Air France-KLM Flying Blue: How you can earn and redeem miles, elite standing and extra

Air France and KLM fashioned the Air France-KLM Group and shortly after launched a joint loyalty program known as Flying Blue.

Although award availability may be unpredictable resulting from dynamic pricing, Flying Blue continues to be in style with vacationers due to its record of bank card switch companions, profitable Promo Rewards and saver-level award seats. When you’re trying to redeem your bank card factors and miles with Flying Blue, this is every thing that you must find out about this system.

Associated: How you can discover the most cost effective redemption charges utilizing Flying Blue miles

Flying Blue program overview

Flying Blue is the joint loyalty program of Air France, KLM and Transavia. 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 and expertise factors for elite standing qualification. When you attain elite standing, you should use your advantages on these airways and reciprocal advantages on different companion airways.

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 let you earn Flying Blue miles, corresponding to 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

Notice that there could also be restrictions relating to the flights you may 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 understand what to anticipate.

Flying Blue elite standing tiers

Flying Blue provides 4 elite standing tiers: Silver, Gold, Platinum and Final. You’ll be able to 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 flexibility to earn 6 Flying Blue miles per euro spent
• Free customary seat choice
• Precedence check-in, baggage drop-off 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)
• 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
• Further legroom availability 24 hours earlier than departure (on Air France and KLM flights)

Flying Blue Gold

Gold requires a further 180 expertise factors. You will have entry to the Flying Blue Silver advantages and:

• The flexibility 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
• Further legroom availability 72 hours earlier than departure (on Air France and KLM flights)

Flying Blue Platinum

Flying Blue’s Platinum standing requires a further 300 expertise factors and contains all Gold advantages. Nonetheless, it sweetens the deal by upgrading some advantages and including others, corresponding to:

• The flexibility 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 flexibility to e-book 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)
• Further legroom availability on the time of reserving (on Air France and KLM flights)

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

Flying Blue Final

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

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

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

How you can qualify for Flying Blue elite standing

You’ll be able to 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 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 space you fly and cabin class.

	Home	Medium (0 to 2,000 miles, worldwide)	Lengthy 1 (2,001 to three,500 miles, worldwide)	Lengthy 2 (3,501 to five,000 miles, worldwide)	Lengthy 3 (5,000-plus miles, worldwide)
Economic system	2 expertise factors	5 expertise factors	8 expertise factors	10 expertise factors	12 expertise factors
Premium financial system	4 expertise factors	10 expertise factors	16 expertise factors	20 expertise factors	24 expertise factors
Enterprise class	6 expertise factors	15 expertise factors	24 expertise factors	30 expertise factors	36 expertise factors
Firstclass	10 expertise factors	25 expertise factors	40 expertise factors	50 expertise factors	60 expertise factors

Earn expertise factors by 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 by way of bank card spending.

You obtain 60 expertise factors whenever you open your account for the primary yr. In subsequent years, you earn 20 expertise factors in your account anniversary. Plus, you may earn a further 40 expertise factors in your account anniversary after you spend $15,000 or extra on purchases inside the anniversary yr.

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 offered 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’ll be able to earn Flying Blue miles by flying. The way you earn these miles varies by airline, although. If you e-book a flight on Air France or KLM, you may earn miles primarily based on how a lot you spend on the ticket (earlier than taxes and charges).

The variety of miles you may earn per greenback additionally relies on 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 Flying Blue is a distinct 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 companion awards a distinct variety of miles for every fare class — you will discover out what number of miles your companion 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 instantly with a SkyTeam airline and 1.5 Flying Blue miles per greenback spent on every thing else.

Switch factors to Flying Blue

This system is a switch companion of:

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

Earn miles with motels, 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 contains (however shouldn’t be restricted to):

• Earn 2 miles for each euro spent and get at the very 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 tons of of outlets by the Store for Miles on-line retailer.

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

How you can redeem Flying Blue miles

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

Flying Blue makes use of dynamic pricing, which implies there isn’t any 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’ll be able to anticipate to pay $200 to $350 on a one-way business-class award ticket throughout the Atlantic.

Ebook 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, which 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

Do not forget that these charges are just for the bottom saver-level seats, that are restricted. We have now 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 arduous to seek out, so it’s possible you’ll need to use an exterior software like Seats.aero to seek out award seats in seconds.

Moreover, bear in mind you may spend a couple of 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 e-book Flying Blue stopovers, you may have to name Flying Blue at 800-375-8723.

Ebook Air France’s La Premiere top notch 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 tough and costly award seats to e-book. You’ll be able to solely e-book 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 top notch

Preserve a watch out for Promo Rewards

Each month, Flying Blue releases discounted award tickets for choose dates and routes. Usually, 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’ll be able to view an up-to-date record 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 probably fly from the U.S. to Europe for below 20,000 miles one-way. Plus, this system helps 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 companion of all main bank cards.