BrianJ

What's up with Air France/KLM not allotting miles to either Delta or any skyteam partner if one happens to fly on a deeply discounted coach fare? What in the world is AF getting out of keeping their fliers from accruing miles? Are fliers really giving them the extra bucks (sometimes the price difference is less than 20 USD too, which I think is a totally lame, because that's enough, probably to entice fliers) in order to fly in a class where they can accrue miles? I find it absolutely ridiculous and think they should retract that! I mean, come on AF, it's not ALWAYS about you, right? Delta doesn't do that for Flying Blue members do they? If I book myself on a T class DL fare I get 100% miles and MQMs, why doesn't Flying Blue do the same for their fliers (and for all skyteam partners, for that matter). If I were to book a 'N' class Tempo fare, would Air France give me any skymiles at all? 50%? Or nothing?

KLM, by the way, did give me 100% miles for my NWA account when I flew them a few weeks ago on their cheapo fare, but they didn't give me any QMs, which I am okay with since I don't fly NWA that often anyway, but, I mean, what's up Flying Blue?!

Any other thoughts?

Oh, and the reason I'm posting this in Delta is because I want to know if Delta does this to either their FFs or partner's FFs AND, if they don't (I'm almost positive they wouldn't do such a horrendous act!), they 'best not be starting to!!'

craz

Its not only FB. Im with CO and if I purchase an ElCheapo on DL or NW all I get is 50% EQM

With BA if you purchase an ElCheapo you will earn only 25% of the miles and thats both reg miles and EQMs. Same applies with IB etc etc

I was gonna purchase a tkt on OK (Czech) via Orbitz as it was $1200 and over $300 on OKs site. Well I checked the fare basis on CO and found out No miles nor EQMs with that fare. So I cashed out 75k from AA and got a free tkt instead

BrianJ

That's interesting, it's almost as if, even though these airlines are in "alliances" with each other, they're still able to coax *their* fliers into trying to stick with them because, if nothing else, they'll at least get less (or no!) miles.

The cruelest company, that I know of, is Singapore, which has about 4 or 5 coach class fares which will no accrue no miles on either their FF program or any Star partner. I think that also just goes to show the clientele who fly Singapore, because many of their fliers do shell out lots of cash (especially with their biz and 1st classes, people do pay for those seats, no free upgrades for even their FFs, unless of course, you're a first/biz frequent flier!).

SkyTeam777

Is this a recent change that N fares with AF no longer earn DL miles? It used to be that pretty much all fares earned DL miles. This is quite a disappointment and as the previous poster alluded...if the airline wants to offer services not aligned with a full-service legacy carrier, then they need to become a low-fare carrier. But dont pretend to offer the benefits of a legacy carrier (including alliance FF miles) but then compete with other airlines to offer low fares, but slash the benefits behind the scenes!

gsupstate

Sad sign of the times, I'm afraid....

pbarnette

Hate to say it, but welcome to Europe. Virtually every European carrier has pretty draconian earning policies for most Y tickets. Indeed, part of the reason that the wife and I keep ST status is that the ST airlines remain among the most generous with Y miles and benefits. For comparison:

BA - 25% on virtually all Y fares. And, since you don't earn tier points on most Y fares, you won't be getting status if your travel is in the back of the bus.

LH/LX - 50% on a whole range of Y fares. And *A Gold status requires 100k miles in a year. On the flip side, you get a whopping 300% for F fares, and 200% for J.

SK - 25% for most any fare that you would buy. They get kudos, I guess for sticking with the normal 25k/50k for status, but the program basically stinks.

And elite bonuses on partner airlines? Please... That seems to be strictly a ST thing these days. Heck, even when you fly the airline in question, 25% and 50% bonuses are the norm, rather than the 100% bonuses even mid-tier ST flyers get.

It is just a sign of the times, I guess. And I'm waiting for the day that it becomes even more widespread. I assume it will happen soon enough, at which point I will probably just give up the game altogether. Indeed, I don't even bother worrying about mileage accrual on my intra-European flights because it just isn't worth it.

YVR Cockroach

Just watch what happens when the U.S. majors start to consolidate (I shudder to predict).

pbiflyer

So, is there a diffinitive list of partner airlines, fares classes, percentage of MQMs and percentage of SMs that you earn?

thenewbie

These seem to work:
DL MQM Calculations
DL Airline Partners (see footnotes)

Carolinian

And it gets scarier with the thought of Air Farce having a seat on the board with all of their bad ideas.

Carolinian

Now that I am based in Europe, I make it a point to see if a legacy carrier I contemplate flying on 1) screws customers by giving less than full miles on any fare and 2) screws customers through add-on ''fuel surcharges'' instead of including that in the fare where it belongs, as they would if they were honest. If so, I try to avoid that airline and fly someone else, which often turns out to be an LCC. Sometimes I do fly a major that only plays one of these games, but I do all I can to avoid one that plays both of them. These scam artist policies have driven me to the LCC's for intra-Europe travel.