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FEELING BLUE FLYING BLUE

I was a Platinum for Life member of Flying Blue but I realised the programme was going downhill and it wasn’t worth keeping my business with Air France. I switched to British Airways and as a silver member, I’m more than happy more than one year on.

In 2008, flying from Europe to the Middle East one way first class required 40,000 Flying Blue miles. Now, you need 100,000 for the same segment.

I tried to secure seats with Flying Blue to Freetown, Sierra Leone, for the last four weeks and there was no availability as far forward as August 2014. The helpdesk managed to get me an earliest availability of March 11 – a 50,000 miles oneway economy class. With the British Airways executive club, I managed to secure a return business class flight over the Christmas/New Year period for 80,000 miles.

Recently, I witnessed another devaluation for Flying Blue miles, as most economy cheap fares give you a portion of miles flown while British Airways gives you 100 per cent miles on most fares, even on sale!

It’s time for Air France to wake up before its most loyal customers go elsewhere. Living in London, I used to endure the extra hours transiting in Paris until I reached the conclusion that it’s not worth it.

Great service is when the flight attendant realises you haven’t touched your meal and suggests something else and this happened time after time with British Airways and not a single time with Air France. AIR FRANCE/KLM REPLIES: We are sorry to hear about Mr Basma’s experience. Recent changes to our Flying Blue programme address the concerns he has raised, in particular offering customers more availability and upgrade possibilities on award tickets, while reducing the overall costs.

In addition, from June this year, we increased the number of upgradeable booking classes substantially across classes on intercontinental flights, providing even more options on Air France and KLM flights when customers upgrade economy class tickets to business class using miles. We also significantly decreased the carrier-imposed international surcharge amounts, so our customers have less to pay overall, while providing even more availability by increasing the number of seats available for award tickets in economy and business class.