[FaroFlyer]

Just looked at booking a flight from FAO to ORY via LIS. I checked using exactly the same flights on the same day.

If I book using money only it is €66.04 or if I book using money plus a few miles it is €61.04 + 100 miles.

If I book using miles it is 7,500 miles plus fees €69.04.

Can anyone beat this lack of logic?

[capetonianm]

Welcome to the arcane and wonderful world of airline pricing and revenue management.
It’s an area that I am extremely happy that I no longer have to work in.
It’s likely to be an error but that’s no excuse.

[FaroFlyer]

Capetonian, I looked a little deeper and it seems that they have a more or less fixed charge for miles tickets. I also checked FRA and MXP as destinations on different dates.

The revenue charges are €15 Fare + €25 Airline surcharges plus Taxes, Fess to airport €26.04 so total €66.04. For miles bookings the Taxes, Fees are same at €26.04 but there is an airline surcharge €26 (compared €25 revenue ticket), and they charge a ticket fee of €17 (but no fare €15) to total €69.04.

If you book a business class miles ticket the costs are €139.04, so €70 more, plus 5,000 miles more. If you upgrade a revenue ticket to business it is 5,000 miles but no additional fees. Figure that out.

Going to lie down now. Is that a rabbit over there? I think I’ll follow it down that hole…..

3 users thanked author for this post.

capetonianm, Ekond222, GivingupBA

[capetonianm]

It reminds of me of when I was briefly tasked with looking at the redemption programme of a small airline for whom I was doing some work, prior to them joining an alliance. I was given a thick brown folder full of fading sheets of photocopies and faxes (remember them?) covered in jottings and hieroglyphics looking rather as if Professor Branestawm, Heath Robinson, and Albert Einstein had collaborated on it.

I took it over and plonked it on the office geek’s desk, gave him a week’s supply of coupons for the coffee machine, and a few days later, we had a Frequent Flyer scheme.

[LuganoPirate]

I can only quote Miles and More here, but what I’ve always found illogical is the cost of buying items from the Swiss shop and paying in miles.
For example, a Garmin watch sells for CHF 769 or 162,000 miles. A business class trip to South Africa or the US can be had for 105,000 or for slightly more, 170,000 miles a First class flight. In money terms that ranges from about CHF 3,500 in Business ex MXP right up to chf 17,000 ex ZRH in First.

Totally illogical but then maybe there are people with so many miles that they don’t know what to use them for?

[esselle]

I haven’t flown Etihad for ages and have no plans to in the future (nothing wrong with the airline, just not in my travel plans). They sent me a mail saying x miles where about to expire, with a link to their shopping pages.

I bought my wife a few snazzy bits and bobs.

I was quite impressed with their approach.

[MartynSinclair]

@esselle – LH Miles and More did the same to me. Used the shrapnel to by my flight tracker in the shop at Fra T1.

[Author]

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