Air France – KLM Flying Blue made headlines on Christmas Day after rolling out significant changes to the miles required for partner awards that were first noted on FlyerTalk (access here) and which we covered (read more here).
Flying Blue has now reverted these changes and blames partner mistakes that required them to adjust pricing temporarily.
You can access Flying Blue here.
Here’s the notice that Flying Blue Director Ben Lipsey shared on FlyerTalk:
We were made aware of some mistake fares on partners (notably 1500/4000 miles for shorthaul Y/J on DL).
Being Christmas Day, we didn’t have the active resources in place to fix the root cause so we put in a temporary fix which applied a minimum price on partners.
We will do our best to correct the airline partner pricing as soon as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Communication is key in any industry. Is Flying Blue aware that we are living in 2024 rather than 1999?
It shouldn’t be overly complicated to put a notice on their website that they are having pricing issues with partner awards that are being resolved unless you need to have a politburo meeting to have them published.
Conclusion
Companies usually make the most damaging changes and announcements on late Fridays and around the holidays, hoping that a few media outlets and consumers will notice.
I am glad these changes were due to “mistake fares on partners” and not an unannounced devaluation, but why not put a notice on the website?
Is Flying Blue committed to giving advance notice about pending changes to award charts, or can they be rolled out without any?
Whether all previous award prices have been rolled back or Flying Blue has done some tinkering is unclear.
