ITA Airways' Volare loyalty program, how to read your ticket to calculate how many points you accumulate

ITA Airways' new Volare loyalty program. has completely changed the rules of the game for Italian reward travelers. Many in the last 48h have written to us asking how it is possible to accumulate the minimum 390 thousand points required for an intercontinental round-trip ticket.

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We have already Explained in detail many aspects of the new programa and Also made some reflections. With this article we try to explain how to perform the calculation that should lead to a correct prediction of the amount of points, qualifying and non-qualifying, that are accumulated with the various tickets.

The rules of the Volare program

We have had a chance to explain the various multipliers. The first and main one is related to the status held, then the variables are destination, cabin and fare. Explaining what the multiplier applies to is the regulations of the Volare program:

The amount of accumulated points is calculated based on the customer's spending (c.d. revenue-based model), net of amounts related to taxes and other charges (including VAT, if any), from the model 1 euro = 10 points

This means that the multiplier acts only on the fare component of the ticket, but not to ancillary expenses. One question remains, that we cannot clarify at the moment, and it concerns the issue of the Carrier-imposed surcharge. This item is the obnoxious solution found to make the "fuel surcharge" disappear from the ticket.

In the case of Air France it is explained that since it is money that goes into the carrier's pocket anyway, it matters when the multiplier is applied. So I would tend to think (and hope) that even for ITA this item, which by itself may be worth even more than the 50% of the ticket cost, is part of the share that will be multiplied.

Hopefully, ITA Airways will also soon put simple graphics on the site to help members do this complicated multiplication and especially indicate, as almost all carriers do, how many points will be accumulated with the ticket during the booking phase.

Important. Many people have written to us that points from flights not yet made have not been charged. This is normal, the accumulation only happens once you have completed the flight not when you book.

Example of a Rome Milan ticket, in economy light

First of all, be aware that no airline reservation system shows the cost of the ticket in detail, so it will be impossible on your own to arrive at the exact amount of points.

Take, for example, a round-trip ticket from Rome to Milan: by going to ITA's site, as of almost all OTA portals, we will see the price, fare and cabin. Nothing else.

To know how the 120.67 € figure is arrived at and to try to understand what the multiplier will apply to, it is necessary to know all the items that make up the ticket, which ones to include and which ones not to take into account.

As you can see, against €120.67 of ticket, the company ends up with 28€ and Carrier-imposed surcharges (YQ/YR) worth 21.90€. So the multiplier should be applied to 41.90€. These calculations show that a ticket in economy light should produce 419 qualifying points to a new Volare member.

Example of a Rome New York ticket, in business classic

Same issue taking a long-haul ticket as an example. On the ITA Airways site, as of the OTAs, one would see little information.

The round-trip flight has a final cost of 2,552.37 euros, about half of what the same itinerary would cost with the flex fare, the one that gives an additional multiplier of 10%.

Again, thanks to the engine of the sGoogle's Matrix service, we can go on to explore the cost of the ticket. The 2,552.37€ is made up of the 1,943 fare, which is the ticket price after all taxes and surcharges. Then there are the two items Carrier-imposed surcharge (YQ/YR) for a total of 510€. So the value that should be multiplied is 2,453€. This is always assuming that Carrier-imposed surcharges (YQ/YR) are not excluded.

A user enrolled in the Volare program with Elite Executive level should then accumulate with this trip 31,889 points qualifying basis thanks to the x13 multiplier provided for the level. To this must be added the multipliers provided for route (intercontinental +40%), cabin (business +50%) and fare (classic +20%), thus an additional bonus of 110% bringing the total to 66,967 qualifying points. Enough to renew Executive status for 2023.

In conclusion

Surely it was easier before calculate how many miles and how many Millemiglia points would be accumulated, since the starting point was the distance traveled. What is interesting is that all multipliers contribute to earning qualifying points, whereas previously bonuses only affected Millemile points and not qualifying miles.

It is not specified anywhere, but it is clear from the profile statement of the various members where the value of qualifying points is in line with non-qualifying points.

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