The last word information to incomes and redeeming with Air France-KLM Flying Blue

In 2004, Air France and KLM shaped the Air France-KLM Group. Across the similar time, the corporate launched Flying Blue, a mixed loyalty program for the 2 airways.

This system rapidly turned probably the most well-known airline loyalty packages due to its record of bank card switch companions, profitable Promo Rewards and number of airline companions.

Because of this, Flying Blue is a well-liked program for vacationers who focus on earning transferrable points. However in the event you’re new to this system, it may be a bit daunting — particularly given its unpredictable dynamic award pricing.

Right here is all the things you have to know in regards to the Flying Blue program.

Associated: Is Air France premium economy worth it to Europe?

An outline of the Flying Blue program

Flying Blue is the joint loyalty program of Air France and KLM, however these aren’t the one carriers that use Flying Blue as their default loyalty program. A number of different airways — inside and out of doors of Europe — use this system for mileage incomes and elite standing:

• Aircalin
• Air France
• Kenya Airways
• KLM
• Transavia
• TAROM

When you’re a Flying Blue member touring on certainly one of these airways, you may add your Flying Blue member quantity to earn miles, Expertise Factors (XPs) for elite standing qualification and extra. When you attain elite standing, you need to use your advantages on these airways and reciprocal advantages on different companion airways.

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However simply because these airways use Flying Blue as their default program doesn’t suggest you are restricted to incomes on these flights. Most companion airways that mean you can earn Flying Blue miles are within the SkyTeam alliance, however there are an assortment of non-alliance companions, too. These embody:

• Air Corsica
• Air Mauritius
• Bangkok Airways
• Chalair Aviation
• Copa Airways
• Gol
• Japan Airways
• Malaysia Airways
• Qantas
• Transavia
• Twin Jet
• WestJet
• airBaltic

Notice that there could also be restrictions relating to which flights on which you’ll earn or redeem miles inside these partnerships. Evaluate the airline’s companion web page on the Flying Blue web site earlier than you propose your travels so you realize what to anticipate.

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Flying Blue elite standing tiers

The airline presents three elite standing tiers: Silver, Gold and Platinum. You may qualify by incomes Expertise Factors (XPs), which we’ll element out beneath.

Flying Blue Silver

Silver is the bottom tier of Flying Blue elite standing and requires 100 XPs. It contains some fundamental advantages, together with:

• 6 Flying Blue miles per euro spent on Flying Blue-issued tickets
• Free commonplace seat choice
• Precedence check-in and boarding
• SkyTeam Elite advantages (probably the most notable SkyTeam Elite profit is a free checked bag on all Flying Blue and SkyTeam companion flights)

Flying Blue Gold

Gold requires 180 XPs past Silver standing. You may have entry to the Flying Blue Silver advantages and:

• 7 Flying Blue miles per euro spent on Flying Blue-issued tickets
• Entry to SkyTeam lounges on worldwide flights operated by a Flying Blue or SkyTeam airline (legitimate for you and a visitor)
• Entry to companion lounges on airways like Virgin Atlantic, Qantas and Air Mauritius
• SkyTeam Elite Plus (advantages like SkyPriority boarding, fast-track immigration and extra)
• 50% low cost on most popular seats and Delta Consolation+

Flying Blue Platinum

Flying Blue’s top-tier Platinum standing requires 300 XPs past Gold and contains all the Gold advantages we talked about earlier. Nonetheless, it sweetens the deal by upgrading some advantages and including others. Platinum members earn 9 Flying Blue miles per euro spent on Flying Blue-issued tickets, have entry to free Financial system Consolation and extra-legroom seats on all SkyTeam flights and may entry Delta Consolation+ seats totally free.

Moreover, solely Flying Blue Platinum members can guide award tickets in Air France La Premiere — the provider’s famend first-class cabin. That stated, they arrive at a fairly hefty price. La Premiere tickets usually price greater than $10,000 when flying from Europe to North America, Asia or Africa, so having the ability to guide with miles makes an in any other case unattainable ticket attainable for a lot of flyers.

Associated: 10 things that wowed me about Air France’s incredible La Premiere first class

When you maintain Flying Blue Platinum for 10 consecutive years, you’ve got bought the standing for all times.

Flying Blue has a cobranded U.S. bank card with Financial institution of America. I will go extra in-depth on the Air France-KLM World Elite Mastercard® within the subsequent part, however certainly one of its standout advantages is incomes XPs through bank card spending.

You obtain 60 XPs whenever you open your account for the primary 12 months. In subsequent years, you earn 20 XPs yearly in your account anniversary. When you spend $15,000 on purchases (excluding charges, returns and changes), you will obtain an extra 40 anniversary XPs (totaling 60 anniversary XPs). That is greater than half the 100 XPs required for Silver with out stepping on a airplane.

The data for the Air France-KLM World Elite Mastercard has been collected independently by The Factors Man. The cardboard particulars on this web page haven’t been reviewed or supplied by the cardboard issuer.

Incomes miles with Flying Blue

Earn miles by flying with Flying Blue airways and SkyTeam companions

You may earn Flying Blue miles by flying. The way you earn these miles varies by airline, although. Once you guide a flight on Air France or KLM, you will earn miles primarily based on how a lot you spend on the ticket (earlier than taxes). That is additionally true for Flying Blue-marketed tickets (i.e., booked on a Flying Blue airline web site however operated by one other provider).

The variety of miles you will earn per greenback additionally depends upon your Flying Blue standing tier. Flying Blue Explorer members (these with out standing) earn 4 miles per euro spent, whereas Silver, Gold and Platinum members earn 6, 7 and eight miles per euro spent, respectively. This incomes does not embody taxes and sure charges charged on the ticket.

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Earn Flying Blue miles with companion airways

Incomes with SkyTeam and non-alliance Flying Blue companions on tickets not bought by means of Flying Blue is a special story. For tickets which can be marketed by one other airline and credited to Flying Blue, you will earn miles on the next standards:

• Distance flown
• Fare class
• Working airline
• Your elite standing tier

Every airline companion awards a special variety of miles for every fare class — you’ll find what number of miles your companion flight earns on the Flying Blue partners page.

Here is the Flying Blue incomes chart for Delta Air Lines tickets.

Spend on the Flying Blue cobranded bank card

One other strategy to earn Flying Blue miles is with the beforehand mentioned Air France-KLM World Elite Mastercard®. This card earns 3 Flying Blue miles per greenback spent on SkyTeam airfare purchases purchased straight with a SkyTeam airline and 1.5 Flying Blue miles per greenback all over the place else.

The cardboard additionally has a stable welcome bonus of fifty,000 Flying Blue miles after spending $2,000 on the cardboard within the first three months of account opening. TPG values Flying Blue miles at 1.2 cents every, so this bonus alone is price $600.

Moreover, you will earn 5,000 Flying Blue factors in your card anniversary date as long as you spend no less than $50 in your Flying Blue bank card annually. We worth the 5,000-mile anniversary bonus at $60, which might help justify the cardboard’s $89 annual charge.

Switch factors to Flying Blue

This system is a switch companion of:

So, in case you have a card like The Platinum Card® from American Express, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (amongst others), you may switch your factors or miles to Flying Blue.

Keep at Accor accommodations and earn bonus factors

Flying Blue and Accor Inns — a French resort group that features manufacturers like Fairmont, Novotel and Ibis — have a partnership known as Miles+Points. Flying Blue members earn Accor Dwell Limitless factors when flying on member airways, due to this partnership. Conversely, you need to use this system to earn Flying Blue miles when staying at Accor properties. These factors are earned along with the everyday rewards, so you may double dip.

Hyperlink your Flying Blue and Accor Live Limitless accounts on the Flying Blue Miles+Points website to earn these bonus factors. Earnings begin instantly, so do it earlier than your subsequent Flying Blue member flight or Accor resort keep.

Ebook different accommodations by means of Flying Blue

When you’re not staying at an Accor property, you may nonetheless earn Flying Blue miles whenever you guide accommodations. Flying Blue has a resort reserving platform known as hotels for Miles. Utilizing this portal, you may earn as much as 10,000 Flying Blue miles per night time booked by means of the portal, with promoted and costlier stays typically incomes extra miles.

For instance, a one-night $246 resort room on the Kimpton Resort Monaco, Washington, D.C., earns 6,100 Flying Blue miles per night time.

Moreover, you may earn 1 Flying Blue mile per 1 euro spent on Reserving.com in the event you undergo Flying Blue’s Booking.com portal. When you can nonetheless not use elite advantages and earn resort factors, Reserving.com generally has glorious offers on boutique accommodations and bed-and-breakfasts that would not in any other case earn resort factors.

Redeeming miles with Flying Blue

Whereas there are numerous methods to redeem Flying Blue miles, I like to recommend sticking to award flights. It will virtually all the time provide the most worth to your miles.

Since 2018, Flying Blue has used dynamic pricing. This implies there isn’t any set award chart, and a few tickets could be extraordinarily costly — suppose 200,000 miles for an economy-class flight from JFK to Europe. That stated, Flying Blue has published an interactive award map with entry-level award rates.

Even with dynamic pricing, Flying Blue usually has the perfect pricing for a lot of SkyTeam awards, beating out Delta, Korean Air and different main airways. The important thing to discovering these awards is to be versatile and watch for excellent offers. For inspiration, try TPG’s guide to maximizing Flying Blue miles.

The second factor you must know is that Air France and KLM cost reasonable fuel surcharges on some tickets. You may count on to pay $200 to $350 on a one-way business-class award ticket throughout the Atlantic. Whereas these gas surcharges are considerably lower than these charged by airways like Emirates and British Airways, it is nonetheless one thing to recollect as you examine pricing throughout loyalty packages.

Ebook Air France or KLM to Amsterdam, Paris and past

Whereas Flying Blue costs its awards dynamically, this system has now standardized saver-level pricing for all one-way flights between the USA and Europe as follows, no matter origin or vacation spot, which means you may join at no additional price:

• 20,000 miles in financial system
• 35,000 miles in premium financial system
• 50,000 miles in enterprise class

Keep in mind that these charges are just for the bottom saver-level seats, that are restricted. We have now discovered a lot from the West Coast on the new decrease charges (together with these with European connections) within the financial system and premium financial system cabins.

Nonetheless, business-class seats at saver ranges stay very arduous to seek out, with just a few flights out there on some routes over the whole subsequent 12 months. Reserving enterprise class from wherever within the U.S. to wherever in Europe for 50,000 Flying Blue miles is a unbelievable deal, so bounce on this in the event you discover this worth on dates that give you the results you want.

As well as, you may spend a couple of days in Paris or Amsterdam utilizing the free Flying Blue stopover. It is a nice strategy to go to one other metropolis with out forking over extra miles or money. To guide Flying Blue stopovers, you will must name Flying Blue at 800-375-8723.

Transatlantic Flying Blue award charges could be cheap, so it is price checking Flying Blue when planning journeys to Europe.

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Ebook firstclass on choose SkyTeam companions

Flying Blue just lately introduced first-class redemptions have been out there to guide with miles on the next SkyTeam companion airways:

• China Japanese
• Garuda Indonesia
• Xiamen Air

When you ought to be capable of guide these on-line, we’ve discovered it just about not possible to seek out any availability, and except for Garuda, these airways should not recognized to have the world’s greatest first-class merchandise anyway, so chances are you’ll want to save your miles and search for Saver award area in enterprise class on Air France and KLM as an alternative.

Fly Delta between the US and Europe, South America and past

As talked about earlier, Delta does not cost gas surcharges, so you need to use your Flying Blue miles to guide Delta tickets with low charges. For instance, you may guide an economy-class flight from New York to Dublin for simply 22,500 Flying Blue miles and $10.10 on many dates in 2023.

We have now not seen any Delta premium financial system or enterprise class (Delta One) award availability utilizing Flying Blue miles.

Simply be aware that Virgin Atlantic Flying Club could be a better deal for booking Delta financial system class flights to Europe — particularly on nonstop routings.

Maintain a watch out for Promo Rewards

Each month, Flying Blue releases a batch of Promo Rewards. You may solely guide these deeply discounted award tickets throughout the similar month they’re launched. They’re extra restrictive than commonplace Flying Blue award tickets — they cannot be modified, so ensure that your plans are finalized. However in the event you’re prepared to threat it, these promotions can present a superb deal on tickets to Europe and past (e.g., transatlantic enterprise class for beneath 40,000 miles).

You may view an up-to-date record of Promo Rewards on the Flying Blue web site, and TPG updates our Flying Blue Promo Rewards page firstly of every month with the most recent offers.

Make sure to regulate the Flying Blue Promo Rewards. There are some unbelievable offers available.

Fly Copa Airways to Panama Metropolis and past

Copa Airways is a Star Alliance member, however the airline has a non-alliance partnership with Flying Blue. This implies you may earn and redeem miles with Copa, additional increasing the attain of Flying Blue’s loyalty program. Pricing often begins round 21,500 miles for a ticket from North America to Copa’s hub in Panama Metropolis, and also you add connecting flights too.

Copa Airways flies to main Central and South American locations like Colombia, Brazil and Argentina.

I believe one of the simplest ways for most individuals to earn Flying Blue miles is with transferable-points bank cards just like the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Not solely will you earn extra factors on most purchases, however you will even have the flexibleness to redeem your factors with different companions.