Sometimes it feels as if the best deals in travel come and go all too fast, but one glaring exception is Flying Blue’s monthly “Promo Awards”. Flying Blue is the loyalty program of Air France/KLM and even if you’ve never actually flown with either airline, you can instantly create Flying Blue miles via your credit card points. Basically, it’s an opportunity for almost anyone playing the points game, and it’s a game worth playing. Here’s the latest round of promotional offers, which bring transatlantic travel under 40,000 miles one way!
It’s the first of the month, which means it’s time for new Promo Awards from Air France and KLM. This month, two North American cities get access to 25% off the usual price in points for business class, and one gets 25% off premium economy. The cool thing about these points redemptions is that they are good for basically any city in Europe as a starting point, which gives you lots of flexibility, and yes, you can start in either direction.
- Premium Economy: New York JFK – Europe: 34,125 Points One Way
- Business Class: Toronto (YYZ) – Europe : 39,750 Points One Way
- Business Class: Mexico City – Europe: 39,750 Points One Way
On virtually any city pair, you’ll find taxes around $250 each way.
You can book these as round trips, or as one ways, which makes them incredibly flexible and lucrative no matter what your plans are. These can be a great way to combine a great cash fare one way with points the other, or use other points to fly a different way home.
This months batch of September Promo Awards are for travel in November and December. These can be particularly handy if you have travel planned for Thanksgiving holidays, or December when flights can be particularly expensive. It’s a lot more fun to pay points than cash! Basically, you can use them in either direction to cover part, or all of your travel.
Being able to pay no extra miles for access to Air France and KLM’s extensive European flight network is amazing, which effectively gets you a free flight within Europe in business class, since you’ll be transiting via Paris or Amsterdam to wherever your final destination is.
Got Amex, Citi, Chase or Capital One Points? You’re all set. One of the best features of the Flying Blue program is the ability to convert American Express Membership Rewards, Citi Thank You, Capital One Venture and Chase Ultimate Rewards into Flying Blue miles, by logging into your credit card account and simply transferring the points over. Before you do this though, you’ll need to create a Flying Blue account, if you don’t already have one.
All the programs above transfer at 1:1, with the exception of Capital One, where 2 Capital One Venture miles gets you 1.5 Flying Blue miles. It’s worth noting that credit card programs like Capital One, Citi, and Amex do run bonus offers for Flying Blue transfers from time to time, and when they happen it can be worth moving points from your credit card into FlyingBlue for a future use.
Though they won’t help you in time for this months promo awards, these great US credit card offers bring between 50,000-100,000 points which can certainly make a dent in next month, or any future months Flying Blue Promo Award offers!
For such an amazing offer, these awards are actually pretty easy to book. You just need to get the correct number of points in place, and since these offers come every month, it’s not an awful idea to move a stash there in advance, if you have some to spare. As far as the nuts and bolts go, here’s the process…
- Once you’ve created a FlyingBlue account, go to either Air France or KLM and search “Using Miles”. Clicking either of those links will take you to that page.
- Enter dates between November 1st and December 31st, one way searches are easiest, but round trip is fine. You can book two one ways to make a round trip…
- Use New York, Mexico City or Toronto as either the departure of destination, and a city in Europe as the other. Final destinations outside of Paris or Amsterdam tend to bring the lowest price in miles.
- You can’t finalize a booking until miles are in your account, but you can search without miles in your account. Always keep in mind that unless you put a flight on hold over the phone, availability can change in the time it takes to transfer points.
That’s it, you’ve done all it takes to score business class to or from Europe or North America to the other for a mere 39,750 points and $250 one way. That’s a smashing deal. If this months promo’s don’t have what you need, there’s always next month! Mexico City is an amazing city with a buzzing food scene and is a great choice, even if its a bit out of the way.
