When I was planning our trip to Taiwan, I found what looked like a very good way home: two China Airlines Business Class award seats from Taipei to Vancouver, available through Flying Blue for 82,500 miles per person.
Finding two seats in a premium cabin on the same flight is rarely straightforward. This looked like the opportunity I'd been waiting for.
I already had roughly 29,000 Flying Blue miles. The other 136,000 miles would have to come from Chase. Before transferring, I spoke to Flying Blue. An agent assured me the seats were available and that the tickets could be issued.
So I transferred the points from two Chase accounts. With 165,000 miles available, I had enough for both awards.
And then the booking fell apart.
A reservation isn't necessarily two usable tickets
The issue wasn't that I'd misunderstood the price. Flying Blue couldn't complete the two-person booking as promised. One of the seats was described to me as waitlisted.
There's a detail worth being precise about: an electronic award ticket document was generated for one passenger. I still have it. It shows the China Airlines Taipei–Vancouver flight and 82,500 miles. What I never obtained at that stage was the two confirmed, usable Business Class tickets we'd been trying to book.
I wrote to Flying Blue requesting a reversal of the 136,000 miles I'd transferred. In its May 2024 reply, Flying Blue said partner award inventory was limited, recommended verifying availability before transferring, and said it could sometimes hold a partner award for 24 hours. It also stated that bank-to-Flying Blue transfers were final and irreversible.
That response was especially frustrating because I had already checked with an agent before making the transfer. I'd done what I thought was the cautious thing.
Flying Blue escalated my request, but on July 10, 2024, the programme confirmed it would not reverse the transfer.
The seats reappeared. The trip had already changed.
On July 30, Flying Blue contacted me again. It said it had found two Business Class seats on China Airlines between Taipei and Vancouver and was ready to issue the tickets, provided I called and paid the taxes before the hold expired.
By then, I'd already booked another way to Taiwan. I declined the later offer and asked Flying Blue to cancel the reservation, which it agreed to do.
Our replacement journey took a different shape. We flew Asiana Business Class from San Francisco to Seoul, spent time in Seoul, and continued Seoul–Fukuoka on Asiana, then Fukuoka–Taipei in EVA Air's Royal Laurel Class.
We hadn't set out to take that route. But the stopover in Seoul became an unexpected upside to a plan that had otherwise been needlessly complicated.
The miles weren't lost. The flexibility was.
There's an important distinction here. The transferred Flying Blue miles weren't worthless, and I didn't lose the entire balance.
I later booked two Aeromexico tickets from Vancouver to Mexico City for March 2027, using 59,000 Flying Blue miles and CA$278.34 in total. I still have Flying Blue miles left for another redemption.
That was a useful outcome, but it wasn't the booking I'd transferred those points to make.
Before the transfer, the Chase points could have supported a wider range of plans. Afterwards, the miles were locked into Flying Blue. Even though I eventually found another use for part of the balance, I lost flexibility at exactly the moment I needed it.
What I'd do differently now
I still search partner programmes. Some of the best redemptions are found that way. But seeing availability on a screen is only the beginning of the process, especially when I need two seats.
Before transferring flexible points for a partner award, I would now:
- Check the exact flight, date, cabin and number of passengers through the programme that will issue the tickets.
- Ask whether the seats can be confirmed or held under the programme's current rules. If a hold is possible, establish the conditions before transferring.
- Confirm the points, cash charges and likely timing of the transfer, and understand that an agent's reassurance is not the same as a ticket.
- Keep an alternative booking plan in mind, particularly if the transfer cannot be reversed.
None of that guarantees availability. An agent can be mistaken, inventory can disappear, and technical problems can occur between a search and ticketing. But I would be far more reluctant to make an irreversible transfer on the strength of a search result alone.
The lesson
This was a frustrating experience with Flying Blue, but it wasn't the end of our trip or the end of those miles. We found a different way to Taiwan, enjoyed a stop in Seoul, and eventually used some of the Flying Blue balance for another journey.
What stayed with me was a more useful distinction: seeing two seats, having enough miles for two seats, and holding two issued tickets are three different things.
I won't confuse them again.
Source note: The original incident and correspondence are from May–July 2024, for travel planned in May 2025. A single-passenger electronic award ticket exists, while the two-person booking could not be completed at that stage. The original ticket and Flying Blue's later offer show different May 2025 travel dates, so no single exact date is assigned to both in this article. The accompanying China Airlines search example (Taipei–Sapporo) is illustrative and not the failed Taipei–Vancouver search. The Aeromexico redemption shown is for two passengers. Terms, availability and hold policies can change.