The Complete Guide to Flying Blue Promo Rewards

As Frugal Flyers, we’re always looking out for the next best deals to use our hard-earned points and miles. There is a hidden gem in the points and miles landscape that you may not be aware of but could provide some great redemptions in the future. 

Flying Blue, the joint loyalty program of both Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, offers Flying Blue Promo Rewards monthly, which can get you to Europe and beyond for just a handful of points!

Let’s take a look at the Flying Blue program, their Promo Rewards, and how we can take advantage of them for our next trip!

The Value of the Air France KLM Flying Blue Program

Being in Canada, we tend to focus a lot on Air Canada Aeroplan as this option consistently gives us amazing value and serves our home airports. This makes it easy to overlook other airline loyalty programs. However, we believe that the Air France KLM Flying Blue is a program that Canadians can routinely get value from. 

While Flying Blue uses dynamic pricing for their redemption flights, the amazing value of the program is through their Saver level award redemptions. This provides standardized pricing on one-way Transatlantic flights between anywhere in North America and Europe. The Saver level award redemptions are as follows:

• Economy Class: 20,000 miles one way per person
• Premium Economy Class: 35,000 miles one way per person
• Business Class: 50,000 miles one way per person

For example, if you can find Saver availability, a flight on Air France’s business class from Toronto to Paris would cost 50,000 miles. Redemptions like that are unrivaled in the world of miles and points!

It is worth noting that Saver availability for business class is harder to come by compared to economy class, so be prepared to do some digging if you are looking to make this redemption. However, 20,000 miles for a flight from Toronto to Paris in economy class is still amazing! 

Taxes and fees for award redemptions are reasonable – you can expect to pay between $100 to $300 USD per person depending on the cabin type.

Pro Tip: Using award search tools is going to be essential when looking for Saver flights with Flying Blue. Check out our guide to Seats.aero, a valuable tool that will help you find availability, or see our comparison of different award flight searching tools for other options.

What are Flying Blue Promo Rewards?

I hope I have convinced you that Air France KLM Flying Blue is a strong program that you should consider in your points and miles portfolio. But what if I told you, the value doesn’t stop there?

Every month, Flying Blue launches a new set of Promo Rewards. In short, Flying Blue Promo Rewards offer a 25% discount on points required for award redemptions of certain routes. 

These are published on the first of the month and are active until the end of the month and valid for flights departing within 6 months. For example, February’s Promo Rewards are valid for flights departing until July 31st.

Past Flying Blue Monthly Promo Reward Opportunities

While we won’t know for sure the exact deals and routes we will get from month to month, we can look back at historical offerings to anticipate what we can expect from these Promo Rewards in the future.

In December 2023, we saw some great deals from Canada to Europe. You could fly to Europe from Vancouver or Montreal for 15,000 Flying Blue miles in Economy. From Ottawa, a flight on premium economy to Europe for 26,250 miles is also enticing. However, the best deal was Toronto to Europe in business class for only 37,500 miles!

Drawing from December 2023’s examples, here is what we think the best deals are using Flying Blue Promo Rewards for that month: 

• North America to Europe in economy class for 15,000 Flying Blue miles
• North America to Europe in business class for 37,500 Flying Blue miles

These are industry-leading deals – 37,500 miles is what most economy tickets to Europe cost on other airlines! 

There are also great redemptions for getting around Europe on short-haul flights. For example, we think February 2024’s deal of Amsterdam to Milan for 5,625 Flying Blue miles was a great deal.

By looking at the Promo Rewards, you could structure a neat trip bouncing around to different destinations in Europe for a fraction of the cost!

How to Book Flying Blue Promo Rewards

To book a Flying Blue Promo Reward, you are going to have to act quite quickly. Remember that the routes are posted on the 1st of every month, so it is good practice to visit the Flying Blue Promo Rewards Page on the 1st to see if there are any deals that you want to jump on! If you haven’t subscribed to our newsletter yet, we highly recommend doing so because we will always aim to highlight any amazing deals that we see! 

Let’s say you found a reward that you like – the next step is to book the flight. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but once you click on the tile of the route that you want to book, it doesn’t take you directly to the booking page. Instead, it brings you to either Air France or KLM’s main page, where you need to put in the route that is featured for the Promo Reward.

There are a few things to keep in mind and tricks to finding availability:

• Make sure you select “Book with Miles” at the top of the search.
• Make sure that “One-way” is selected because Promo Rewards are only valid on one-way tickets. 
• Make sure that the correct cabin is selected – in the example above, we selected “Business” from Toronto to Paris for the December 2023 Promo Reward.
  • If you select the wrong cabin, the Promo Reward won’t show up. 
• If you aren’t tied to a specific date that you want to fly, do not select “Departure date.” This will make the search tool pop up an award calendar so you can see which days still have the Promo Reward available. 

Keep in mind that finding availability on the date and route that you desire is the hardest part of this process. Additionally, don’t forget that you can always book a positioning flight or employ any of our other best practices when booking award flights to increase your odds of finding your dream redemption.

I don’t have enough points and the transfer will take too long – what do I do?

We’ve all been there – we see an award redemption that we want to book, but when we go to finalize, we realize that we don’t have enough points! While some transferable points can move over to Flying Blue instantly (more on this below), some take anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days. This might mean that the hotly contested Flying Blue Promo Reward flight will get snatched up while we’re caught waiting.

Luckily, Flying Blue allows holds on award tickets for up to 72 hours. Better yet, it’s free! If you find a Promo Reward or any award on Air France or KLM (no partner airlines allowed sadly), call the Flying Blue Reservation Line at 1 (800) 375-8723, give them the route and date that you see available online and they will place a hold on it for your account. Make sure you have signed up with the Flying Blue program and have your account number on hand! 

Best Ways to Earn Flying Blue Miles

Luckily for us, there are a few ways to earn Flying Blue miles to use towards one of these Promo Rewards without taking an Air France or KLM flight. Let’s take a look at some strategies and see which one works best.

Flying Blue Co-Branded Credit Cards

In Canada, you can apply for the Brim Air France KLM Flying Blue World Elite Mastercard if you are looking to increase your Flying Blue mileage balance. Interestingly, this credit card historically does not come with a welcome bonus of Flying Blue miles. Instead, it provides XP points that go towards earning elite status with Flying Blue.

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Brim Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard

The Brim Financial Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard offers Flying Blue Miles on purchases that can be used for flights around the world, along with a way to increase your status with Flying Blue.

Check out our Brim Financial Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard review for more details.

BONUS
60,000 Flying Blue Miles

MINSPEND
$10,000

NET VALUE
$1,008+

ANNUAL FEE
$132

FOREX FEES
Yes

EXPIRY
Jun 10, 2024

With this credit card, you can earn Flying Blue Miles through spending in the following categories:

• Up to 30 Flying Blue Miles per dollar spent with Brim’s merchant partners.
• 2 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent at restaurants.
• 1 Flying Blue mile per dollar spent everywhere else. 

As you can see, it would take quite a bit of spending on the Brim Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard to get enough points for a flight, so you may want to consider other options. 

If you have access to the US credit card market as a Canadian, the Bank of America Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard (US) is a good option to accrue Flying Blue miles. Note that as a Canadian with an ITIN, you can only apply for a Bank of America credit card in person at a branch.

Apply Now Learn More

Bank of America Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard

The Bank of America Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard earns Flying Blue Miles on all purchases and offers cardholders the ability to earn XP towards Flying Blue status through holding the card and spending.

BONUS
50,000 Flying Blue Miles

MINSPEND
$2,000

NET VALUE
$861+

ANNUAL FEE
$89

FOREX FEES
No

EXPIRY
–

Historically, you will earn at least 50,000 Flying Blue miles after meeting the minimum spending requirement on this card. That’s enough for one business class flight from Toronto to Paris on Air France business class! 

In addition, you will earn Flying Blue miles with your spending as follows:

• 3 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent directly with Air France, KLM, and SkyTeam Alliance airlines.
• 1.5 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent on everything else.

We value Flying Blue miles at around 2 cents per point CAD, so you’ll earn at least 3% back on purchases. With no foreign transaction fees, this option from Bank of America is quite an attractive option for a credit card that earns Flying Blue miles, even when using it in Canada.

Transfer Partners

As with many airline programs, we think the best and most efficient way to earn miles is through bank transfer partners. Here’s a list of the bank programs that transfer to Flying Blue miles:

With only one strictly Canadian transfer partner, we feel as though American Express Membership Rewards Canada does not act as the strongest transfer partner for Flying Blue at a rate of 4:3. However, with the 25% discount on the Flying Blue Promo Rewards, it effectively makes this a 1:1 transfer. Thus, we recommend only transferring Membership Rewards Canada points for redemption via Promo Rewards only, or if you’re just a little shy on miles for another Flying Blue redemption. 

Once again, the US credit card market dominates the transfer partners for Flying Blue, with the main bank programs transferring 1:1, which is much more favorable over the Canadian transfer rate. If redeemed for a Promo Reward, the value gets even better at an effective 1:1.25 transfer rate! This is another example of why we think it is so important for points and miles enthusiasts to start their US credit card journey as soon as possible! 

As always, be sure to check out our Miles & Points Transfer Partner Tool for a comprehensive list of all transfer partners in the points and miles world and the most up-to-date transfer rates.

Conclusion

Air France KLM Flying Blue is a strong airline loyalty program that often gets overlooked by Canadians. However, with their Saver awards and amazing monthly Promo Rewards, we think this is a hidden gem for Canadians to get to Europe and beyond for a fraction of the price. 

Be sure to sign up for our newsletter as we will try to highlight amazing Flying Blue Promo Rewards when they come up!