Told to "go to airport" to book award ticket
#16
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: TMP
Programs: TK Elite Plus, AY Gold, FB Gold, BT VIP
Posts: 81
#18
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Hong Kong, France
Programs: FB , BA Gold
Posts: 15,496
Given the periodic devaluations of all FFPs, it does not make sense to store that kind of amount (6 million). But getting into bartering those miles is not a great idea either. And giving them to the relatives of a brother seem to involve a lot of hassle.
#19
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: France
Programs: FB Plat for Life, UAMP, BAEC, Accor ALL Platinum, Marriott silver, Hilton, Meli silver.
Posts: 3,105
Waiting means the value of your miles will drop.
If someone is unable to spend 6,000,000 miles, he/she has an issue that must be addressed before doing anything else.
Last edited by carnarvon; Aug 9, 2017 at 3:30 am
#20
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2015
Location: New York City
Programs: DL Gold, *A Gold, 1mm+ miles on both BA and VS
Posts: 9
I thought I'd take a second here to update you all on what I learned.
Thanks to JohnnyRockets pointing me to a similar, older thread, I found a very useful blog post by Gary Leff about this exact issue.
Gary had actually spoken to a spokesperson from Air France who agreed that "an airport ticketing requirement is not appropriate for the US market as so many people live so far from Air France ticket counters". I reached out to Gary via email and he was kind enough to give me the email of someone at Air France who was actually trying to put a stop to this.
Today I tried again, making the exact same reservation online, preparing to see the dreaded error message, but instead... it went right through!
I don't know what else has changed... the Flying Blue account is now a whole four days old, so maybe that helped, or maybe Air France really did turn off this draconian "fraud detection" algorithm. But for what it's worth, I did get the flight reserved and ticketed.
By the way, while I was going through this process, I discovered something that surprised me, which some members here might find helpful:
* When I navigated directly to flyingblue.com and signed in, then chose "Book an Award Ticket", I got taken to the Air France UK site (the URL was airfrance.co.uk and it said United Kingdom in red on the left). At this point when I looked for availability on the flights I was interested in, the only seats available were for 42,500 miles (outbound) and 81,250 miles (inbound).
* However if I switched to the Air France USA site and searched for the exact same route, I found availability at 25,000 miles (outbound) and 42,500 miles (inbound) ... a huge savings.
I don't know if there's a general rule about different availability from different versions of the website (US vs UK) but I wasn't expecting such a big difference.
Thanks to JohnnyRockets pointing me to a similar, older thread, I found a very useful blog post by Gary Leff about this exact issue.
Gary had actually spoken to a spokesperson from Air France who agreed that "an airport ticketing requirement is not appropriate for the US market as so many people live so far from Air France ticket counters". I reached out to Gary via email and he was kind enough to give me the email of someone at Air France who was actually trying to put a stop to this.
Today I tried again, making the exact same reservation online, preparing to see the dreaded error message, but instead... it went right through!
I don't know what else has changed... the Flying Blue account is now a whole four days old, so maybe that helped, or maybe Air France really did turn off this draconian "fraud detection" algorithm. But for what it's worth, I did get the flight reserved and ticketed.
By the way, while I was going through this process, I discovered something that surprised me, which some members here might find helpful:
* When I navigated directly to flyingblue.com and signed in, then chose "Book an Award Ticket", I got taken to the Air France UK site (the URL was airfrance.co.uk and it said United Kingdom in red on the left). At this point when I looked for availability on the flights I was interested in, the only seats available were for 42,500 miles (outbound) and 81,250 miles (inbound).
* However if I switched to the Air France USA site and searched for the exact same route, I found availability at 25,000 miles (outbound) and 42,500 miles (inbound) ... a huge savings.
I don't know if there's a general rule about different availability from different versions of the website (US vs UK) but I wasn't expecting such a big difference.
#21
Join Date: Nov 2006
Programs: AA MM PP, MR LT Plat, Globalist
Posts: 991
Still an issue?
My friend will transfer Chase points into his new FB account and book an award for me. Would this be an issue for a one-way Europe award (12,500 miles) ?
I saw a post from 10 years ago where someone saw less award availability when booking an award for someone else. Is this still the case?
I saw a post from 10 years ago where someone saw less award availability when booking an award for someone else. Is this still the case?
#22
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,550
#23
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: IAH
Posts: 488
I will back this up - there is a thread started by myself about this from a few months ago, exactly the same experience. It's just extremely hard for me to get to an AF/KL office. If you are interested, the resolution was putting the reservation on hold every two days until I was in AMS approximately a month later. Booked a transatlantic J ticket on points as well while I was there
#24
Join Date: Apr 2001
Posts: 1,223
I had a similar problem booking tickets for myself(!) from TLV to Moscow. I was told it was to prevent credit card fraud, which sounds absolutely stupid since I wanted to use the same credit card I had used many times below to purchase tickets and pay taxes/fees on awards with KLM/AF. (not to mention that my account was open for more than 10 years). They insisted I come to the airport to ticket it, which was impossible for me.
The agent also refused to connect me to a supervisor, claiming "We aren't allowed to do that."
I had around 100k FB points in my account and finally I asked him to close my FB account and cancel all my points, because I would never fly AF/KL again. The agent told me he also couldnt do that and I should send a letter. I hung up and called again and got another agent who told me the same story. This agent however said that I could request a callback from a supervisor. A few hours later the same agent called me back and said the supervisor had authorized them to issue the ticket over the phone as a "one time courtesy".
If this stupidity will continue I really will cancel my FB account and never fly AF/KLM again.
The agent also refused to connect me to a supervisor, claiming "We aren't allowed to do that."
I had around 100k FB points in my account and finally I asked him to close my FB account and cancel all my points, because I would never fly AF/KL again. The agent told me he also couldnt do that and I should send a letter. I hung up and called again and got another agent who told me the same story. This agent however said that I could request a callback from a supervisor. A few hours later the same agent called me back and said the supervisor had authorized them to issue the ticket over the phone as a "one time courtesy".
If this stupidity will continue I really will cancel my FB account and never fly AF/KLM again.
#25
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: France
Programs: FB Plat for Life, UAMP, BAEC, Accor ALL Platinum, Marriott silver, Hilton, Meli silver.
Posts: 3,105
Until now all such problems related here were with just-opened FB accounts with no flight activity and bank points transferred with the exact amount for the award.
Worst case scenario for the poster was if the award was for a third party.
I do not recall any report of trouble issuing award tickets with miles coming form an old established FB account credited with miles coming from flight activity.
Last edited by carnarvon; Aug 9, 2017 at 3:35 am
#26
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,550
I was told it was to prevent credit card fraud, which sounds absolutely stupid since I wanted to use the same credit card I had used many times below to purchase tickets and pay taxes/fees on awards with KLM/AF. (not to mention that my account was open for more than 10 years). They insisted I come to the airport to ticket it, which was impossible for me.
The agent also refused to connect me to a supervisor, claiming "We aren't allowed to do that."
I had around 100k FB points in my account and finally I asked him to close my FB account and cancel all my points, because I would never fly AF/KL again. The agent told me he also couldnt do that and I should send a letter.
The agent also refused to connect me to a supervisor, claiming "We aren't allowed to do that."
I had around 100k FB points in my account and finally I asked him to close my FB account and cancel all my points, because I would never fly AF/KL again. The agent told me he also couldnt do that and I should send a letter.
Flying Blue is a frequent flyer programme, and although FB makes no restrictions on the residence of its members, nor places any requirement to accrue a certain number of sectors on either AF or KL to obtain status, it doesn't seem *too* onerous an obligation to ask a frequent flyer to pop by an airport ticket desk every once in a while. If the alternative is making it so much easier for people to skim other people's FB accounts, then I am all for it.
However, and granted that we may all be prone to occasional piques of rage from time to time, asking verbally to have your account closed and all miles forfeited is INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUS. Why would a person who apparently couldn't convince FB sufficiently of their identity then be allowed to close that very same account? It is a condition of FB (as I imagine it is of most, if not all, frequent flyer programmes) that notices of termination must be in writing - precisely to prevent such instances of people having their accounts closed by others. And if you WERE the owner of the account, why would you willingly throw away such a comparatively large amount of miles, rather than, say, donating them to charity? At least that way, someone other than just Flying Blue would get the "benefit" of your tantrum.
#27
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: France
Programs: FB Plat for Life, UAMP, BAEC, Accor ALL Platinum, Marriott silver, Hilton, Meli silver.
Posts: 3,105
Since when do the merchant (FB in this case) flag a CC transaction as "suspicious"?
The merchant asks for an authorisation code to the CC issuer. Once he gets it, he goes ahead with the transaction. This is in actual fact done all automatically without human intervention.
If Amex has a suspicion, they won't issue the authorisation code and contact the card holder for further verification. Such CC verifications are none of FB's business.
What FB cares about is if the FB account is not hacked, if the miles are not bartered or anything to do with the fraudulent use of FB account and miles.
CC matters are for the card issuer to deal with.
#28
Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: CPT,AMS
Posts: 4,409
Even if the CC company authorized the payment, the owner of the card can still claim it is a fraudulent transaction even several months later and issue a chargeback.
#29
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,550
The issue is that, for whatever reason, FB were not satisfied as to the identity of the person on the phone. (And, it is must be acknowledged that being able to quote the Flying Blue number and associated PIN, and the credit card details previously used with that account [and possibly stored with the Flying Blue account] does not necessarily confirm the identity of the voice on the phone line).
The passenger was asked to present themselves in person at an airport ticket desk, where their identity could be verified.
As I said previously, being able to quote a credit card number, CVC, expiry date, name, etc, online or over the phone does not mean that the transaction cannot later turn out to be fraudulent when reported as such by the actual cardholder.
#30
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: SJJ/AMS
Posts: 4,635