Booking Air France with FC Miles possible yet?

Sorry if this has been covered before, but is there a way to book Air France using VS miles, now there's a sort-of alliance/merger going on - or is it not really possible /yet?

I'm VS Au, and need to go to COO in Benin in West Africa a couple of times next year, and being able to use AF Biz for miles would be great. They are really the only game in town to get there, from what I can tell.

Thanks!

No, not yet possible. It will be, apparently, but there's been no more news since the deal was announced in July.

it will be quite some time before anything like this will happen.

The multiple share sales / swaps is one aspect - that has yet to go through regulatory approval either in th EU or US due to (separate) rules on the levels of foreign ownership permitted - IIRC a Chinese airline is also involved which may complicate matters. What will they do if one transaction gets approval but one of the others dosen't?

Then will come setting up formal Joint Business Ventures on various routes allowing the airlines to share revenue and costs and just because DL and VS have one and DL and AF/KL have one does not automatically mean VS and AF/KL will have one due to the limited number of routes that they share.

Codeshares will be easier to set up but it's not just a case of slapping a VS number on an AF/KL flight

Then there are the FF programmes to consider and all the issues that raises.

it will be quite some time before anything like this will happen.

The multiple share sales / swaps is one aspect - that has yet to go through regulatory approval either in th EU or US due to (separate) rules on the levels of foreign ownership permitted - IIRC a Chinese airline is also involved which may complicate matters. What will they do if one transaction gets approval but one of the others dosen't?

Then will come setting up formal Joint Business Ventures on various routes allowing the airlines to share revenue and costs and just because DL and VS have one and DL and AF/KL have one does not automatically mean VS and AF/KL will have one due to the limited number of routes that they share.

Codeshares will be easier to set up but it's not just a case of slapping a VS number on an AF/KL flight

Then there are the FF programmes to consider and all the issues that raises.

The share purchase by China Eastern & Delta into AFKL has now gone through
http://atwonline.com/airlines/china-eas ... ce-klm-buy

So I guess the next step is for AFKL to purchase the stake in VS - which as a fellow EU (currently) airline shouldn't be too hard to put through.

As for the FF relationship that could be done in parallel to the share transactions presumably.

I remember seeing a date of early 2019 for completion of the VS/AF deal to complete so would expect to see more details emerging in early-mid 2018.

Thanks all. Well, I'll forget about that for a year or two!