, maga playbook stolen from the Nazis. Nice company you keep there.

          • Matthew Klint
            January 9, 2023 at 1:36 pm

            Rotfl. “Kiki” wasn’t responding to your comment. Keep digging old sport.

        • J smith Reply
          January 9, 2023 at 1:34 pm

          Jack how is mommy’s basement these days. You must be very lonely.

      • Kiki Reply
        January 8, 2023 at 1:53 am

        Thanks for the kind clarification. The comment confused me.

  8. Mary Grigg Reply
    January 8, 2023 at 1:08 pm

    Will never ever fly air france again what a experience we had 2 wines on 10.5 flight to maimi when we asked for another we where told they had run out especially when you have paid for premium and also dinner one got the beef the other wanted the pasta and was told they had run out kids don’t get a choice either have to take what adults are taken never again give me B A and Emirates any time

    • PM Reply
      January 9, 2023 at 2:02 am

      You must be living a very sheltered life – if I stopped flying every airline running out of my meal choice, I would be confined to private flights by now.

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Search

Recent Posts

  • Hilton Frankfurt Airport Review
    Review: Hilton Frankfurt Airport March 27, 2023
  • Thai entry requirements
    Thailand Entry Requirements: Updated Website March 26, 2023
  • Tin Building close up
    Review: Tin Building by Jean-Georges (New York City) March 26, 2023
  • Hilton Shreveport bed
    Review: Hilton Shreveport March 26, 2023

Categories

Popular Posts

  • American Airlines unaccompanied Minor Predator
    American Airlines Flight Attendant Freaks Out After Man Offers His First Class Seat To Child February 25, 2023
  • Kayleigh Scott United Airlines
    The Tragic Death Of A United Airlines Flight Attendant March 21, 2023
  • United Airlines Domestic First Class Menu
    United Airlines Refreshes Domestic First Class Menu February 28, 2023
  • Southwest Airlines Wife Slap
    Enraged Husband Attacks Man On Southwest Airlines Flight After He Bumps Wife March 8, 2023

Archives

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb    

As seen on:

live_and_lets_fly

The new United Polaris Lounge at Washington Dulles The new United Polaris Lounge at Washington Dulles is the most beautiful of all Polaris Lounges. Stay tuned for a detailed look and many more photos on the blog tomorrow. Well done @united.
@malaysiaairlines just announced it would retire i @malaysiaairlines just announced it would retire its A380 fleet. While not surprising, it is sad to see the growing list of carriers retiring this superjumbo jet. On Malaysia Airlines, I flew the #A380 once from Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to London (LHR) and had the entire first class cabin to myself (full review on the blog). It was a beautiful flight that I will always remember.
Welcome to @fly_bur @aveloair! I am so excited tha Welcome to @fly_bur @aveloair! I am so excited that a new carrier, Avelo, has launched, especially from an airport just 12 minutes from my home!
I greatly miss the @lufthansa #747-8 at @flylaxair I greatly miss the @lufthansa #747-8 at @flylaxairport. Hopefully this summer it will return.

.
.
.
.
#Lufthansa #FirstClass #747 #747-8 #StarAlliance #Miles #Points
I recently spent a weekend at the @ventanabigsur. I recently spent a weekend at the @ventanabigsur. This is not only a lovely, all-inclusive resort, but one of the best properties to use your @hyatt World of Hyatt points.
.
.
.
.
#Hyatt #BigSur #California #WorldofHyatt #CA-1 #Points #Hotels
In terms of a spacious first class product, the @E In terms of a spacious first class product, the @Emirates suite on a 777-300ER is hard to beat. My preference is Suite 2K.

.
.
.
.
#Emirates #777 #firstclass
Nearly five years ago, I took a “break” from I Nearly five years ago, I took a “break” from Instagram ahead of the birth of my first child. Goodness, how time flies. While I’ve enjoyed catching up on others over the years, now it is time for me to return to Instagram. In this first post, I highlight two joys in my life, my two children, whom I trust will grow up to be prolific travelers that circumnavigate the globe as ambassadors of love and respect.

.
.
.
.
.

#travel #airplanes #airlines #miles #points #familytravel #human #integrity #honor
United Airlines' new Polaris seat is a huge improv United Airlines' new Polaris seat is a huge improvement over UA's current business class seat. Check out my blog at liveandletsfly.com for 70+ photos of how @united is transforming its entire business class experience starting this December!
The perfect @flysas name tag for #Longyearben! The perfect @flysas name tag for #Longyearben!
Spotted four #polarbear outside of #longyearbyen - Spotted four #polarbear outside of #longyearbyen -- oh, and I love 40°F summer weather!
One of the best crews I have ever had the pleasure One of the best crews I have ever had the pleasure of flying with in all my years of flying. Thank you @flysas SK940 on 11 Aug 2016
Next stop ARN! But dear @flysas , next time if I a Next stop ARN! But dear @flysas , next time if I assign a window seat months in advance, don't move me to a center seat "for my convenience" with no way to get my original seat back... 😞
Ready for #PIA from #MAN to #JFK -- we will be rac Ready for #PIA from #MAN to #JFK -- we will be racing the #Delta flight to JFK at the gate next to us, which also departs at 12:45p. With @onemileatatime
Another room with a beautiful view... #hyattregenc Another room with a beautiful view... #hyattregencycasablanca #cassablanca #hyatt
Enjoying #shanghai with @onemileatatime from the i Enjoying #shanghai with @onemileatatime from the inside of the @grandhyatt_shanghai ... It is 40°C outside! 😓
From my front gate to my boarding gate in 15 minut From my front gate to my boarding gate in 15 minutes flat. I ❤️ #bur #burbankairport
@malaysiaairlines #747 out of retirement and in se @malaysiaairlines #747 out of retirement and in service at #kul -- beautiful livery!
View from my 61st floor room at the beautiful bran View from my 61st floor room at the beautiful brand new @parkhyattguangzhou -- look for a full review coming soon on the blog #hyatt #parkhyatt #guangzhou #parkhyattguangzhou
Will miss the @united #globalfirstlounge at #ord, Will miss the @united #globalfirstlounge at #ord, which closes tomorrow and the Queen of the Skies #747 which will be retired in 2018.
The colonial #architecture of #mumbai is stunning. The colonial #architecture of #mumbai is stunning. If you're ever here, get up at 5am and have a walk around the city before it gets busy. You can hear the birds instead of honking horns.
Load More... Follow on Instagram
facebook twitter instagram rss

This site is for entertainment purposes only. The owner of this site is not an investment advisor, financial planner, nor legal or tax professional and articles here are of an opinion and general nature and should not be relied upon for individual circumstances.

 

Advertiser Disclosure: Some links to credit cards and other products on this website will earn an affiliate commission. Outside of banner ads published through the Boarding Area network, this compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site. While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners.

 

Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any entity mentioned herein. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.