Air France-KLM Flying Blue: Find out how to earn and redeem miles, elite standing and extra

Air France and KLM shaped the Air France-KLM Group and shortly after launched a joint loyalty program referred to as Flying Blue.

Although award availability may be unpredictable because of dynamic pricing, Flying Blue remains to be common with vacationers due to its checklist of bank card switch companions, profitable Promo Rewards and saver-level award seats. For those who’re trying to redeem your bank card factors and miles with Flying Blue, this is all the pieces it’s worthwhile to learn about this system.

Associated: Find out how to discover the most affordable redemption charges utilizing Flying Blue miles

Flying Blue program overview

Flying Blue is the joint loyalty program of Air France, KLM and Transavia. For those who’re a Flying Blue member touring on one in all these airways, you may add your Flying Blue member quantity to earn miles and expertise factors for elite standing qualification. When you attain elite standing, you should utilize your advantages on these airways and reciprocal advantages on different associate airways.

However simply because these airways use Flying Blue as their default program does not imply you are restricted to incomes on these flights. Most associate airways that will let you earn Flying Blue miles, reminiscent of Delta Air Strains and Virgin Atlantic, are a part of the SkyTeam alliance. Nonetheless, Flying Blue has many nonalliance companions, together with:

• Air Corsica
• Air Mauritius
• AirBaltic
• Aircalin
• Bangkok Airways
• Chalair Aviation
• China Southern Airways
• Copa Airways
• El Al
• Etihad Airways
• Gol Airways
• ITA Airways
• Japan Airways
• Malaysia Airways
• Oman Air
• Qantas
• Transavia
• Twin Jet
• WestJet
• Winair

Word that there could also be restrictions concerning the flights you may earn or redeem miles inside these partnerships. Evaluation the airline’s associate web page on the Flying Blue web site earlier than you propose your travels so you recognize what to anticipate.

Flying Blue elite standing tiers

Flying Blue provides 4 elite standing tiers: Silver, Gold, Platinum and Final. You possibly can qualify by incomes expertise factors.

Flying Blue Silver

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

• The power to earn 6 Flying Blue miles per euro spent
• Free normal seat choice
• Precedence check-in, baggage drop-off and boarding
• SkyTeam Elite advantages (essentially the most notable SkyTeam Elite profit is a free checked bag on all Flying Blue and SkyTeam associate flights)
• Most popular waitlist standing on flights operated by Air France, KLM or SkyTeam companions
• One further checked bag on Air France and KLM flights
• Most popular standby standing
• Additional legroom availability 24 hours earlier than departure (on Air France and KLM flights)

Flying Blue Gold

Gold requires an extra 180 expertise factors. You’ve entry to the Flying Blue Silver advantages and:

• The power to earn 7 Flying Blue miles per euro spent
• Entry to SkyTeam lounges on worldwide flights operated by a Flying Blue or SkyTeam airline (legitimate for you and a visitor)
• SkyTeam Elite Plus (advantages embody SkyPriority boarding and fast-track immigration)
• Precedence baggage dealing with
• Additional legroom availability 72 hours earlier than departure (on Air France and KLM flights)

Flying Blue Platinum

Flying Blue’s Platinum standing requires an extra 300 expertise factors and consists of all Gold advantages. Nonetheless, it sweetens the deal by upgrading some advantages and including others, reminiscent of:

• The power to earn 8 Flying Blue miles per euro spent
• Entry to a Platinum Service Line for devoted assist
• Waived charges when altering or requesting a refund on reward bookings
• The power to guide La Premiere, Air France’s first-class product, with miles
• Two further checked baggage on Air France and KLM flights
• Miles overdraft on award tickets (as much as 50,000 miles)
• Additional legroom availability on the time of reserving (on Air France and KLM flights)

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

Flying Blue Final

As of 2024, Flying Blue additionally has a top-tier standing stage referred to as Final. It requires a whopping 900 expertise factors in a 12 months and provides all of the Platinum advantages, in addition to:

• The power to earn 9 Flying Blue miles per euro spent
• Entry Air France and KLM lounges with as much as eight journey companions
• 24-hour assist from this system’s “Final Assistant”
• 4 cabin improve vouchers per membership 12 months
• The power to reward Flying Blue Platinum standing to at least one journey companion
• Hertz Platinum standing
• Complimentary on-board Wi-Fi

Take a look at the complete checklist of Flying Blue advantages on the loyalty program’s web site.

Find out how to qualify for Flying Blue elite standing

You possibly can qualify for Flying Blue elite standing by incomes expertise factors. Every tier requires a selected variety of these factors, and you may earn them by flying and thru bank card spending.

Additionally, for each 2,000 miles contributed to carbon dioxide discount and absorption (for instance, by means of the acquisition of sustainable aviation gas), you might be rewarded with 1 expertise level.

Earn expertise factors by flying

The variety of expertise factors you earn relies on the gap you fly and cabin class.

Earn expertise factors by means of Flying Blue’s US bank card

Flying Blue has a cobranded U.S. bank card with Financial institution of America. One of many standout advantages of the Air France-KLM World Elite Mastercard is incomes expertise factors through bank card spending.

You obtain 60 expertise factors once you open your account for the primary 12 months. In subsequent years, you earn 20 expertise factors in your account anniversary. Plus, you may earn an extra 40 expertise factors in your account anniversary after you spend $15,000 or extra on purchases throughout the anniversary 12 months.

The knowledge 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

Flying Blue miles are one of many best currencies to earn.

Earn miles by flying

You possibly can earn Flying Blue miles by flying. The way you earn these miles varies by airline, although. If you guide a flight on Air France or KLM, you may earn miles based mostly on how a lot you spend on the ticket (earlier than taxes and costs).

The variety of miles you may earn per greenback additionally is determined by your Flying Blue standing tier. Flying Blue Explorer members (these with out standing) earn 4 miles per euro spent, whereas Silver, Gold, Platinum and Final members earn 6, 7, 8 and 9 miles per euro spent, respectively. This incomes does not embody taxes and sure charges charged on the ticket.

Incomes with SkyTeam and nonalliance 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 may earn miles on the next standards:

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

Every airline associate awards a special variety of miles for every fare class — you will discover out what number of miles your associate flight will earn on the Flying Blue companions web page.

Spend on the Flying Blue bank card

One other technique 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 spent on all the pieces else.

Switch factors to Flying Blue

This system is a switch associate of:

The next playing cards all at the moment supply sturdy welcome bonuses that you may simply convert to Flying Blue miles at a 1:1 ratio:

Earn miles with inns, automobile leases, buying and experiences

Flying Blue has a variety of nonairline incomes companions, which lets you earn Flying Blue miles for actions and spending.

This consists of (however shouldn’t be restricted to):

• Earn 2 miles for each euro spent and get at the least 15% off of choose properties with Reserving.com.
• Earn 500 miles every time you keep at a Hyatt resort worldwide.
• Earn 12 miles for each euro spent on electrical automobiles with Hertz.
• Earn miles with a whole lot of shops by means of the Store for Miles on-line retailer.

Take a look at Flying Blue’s further companions to study how one can earn miles.

Find out how to redeem Flying Blue miles

Whereas there are numerous methods to redeem Flying Blue miles, we advocate sticking to award flights. This may nearly at all times provide the most worth in your miles.

Flying Blue makes use of dynamic pricing, which suggests there is no set award chart, and a few tickets may be extraordinarily costly (assume: 100,000 miles for an economy-class flight from New York Metropolis’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) to Europe).

Even with dynamic pricing, Flying Blue typically has the very best pricing for a lot of SkyTeam awards, beating out Delta, Korean Air and different main airways.

You must also know that Air France and KLM cost reasonable gas surcharges on some tickets. You possibly can anticipate to pay $200 to $350 on a one-way business-class award ticket throughout the Atlantic.

Guide Air France or KLM to Amsterdam, Paris and past

Whereas Flying Blue costs its awards dynamically, this system has now standardized the bottom saver-level pricing for all one-way flights between the U.S. and Europe as follows, no matter origin or vacation spot, that means you may join at no further value:

• 25,000 miles in financial system
• 40,000 miles in premium financial system
• 60,000 miles in enterprise class

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

Nonetheless, business-class seats at saver ranges may be onerous to search out, so it’s possible you’ll need to use an exterior device like Seats.aero to search out award seats in seconds.

Moreover, keep in mind you may spend just a few days in Paris or Amsterdam utilizing the free Flying Blue stopover program. This can be a nice technique to go to one other metropolis with out forking over further miles or money. To guide Flying Blue stopovers, you may have to name Flying Blue at 800-375-8723.

Guide Air France’s La Premiere first-class with miles

Whereas KLM doesn’t function a first-class cabin, Air France does. La Premiere is a spectacular luxurious aviation expertise accessible on choose Boeing 777-300ER plane to high-yield locations like New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Singapore.

Sadly, it is one of the crucial troublesome and costly award seats to guide. You possibly can solely guide this product with Flying Blue miles and provided that you maintain Flying Blue Platinum or Final standing. Charges are additionally very excessive, with a one-way first-class award from Miami to Paris costing 232,500 Flying Blue miles per individual.

Associated: Video from the primary flight within the new Air France La Premiere first-class

Maintain a watch out for Promo Rewards

Each month, Flying Blue releases discounted award tickets for choose dates and routes. Sometimes, you may snag financial system award seats from choose U.S. cities to Europe beginning at 18,750 miles, premium financial system awards beginning at 30,000 miles and business-class awards beginning at 45,000 miles.

You possibly can view an up-to-date checklist of Promo Rewards on the Flying Blue web site.

Backside line

Flying Blue is an underrated frequent flyer program. With month-to-month Promo Rewards, you may doubtlessly fly from the U.S. to Europe for underneath 20,000 miles one-way. Plus, this system permits you to add a free stopover in Paris or Amsterdam at no further mileage value.

Although Flying Blue does add excessive surcharges for award redemptions, it’s a transferable rewards program associate of all main bank cards.