Talk:Flying Blue

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Contents 1 NPOV Tag 2 New Tag 3 New NPOV Tag 4 oh well

[edit] NPOV Tag

Added NPOV tag because of general sarcasm throughout section describing KLM's frequent flyer program (including inappropriate and excessive quotation marks), comments and claimed testimonials without reference, and generally anti-program derrogatory tone. Trevormartin227 17:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Tag

In my view the initial article is fair.

I have been Flying Dutchman member for many years and have had some small benefits from this in the past such as being offered an upgrade when the tourist accomodation was full and the airline needed to accomodate more people, this was as a Silver member and was based on my airmiles status which was based on two return flights per year from Edinburgh to Capetown with KLM.

Since the changeover to Flying Blue I have had my status downgraded to Ivory from Silver. I cannot see any benefits to remaining a member. There appear to be few benefits to the customer and the companies get an advertising mailing list and a sense of loyalty which now appears to be misplaced. This means that I will now tend to shop around for best flight deals without consideration of effect on Flying Blue Status. User:pmpedwards/ 12.59 8 May 2006 (UK Time)

• Your personal opinions about your experiences with the program are irrelevant to an encyclopedic article about the program. That is the distinction that needs to be made, and that is why this article still fails to conform with Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Trevormartin227 14:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New NPOV Tag

It is Wikipedia policy to discourage "advertisements masquerading as articles" (Wikipedia:Spam). The current (i.e., old) version of the article seems not compliant with this policy. This is apparent from the observation that the article contains various factual mistakes that clearly are biased in making Flying Blue appear in a positive light:

• The statement "each level offers new advantages" is not correct. The Ivory status does not offer any of the advantages mentioned.

• In the section on Level Miles, the statement "each mile flown is one level mile" is not correct. It applies only to certain (usually expensive) tickets.

• In the section on Level Miles, the statement "minimum 750 for international and 500 for domestic" is not correct. It applies only to certain (usually expensive) tickets.

• In the section on Award Miles, the statement "In general, each mile flewn is one award mile" is not correct. It applies only to certain (usually expensive) tickets.

• In the section on Award Miles, the statement "minimum 750 for international and 500 for domestic" is not correct. It applies only to certain (usually expensive) tickets.

The previous version of the article (posted by 82.230.35.60 on March 19, 2006) did not contain these errors. Trevormartin227 then posted a NPOV Tag, and on May 9. 2006 reverted to an old version that repeats these mistakes (and minor editing mistakes).

The version of March 19, 2006 also contained two NPOV facts that Trevormartin227's reversion erased:

• members of Flying Blue that were transferred from the mileage programs that Flying Blue replaced, Fréquence Plus (Air France) and Flying Dutchman (KLM), have experienced an important deterioration of their opportunities to earn miles.

• The owners of Flying Blue, Air France and KLM, are not fortright in communicating these changes to their members or the public, and the exact rules for the attribtion of miles for all ticket classes remain opaque.

While the exact formulations can be debated, simply erasing these statements with a reversion is a violation of Wikipedia's policy concerning advertisements (Wikipedia:Spam). Optimist61 22:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my intentions were good; I did not mean to violate Wikipedia policy. Rather, I had searched through older versions to the one just before changes with strong overall negativity toward the program were made. The version I reverted to may or may not violate POV (from the opposite end of the spectrum, I now understand). Instead, I was just trying to implement a temporary fix. Trevormartin227 03:54, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the first five points have been addressed in the mean time. As for the last two points, it is not clear to me that we have a reliable source for them. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] oh well

Yes, there is a lot of frustration to be vented with this program, and yes, it's hard to get a CSR on the line when you're not an elite member. The general trick is to select "award booking" or type the "*" key on your phone's keyboard -- or to call the Canadian helpdesk which operates independently and is actually quite competent. The other piece of advice is not to give up when given nonsensical advice; generally, whatever you hear on flyertalk is more reliable than what you'll hear from CSRs -- in particular the European ones.

I've tried to put in some factual information that is mostly corroborated by personal experience and experience of others over at flyertalk; I'll leave the tricks for getting to CSRs and the venting of frustrations for that site (and for this talk page). To make this easier, I've added a link to flyertalk to this entry; I hope it can stay.

Concerning earning opportunities: There were no reduced earning classes for KLM's Flying Dutchman program before early 2005; starting in early 2005, the inner-European N and E classes gave 0 miles. With the introduction of FB in June '05, E was 100%, N and V turned 25% (and this includes long-haul V!). I don't know the details of AF's old Frequence Plus, but I gather that the 25% rule for L class is a new invention by FB. Sources for this could include old and new information packages from frequent flyer programs, individual mileage statements, and, to some extent, flyertalk.

In any event, I don't think that this kind of history lesson really deserves being discussed in the Wikipedia entry. One could then also go down discussing how all of this fits with general industry trends, and so on.

Overall (and this is personal opinion only), this is probably not the best frequent flyer program around, but in much of Europe, one of the few ones that make alliance-wide lounge access achievable for frequent (but not insanely frequent) travelers in reasonably cheap booking classes. (This, too, is a topic for discussion, and hence not on the main page.)

Oh, and in this particular industry, every change is announced as an enhancement, in particular when it's to the customer's detriment. Sorry, pals...

I've also taken the liberty to throw out the POV tag. I sincerely believe the current entry reflects a bunch of factual and useful information about the program.

-- An anonymous FB Platinum member and flyertalker, 2006-08-08