Air France-KLM Flying Blue is in my opinion the most useful SkyTeam frequent flyer program for redeeming miles, and for that matter, one of the most valuable frequent flyer programs for transatlantic business class awards.
While I talk about the program a lot in passing, in this post I wanted to take a big picture look at where I see value with Flying Blue, and why it’s a program that I redeem a lot of miles through.
In this post:
Flying Blue miles are really easy to earn
One major aspect in assessing the value of a frequent flyer program is how easy miles are to earn with the currency. For those of us in the United States with access to transferable points currencies, Air France-KLM Flying Blue is probably the easiest points currency to rack up:
- Flying Blue is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou
- We frequently see transfer bonuses to Flying Blue in the range of 20-30%
Given the frequency with which I redeem through Flying Blue, I always think it’s worth making a speculative transfer when there’s a bonus, so that I have enough Flying Blue miles for my next redemption. For my mental accounting purposes, I basically reduce the cost of my Flying Blue redemptions to reflect that I typically acquire them with a 25% bonus.
Flying Blue is great for Air France & KLM business class awards
Flying Blue is one of the most useful frequent flyer programs for booking transatlantic business class awards:
- Flying Blue has access to more Air France and KLM business class award space than partner programs
- While award pricing on Air France and KLM is dynamic, you’ll find a good amount of reasonably priced award space, often starting at 55,000 miles one-way across the Atlantic
- Air France and KLM have among the best business class products across the Atlantic, on balance better and more consistent than what you’ll find with the other major airline groups (Lufthansa Group and IAG)
- While Flying Blue does have carrier imposed surcharges on awards, they’re reasonable, at around $200 for a one-way transatlantic award; that’s something many of us are willing to pay, unlike the $800+ surcharges at British Airways
- Flying Blue allows stopovers on one-way awards, though you do have to book by phone; having a stopover in Amsterdam or Paris prior to continuing to your final destination is pretty awesome
- Flying Blue also often publishes Promo Rewards, offering monthly discounts on award tickets, which can stretch your miles even further
Just to give an example, when booking in advance from New York to Paris, I see business class award availability almost every day for just 55,000 Flying Blue miles one-way (factoring in the pretty consistent 25% transfer bonuses we see, that’s like paying 44,000 transferable points).
You’re obviously not going to always find reasonably priced award availability, but I can’t think of another set of two airlines across the Atlantic that release so much space so consistently. As you can see, the above flights don’t just have one or two seats, but the first flight has nine award seats, while the second one has seven award seats.
Pricing is also often quite reasonable when connecting beyond Europe, like being able to fly to Africa in business class for 95,000 miles one-way.
How to search & book Flying Blue awards
Another great thing about Flying Blue is that the process of redeeming miles is pretty seamless:
- Transferable points currencies generally convert into Flying Blue miles instantly
- You can book Flying Blue awards directly on the websites of Air France or KLM, and there are no restrictions on who you can redeem for
- The process of searching award availability is easy, and I like the hidden Flying Blue award calendar (just don’t enter a date when you search, and you’ll see availability for months at a time)
- Flying Blue has reasonable change and cancelation fees, as either of those things can be done for a fee of €50
In comparison to some other non-US frequent flyer programs, I’d say Flying Blue has a pretty good booking process, plus fair policies.
Flying Blue is also valuable for some partner awards
The SkyTeam alliance simply isn’t as valuable as oneworld or Star Alliance when it comes to partner airline award redemptions. This is true in terms of reciprocal availability, the number of products you have access to, etc. Unfortunately nowadays most Delta SkyMiles partner awards represent a terrible value.
The good news is that Flying Blue’s partner award costs are in many cases quite a good deal. For example, redeeming between the United States and Asia through Flying Blue can be a good value. I’ve written about reasonably priced China Airlines business class awards, as you can book these across the Pacific starting at just 81,500 miles.
Flying Blue also partners with some potentially useful non-SkyTeam airlines, ranging from Air Mauritius to Aircalin.
Flying Blue is definitely most useful for Air France and KLM redemptions, but there are also some cases where the program positions you well for partner awards.
Bottom line
When it comes to redeeming miles, I consider Air France-KLM Flying Blue to be the most valuable SkyTeam program, and an essential option for those looking to redeem miles for business class across the Atlantic. Flying Blue has access to the most Air France and KLM business class award seats across the Atlantic, and those airlines are most consistent about making these award seats available in advance, even for large parties.
Personally, I book several awards through Flying Blue every year, so I always make a point of transferring points to the program when there’s a transfer bonus, which improves the value of redemptions even further. There are even cases where Flying Blue has lucrative redemption rates on partners.
So while I don’t think Flying Blue is quite as useful as Air Canada Aeroplan in terms of the breadth of partnerships and redemption options, it’s pretty unbeatable across the Atlantic, and in my opinion one of the five most useful award programs.
Anyone else appreciate Flying Blue for the great transatlantic award options?
@Ben, You left out BILT as a credit card that has a transferable miles program with Flying Blue. Please update.
What a joke....So you pay only 55k points per way but you have to pay a few hundred dollars in taxes and fees. You also are biased. You are paid to promote this rewards program and you do not compare ALL of the airlines in the alliance with ALL of the types of redemption possibilities.
But that's for a business class ticket that normally costs thousands of dollars. To your point, we are normalized these days to think it is ok to pay $100-$300 in fees for a business class seat -- but if you would prefer not to pay fuel surcharges at all -- then you should accrue miles on Avianca LifeMiles and generally either book far in advance via them on the Star Alliance airline of your choosing or get the ticket within 10 days of departure.
Thanks for posting this. Here in Ottawa we have have had no Skyteam service for a while, but there is a brand new AF YOW-CDG flight. I thought it would irrelevant for me as a UA 1K but I also have lots of Amex MR points and I see one-way business class as low as 52,500 miles.
Please do a post on the ‘five most useful mileage plans”.
While searching business class award flight availability I noticed that when you click through to book the return flight that a "No checked baggage included" is shown. This occurred on each flight pair that I searched on both KLM and Air France. Is this a new policy for Flying Blue business award flights? If so, it appears to be another devaluation and is very disappointing.
I’ve been thinking about joining Flying Blue and getting their credit card (I think they have a 70K miles bonus going on). I’m a delta MM and Diamond… my question is can I get a status match with flying blue if I want to start crediting my flights to FB?
Easily the best option remaining for TA travel. I spent years going back/forth to Rome almost exclusively on AA/IB via AA miles. The fact that my last 10 trips have been via FlyingBlue sums up how devalued AAdvantage has become for travel to Europe.
AA typically has business class seats to Europe most of the year for 57,500 miles one way plus fees (which I don't think were too bad if I am remembering correctly).
I am very disappointed you mention this program. :-) But seriously now it will be harder to find availability.
Besides the aforementioned tech issues with the calendar and displaying the wrong award price, one thing that annoyed me is not being able to change or cancel a ticket on the website or app and forcing you to call in. Their call centre is not as bad as what I had previously heard however and it wasn't a multi-hour long wait for an agent.
I also find their "married segment logic" algorithm to be a...
Besides the aforementioned tech issues with the calendar and displaying the wrong award price, one thing that annoyed me is not being able to change or cancel a ticket on the website or app and forcing you to call in. Their call centre is not as bad as what I had previously heard however and it wasn't a multi-hour long wait for an agent.
I also find their "married segment logic" algorithm to be a lot more forgiving than Delta's so you can more easily string together connecting itineraries.
And when it comes to partners, Flying Blue also partners up with Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, and Qantas. Hoping to leverage these partnerships at some point in time.
Long story short, spend your Delta Sky[insert name of valueless currency], dump all your Skyteam flying here, redeem for something. The end.
Now that VS has joined SkyTeam, Flying Club has unqiue sweet spots for redeeming on AF and KL. Intra-European flights can be half, if not less, than what Flying Blue charges. I'd say Flying Club is stronger overall.
That's interesting. Tomorrow is New Year's Day and the BILT credit card (which offers transferable miles to around 12 airline programs and some hotel programs) is offering a massive promotion for one day only depending on your card spend in the past year -- either 75%, 100%, 125%, or 150% bonuses on top of 1:1. I qualify for 125% -- and this offer is good for both Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club (VS) and Flying Blue....
That's interesting. Tomorrow is New Year's Day and the BILT credit card (which offers transferable miles to around 12 airline programs and some hotel programs) is offering a massive promotion for one day only depending on your card spend in the past year -- either 75%, 100%, 125%, or 150% bonuses on top of 1:1. I qualify for 125% -- and this offer is good for both Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club (VS) and Flying Blue. And so I've been trying to decide which program to choose. I'm leaning towards Flying Blue though because of the high fuel surcharges VS charges --- and I have 98,000 VS miles which I converted into earlier this year so that I would have a stash to use to take advantage of the deals they have domestically on Delta Airlines. So, I'm thinking of converting enough BILT points into Flying Blue enough for one promotional/discounted trans-Atlantic business class flight.
Calendar function is awesome, probably easiest search tool out there. ORD-CDG lots of availability at 70K
Recently did business ord-fco returned FLR-ORD, great business product. Also did Lufthansa first to Nice and returned on United polaris, AF business compares well with Polaris, Lufthansa First obviously better...
Am I the only one that can't figure out how expiration policy works? It reminds me of Marriott's breakfast policy. I've read through the terms several times and can't figure out what exactly extends the mile expiration date? Any of you readers explain it to me like I'm 8?
I also use Flying Blue all the time and even if the dynamic pricing change has yielded some absolutely bonkers rates, like Skypesos bad (I recently saw Boston to Paris one way in business for 700k (!!!) Flying Blue points, which would be enough for nearly 2 roundtrips in La Première), to your point they still have a great amount of good deals around and I hope it continues.
One big caveat is the...
I also use Flying Blue all the time and even if the dynamic pricing change has yielded some absolutely bonkers rates, like Skypesos bad (I recently saw Boston to Paris one way in business for 700k (!!!) Flying Blue points, which would be enough for nearly 2 roundtrips in La Première), to your point they still have a great amount of good deals around and I hope it continues.
One big caveat is the calendar search function: it is completely inaccurate, it will display entire days with no availability while there actually is availability, and the rates are also often incorrect until you select a proper day. If they could nail the tech down, it'd be perfect.
Flying blue is known for cancelling tickets without notice and closing or locking people's account.
Couldn’t agree more with this post. When ever there is a 30% transfer bonus going on I’ll typically transfer enough points to keep my Flying Blue balance in the 400 - 500k range. Right now I’m down to 120k because the program has been so useful. I was looking at a Delta Sky Miles redemptions the other day, how utterly sad that program has become.
Ben, don't know if I'm alone on this but I would find it useful in posts like this if you added a section on how good a program is for earning status, or as the place to credit any miles you earn on revenue flights with that alliance. Transferable reward currencies are harder to earn outside the US, so strategically crediting any points from flights helps. (Flying Blue's 2 status credits for any domestic flights...
Ben, don't know if I'm alone on this but I would find it useful in posts like this if you added a section on how good a program is for earning status, or as the place to credit any miles you earn on revenue flights with that alliance. Transferable reward currencies are harder to earn outside the US, so strategically crediting any points from flights helps. (Flying Blue's 2 status credits for any domestic flights is not ideal in big countries like the US and Australia.) Most US readers may prefer to use the US3 given the usual availability of complimentary upgrades, which are less common with foreign programs. As an Australian, to me lounge access, although also generally available outside the US with premium tickets, and to a limited extent with some credit cards, is the main selling point with status.
Amen. Why would anyone accumulate sky lira?
the browser monthly view trick doesn't work for me on either safari or chrome... based on the comments, seems like hardly anyone on the original linked post can make it work either.
genuinely curious if this works for anyone.
@ chris -- Are you in the US? I've seen some reports that this only works in the US and not abroad, so I'm not sure if that's what might be going on here?
In spirit, I agree, Ben. But you said when "booking in advance," you see a ton of availability at 55K. "In advance" in this case falls in February, which is offseason. In your image, going to May (peak season) results in one way tickets costing 137.5K, which is basically just market at this point.
I often ask this, and bloggers usually have no answer. What is the best way to book *peak season* business class...
In spirit, I agree, Ben. But you said when "booking in advance," you see a ton of availability at 55K. "In advance" in this case falls in February, which is offseason. In your image, going to May (peak season) results in one way tickets costing 137.5K, which is basically just market at this point.
I often ask this, and bloggers usually have no answer. What is the best way to book *peak season* business class tickets from the US to Europe right now? Which program? Which strategy (advance or last minute)? From which locations in the US?
@ Anthony -- February is just one example, but there's plenty of availability across many months. A majority of dates have availability in November through April, and then there's also a fair bit of award availability in other months.
Regarding your second question, I don't think there's one program that always has peak season availability. Rather the key is to have the flexibility afforded by transferable points currencies.
The best option is to book way...
@ Anthony -- February is just one example, but there's plenty of availability across many months. A majority of dates have availability in November through April, and then there's also a fair bit of award availability in other months.
Regarding your second question, I don't think there's one program that always has peak season availability. Rather the key is to have the flexibility afforded by transferable points currencies.
The best option is to book way in advance or close to departure, and you'll almost always find more availability from East Coast or Midwest than from the West Coast.
For what it's worth, Flying Blue does often have a lot of availability, it's just a little too early to see that for next summer.
I'd say Aeroplan leaves you best positioned for awards during peak periods, given the sheer number of partners the program has. For example, looking at May 2023 (as far out as you can go), I see a good amount of availability through Aeroplan on Singapore Airlines from New York to Frankfurt.
Emirates Skywards is also a good option, as I see at least seven business class award seats most days next May from EWR to ATH or JFK to MXP.
I got an award from AMS-ORD direct for 55K in August, but bought it several months ago.
All I am finding are flights at 300k+ one way sfo to ams or cdg on klm or af. Direct. No thanks
@ Kai -- Using the calendar function, I'm finding that most dates have availability for 80K in business class from SFO. Make sure you try the calendar function (by leaving the departure date empty), rather than searching day-by-day.