Bits: Flying Blue improves miles expiry policy, Instamiles update

News in brief:

Flying Blue improves its mileage expiry policy (a bit)

Flying Blue, the Air France / KLM programme, is popular with a lot of Head for Points readers outside London.  Flying to Amsterdam to connect to a long-haul flights is a lot easier than connecting at Heathrow, and the new KLM business class product looks good.

Whilst there is no Flying Blue credit card in the UK, it is an American Express Membership Rewards partner so you can top up your account using points from an Amex Platinum (30000 points sign-up bonus) or Amex Gold (free in Year 1, 20000 points sign-up bonus).

The biggest issue with Flying Blue is its expiry policy.  Until last week, your miles expired if you have not taken a flight with Air France, KLM, Aircalin, Hop!, Kenya Airways, TAROM, Transavia, Air Corsica or another SkyTeam airline for 20 months.

The policy has now loosened up a bit.  As you can see on the Flying Blue site here, you now ‘only’ need to take a flight every 24 months to stop your miles expiring.

It still isn’t a great policy but any improvement is to be welcomed.

An update on Instamiles

On Wednesday I wrote about my experiences with Instamiles, a new app which lets you collect miles by completing surveys in airport duty free shops.

I said in the article that I seemed to be missing 500 of the 2,000 points I was due from a Heathrow visit.  I also said that I was expecting 500 points from a Dubai visit.

Both of these 500 point submissions have now been declined.  In both cases, I was required to submit a photograph of a luxury item priced at £200 / Dirham 2,000 or more.  I did, together with a clear shot of the relevant price tag.

In rejecting my Heathrow submission, Instamiles said:

“Luxury product cannot be identified – brand, product name and reference missing”

…. which is true, as it was a photgraph of a ring.  However, as you can see from the screenshot I ran in the original article, I was not asked to ensure that these items were visible.

My Dubai submission was rejected because:

“Luxury product cannot be identified – brand missing”

The product name and product code were presumably visible on the price tag.  The branding may not have been clear as it was a Tumi briefcase.

For clarity, my four other submissions – taking images of various named items in the main Heathrow duty free – were accepted without any problems.

So …. if you are asked for an image of a high value item of your choice, make sure that the details are all clearly visible.  Unfortunately, the tasks that were rejected remain greyed out in the Instamiles app so I cannot have a second attempt at completing them next time I fly.

This could end up being one of those things which is more trouble than it is worth – although it is only your time, and not money, being spent.  Unfortunately most of the Heathrow tasks disappeared from the app this week so it may now be harder to rack up the necessary points to earn miles.