At Christmas you expect giftsnot coal, that should arrive together with the Befana and instead it seems that Flying Blue, the Air France KLM loyalty program, has chosen this day to make a terrible surprise for all its admirers and serial accumulators: the Christmas devaluation.
Flying Blue doesn't even stop at Christmas
On the forums and blogs of professionals, there is nothing else talked aboutyesterday users around the world started to notice an increase in the cost of partner award tickets, i.e. those redeemed for flying not on board Air France KLM.
Devaluation is the situation in which points lose value due to an increase in the cost, in miles, of tickets. What makes the pill even more bitter is the lack of notification of the change, indeed no news was given about it.
“Lying Blue” is definitely a trending topic online with users unleashed towards the management guilty of not having given a warning and continuing a pejorative campaign (no XP for flights carried out with non-Skyteam carriers, no more infinite XP rollovers and worsened customer support). I partly agree that these are changes for the worse, but it is true that in other aspects things have improved in the last 12 months (more bookable partners such as Etihad, Oman Air or AirCalin, often discounted award ticket prices and lots of bookable first class ).
More expensive partner tickets
The change may still be underway and it will take a couple of days for the new rates to stabilize. Award tickets are currently doubled in Australia for those who want to fly with Qantas on domestic routes. Just as for intra-Asia flights on board Malaysian Airlines, now 10k FB points are requested for a KUL/BKK while previously it started at 6k.
However, it is more difficult to digest the increases on board Delta and Aeromexico, two companies closely linked to the French-Dutch carrier.
Increases also for Etihad ticketsfor example, previously for an AUH/MCT it took 6 thousand miles now 10k, but on the other hand the taxes seem to have dropped a little. However, it seems much less worse than expected, yes there is an increase but at the moment it seems to be localized on short or medium haul routes, not on long haul routes.
In conclusion
If in the end it will be this type of devaluation I say we can still consider ourselves lucky, certainly a little notice to the community would have kept the trust intact in what is undoubtedly, despite this devaluation, the best program around.
