My Frustrating Experience with Phantom Award Space on Air France/China Airlines

I hesitate to post about my mistakes on this blog, because sometimes the internet brings out the harshest anonymous replies. But, I like to keep it real, and I hope my experience helps others.

Recently, I transferred points from Chase and Capital One to Air France Flying Blue program to book business class award flights on China Airlines. I had successfully done this before in late 2023 when I booked business class seats to Hong Kong for my November 2024 trip.

Sometime in 2024, China Airlines partner award space all but disappeared on Air France’s website. But recently, several sources on social media and in online forums revealed that the award space was back again (but only bookable on Air France’s website, or maybe only the app due to glitches on the website). I was excited to see if there was any award space home from China for my summer 2025 trip. I found the award flights, but I got burned with phantom award space!

What Happened?

I searched for business class award space on Air France for two people from Shanghai to Ontario (connecting through Taipei). Much to my surprise, I found two seats on a date that worked for me at a cost of 93,500 miles per person. Since Chase had a 20% transfer bonus to Air France/KLM Flying Blue (through January 15, 2025–see this post), the cost would be even lower.

I actually thought about it for a few days, and then came back to book it. I not only found award availability to Ontario, but also to a few other West Coast cities.

I checked on my app and even on my husband’s account to make sure the seats were really there. Then, I transferred 189,000 Chase points and Capital One miles to Air France Flying Blue, and I proceeded to book the award flights.

I got far into the booking, entering our names and personal information. Then right at the end, I got this error message:

Oh no! I was trying not to panic. I tried to book the flights in the Air France app, but I still got an error message. Eventually, I called Flying Blue in hopes that an agent could book the award flights over the phone.

Flying Blue’s Response

The phone agent was friendly, but she could not see the award flights on her end. She told me to take screenshots of the award flights and email them to Flying Blue. I was hopeful that the flights would still be able to be booked this way.

Unfortunately, the response I received was not good:

“Such an error may occur if there are other people making reservations at the same time. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

However, I knew that wasn’t the reason, as I could still see the award flights on the app and in the website. I replied to the email with additional current screenshots and asked for the issue to be elevated to a manager. I politely explained that I had already transferred over the necessary points.

Again, unfortunately, the response was not good:

“I’m afraid this situation cannot be escalated to a manager. We already reported the issue to the technical department and the flight will disappear from the website soon.” The email agent suggested a flight with two stopovers in economy for 56,000 miles 4 days later. Womp, womp.

In my opinion, Flying Blue should have honored the original business class flights. They appeared on the website for several days. I transferred my points in good faith.

What should I have done?

Well, I clearly didn’t follow my own advice from my previous post about phantom award space:

• Check award availability on other partner airlines to see if it appears before you transfer points (however, reports indicated that this China Airlines award space was ONLY showing up on Air France, and folks had indeed been successful in booking it)
• Place award on hold and/or call the airline to make sure the award space is really there (Air France doesn’t have an online award hold, but I could have called and asked an agent to verify the seats before I transferred the points to Flying Blue).

Lesson learned. I will never transfer flexible points without first calling the airline to verify the award space is real.

All Is Not Lost

Point transfers are irreversible. I can’t turn these Flying Blue miles back into Chase points and Capital One miles. However, there is a silver lining:

• I still got the 20% transfer bonus from Chase
• I can likely use these Flying Blue miles to book my next trip to Europe on Air France (even though the cost will be higher–see this post)
• My daughter and I are flying home from China in Premium Economy seats on AA
• This isn’t my first rodeo, so this experience does’t discourage me from keeping up with this hobby. But if I were a newbie, this experience definitely would have soured me more.

Readers, have you run into phantom award space lately?