Air France KLM Flying Blue

Flying Blue is the loyalty program of Air France, KLM, Transavia, Aircalin, TAROM, and Kenya Airways. Aside from these five airlines, the program offers access to SkyTeam-partner airlines and other affiliated airlines, such as Virgin Atlantic, Etihad Airways, and WestJet.

The program has become increasingly popular among North American travellers in recent years due to its competitive award pricing for flights to Europe, good seat availability, monthly Promo Rewards, ease of earning points, and reduced award redemptions for children.

Earning Air France KLM Flying Blue Miles

To start earning Flying Blue miles, you’ll need to first register for a Flying Blue account, which can be done through any of their five member airlines, or directly at Flying Blue’s webpage.

Note that Flying Blue miles will expire if there is no activity in your account for 24 months. However, as long as you earn or redeem miles during this period, your miles will remain active. The only exception is for child members, whose miles are exempt from expiration until they turn 18.

Let’s go over some of the best ways to earn Flying Blue miles.

1. Flying on Airline Partners

Flying on a paid flight with Air France, KLM, or any of their airline partners will earn you Flying Blue miles. On Air France and KLM-marketed flights, the number of miles earned will be based on the cost of the flight and your level of elite status with Flying Blue.

On Flying Blue and SkyTeam partner-marketed flights, the number of miles earned will be based on the airline, the mileage distance flown, the booking class, and your level of elite status with Flying Blue. Make sure to attach your Flying Blue number to your booking to ensure your miles are credited properly.

2. Transferring from Other Programs

The best and easiest way to earn Flying Blue miles is by transferring points from another partner loyalty program. Air France KLM Flying Blue is a transfer partner of 17 international banks and hotel programs, and e-Rewards, a survey company.

This allows you to take advantage of welcome bonuses and earning multipliers from your everyday spending in other programs, and then convert those points into Flying Blue miles when you’re ready to redeem.

You can transfer points from these loyalty programs into Flying Blue miles at the ratios below.

Banks:

• American Express Membership Rewards (Canada): 1 point = 0.75 Flying Blue miles
• American Express Membership Rewards: 1 point = 1 Flying Blue mile
• Bilt Rewards: 1 point = 1 Flying Blue mile
• Capital One Miles: 1 point = 1 Flying Blue mile
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: 1 point = 1 Flying Blue mile
• Citi ThankYou Rewards: 1 point = 1 Flying Blue mile
• HSBC (USA): 1 HSBC Rewards point = 1 Flying Blue mile
• Revolut (UK): 1 RevPoint = 1 Flying Blue mile
• Wells Fargo Rewards: 1 point = 1 Flying Blue mile

Hotels:

• Marriott Bonvoy: 60,000 points = 25,000 Flying Blue miles
• Accor Live Limitless: 2,000 points = 2,000 Flying Blue miles
• Best Western Rewards®: 6,000 points = 1,000 Flying Blue miles
• Choice Privileges: 5,000 points = 1,000 Flying Blue miles
• Hilton Honors: 10,000 points = 1,000 Flying Blue miles
• IHG® One Rewards: 10,000 points = 2,000 Flying Blue miles
• Radisson Rewards: 2,000 points = 200 Flying Blue Miles
• Shangri-La Golden Circle: 1,000 point = 1,000 Flying Blue mile
• World of Hyatt: 1,250 points = 500 Flying Blue miles

If you’re transferring from American Express Membership Rewards in Canada or Marriott Bonvoy, the stated transfer time is up to three days. Otherwise, points from all American bank partners will transfer instantly.

When making a redemption with Flying Blue and considering transferring points to complete it, be sure to factor in the transfer ratio to accurately evaluate the value you’ll get. This is particularly important when comparing redemptions across different programs.

3. Air France KLM Flying Blue Credit Cards

In October 2022, Brim Financial launched the Air France KLM Flying Blue World Elite Mastercard®, the first and only credit card in Canada that earns Flying Blue miles directly.

With an annual fee of $132, the Air France KLM Flying Blue World Elite Mastercard® has the following earn rates:

• Earn 5 Flying Blue miles per euro spent on eligible Air France and KLM flights
• Earn 2 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent (CAD) at eligible restaurants and bars
• Earn 1 Flying Blue mile per dollar spent (CAD) on other eligible purchases

At first glance, the earn rates may not seem impressive unless you’re flying frequently with Air France or KLM on paid tickets. However, when compared to American Express — the only Canadian bank that transfers to Flying Blue at a 1:0.7 ratio (1 point = 0.7 miles) — spending on Brim’s Air France KLM Flying Blue World Elite Mastercard® can earn you 43% more Flying Blue miles for the same dollar amount, assuming there are no additional multipliers.

As a sign up bonus, the card offers Experience Points (XP), which help you work toward achieving elite status within the Flying Blue program. In the past, it has offered up to 60,000 Flying Blue miles in addition to this.

The card also gives access to a shopping portal through its app, where you can earn up to 30 Miles per $1 spent at Merchant Partners.

On the US side, Bank of America launched the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard® in 2018. The card has a low annual fee of just $89 (USD) and comes with no foreign transaction fees.

The US-issued card comes with a different earning structure, outlined as follows:

• Earn 3 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent (USD) on eligible Air France and KLM flights
• Earn 1.5 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent (USD) on other eligible purchases

As an incentive to keep this card year after year, it offers 5,000 Flying Blue miles every year on your account anniversary if you’ve spent at least $50 (USD) on it annually.

4. Buying Miles

Air France and KLM also has frequent promotions to buy Flying Blue miles directly. The base rate is 3.17 cents (USD) per mile, but that rate can drop to as low as 1.39 cents (USD) per mile during one of the better promotions.

In October 2024, Air France KLM Flying Blue launched a new feature called “Subscribe to Miles.” It is a paid subscription-based program that allows members to purchase a certain quantity of Flying Blue miles on a monthly basis. The cost per mile decreases the more expensive the subscription. The lowest price works out to be 1.34 cents (USD) per mile, which is better than buying miles directly.

In general, buying miles outright should only be reserved for cases where you are short for your next redemption and need an immediate top-up, or for when you’re certain that buying miles is cheaper than paying cash for the same flight.

5. Flying Blue Family

Flying Blue Family allows family members to pool their points together so they can make that redemption sooner. A family can have up to eight Flying Blue members, with a maximum of two adults and six children (under the age of 18).

To set one up, go under your ‘My profile’ page on the Air France or KLM website.The member who creates a Flying Blue Family account will be designated as the leader. As the leader, they are the only one who can transfer Flying Blue miles between family members’ accounts. Transfers are final and the miles will be valid for two years.

6. Other Ways to Earn Flying Blue Miles

Lastly, there are many other ways of earning Flying Blue miles, including with car rentals, shopping through the Flying Blue online shopping portal, and staying at almost any hotel. The complete list of all 65+ partners and ways to earn can be found on the Flying Blue website.

Once you’ve added some Flying Blue miles to your account, they’ll expire if there hasn’t been any activity for 24 months; however, as long as you have some sort of earning or redeeming every year and a half, your miles won’t expire.

Redeeming Air France KLM Flying Blue Miles

Air France KLM Flying Blue miles can be redeemed for a variety of goods and services, including hotel stays and purchases through the Flying Blue shopping portal. However, like most airline loyalty programs, the best value is typically found when using miles to book flights, especially in premium cabins.

The best flights to book are on Flying Blue’s own participating airlines, or an airline that is a part of the SkyTeam alliance.

Flying Blue operates a dynamic pricing model, meaning that mile requirements can vary based on route and date. While the pricing can fluctuate unpredictably, the advantage is that every seat on a flight is available for booking with Flying Blue miles and that great deals can still be found when booking just a few days in advance. So, if you tend to book last-minute travel, it’s worth checking Flying Blue.

On any given day, Flying Blue may offer a certain number of seats at a lower, fixed award redemption rate, also known as the “Saver” rate. Once seats in that fare bucket have been exhausted, it will move up to the next fare bucket, which will require more miles.

If you find a flight that you like, you have the option to put the award flight on hold by calling the Flying Blue contact centre. By doing this, you’ll have up to 72 hours to transfer in enough miles and confirm the booking without having to worry about the reward redemption increasing.

The amount of taxes and fees on your ticket will also vary depending on what fare class you purchase. Generally, the higher the cabin class, the higher the taxes and fees that will be charged.

The booking window opens 360 days prior to departure, allowing you to plan and book flights nearly a year in advance.

1. Searching for Award Space

Flying Blue’s website will redirect you to either Air France or KLM’s own website to run and book award flights. Once you sign into your Flying Blue account on either site, you can easily enter your origin and destination, date, and run your search.

Searching this way will show you the availability of flights for your date +/- 3 days.

To get a calendar view of availability, simply leave the departure date blank and click ‘Search Flights’.

The lowest redemption will show for each day, but only for Air France and KLM flights.

Availability and pricing for partner airlines will not show in the weekly or calendar views.

For example, searching for a flight from Toronto to Nassau, Bahamas on May 7, a flight on Delta shows up, but you’ll see that there is no availability or pricing for the rest week shown above.

If you were to manually check different dates, you’d likely find other flights and potentially at a lower cost.

For example, on May 9, a WestJet flight is available for roughly one-third fewer Flying Blue miles.

Lastly, to search for First Class partner award flights, you’ll need to select “La Première” with Air France KLM when searching for a flight online. La Première is Air France’s First Class product, and we’ll cover this more below.

2. Flights with Air France and KLM

Air France and KLM offer an extensive network, making Flying Blue a great program for reaching a wide range of destinations.

Both airlines serve numerous major cities across Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City, along with various destinations in Europe. This makes them an excellent choice for connecting North America to nearly any European city.

Even better, in October 2023, Flying Blue harmonized all award pricing between North American and Europe. This means that a longer flight from Vancouver to Prague costs the same as the much shorter flight from Toronto to Paris.

You can use Flying Blue’s rewards map to play around with routes, to get an approximation of how many miles will be required for your redemption.

Alternatively, if you have a specific trip in mind, you can visit this webpage to look up the expected one-way entry fare in miles.
For example, a flight from Toronto to Geneva would start from 35,000 miles in premium economy.

A flight from Vancouver to Cape Town would cost 35,000 miles in economy class.

These fares represent an incredible deal, as redeeming similar direct flights through Aeroplan, might require over double the number of points, especially in the premium cabins.

Keep in mind that this represents the lower end of the dynamic pricing spectrum, so award prices can be significantly higher depending on your travel dates.

To get the best value, it’s advisable to book well in advance and maintain some flexibility with your travel dates.

We’ll cover this in more detail later, but with Flying Blue’s monthly Promo Rewards, you could score up to 50% off on these already great-value redemptions.

3.. Flights with Partner Airlines

You can redeem Flying Blue miles on partner airlines, but availability is hit and miss, and searching for it through Flying Blue’s search page can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

For example, only one seat in economy and one seat in business class on China Airlines from Vancouver to Taipei is released at calendar open. The redemption itself is quite reasonable and the availability is predictable, but if you were hoping to travel with family, you’re out of luck.

Conversely, you can find Vietnam Airlines business class availability for multiple seats between San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh City, but availability is random and unpredictable.

WestJet award availability is great with multiple seats available, but only in economy and only on certain routes.

There are better ways to book with some of these partner airlines, so be sure to search around for the best sweet spot for each one.

You may also notice that Air France and KLM reward tickets come with moderate surcharges on award bookings. If you’re okay with flying in economy, then be sure to look out for Delta flights, which don’t come with the same burden of taxes and fees.

For example, flying from Boston to London Heathrow on Air France will incur $157.90 (CAD) taxes and fees, while a flight on Delta will incur only $45.10 (CAD) taxes and fees.

The differences are even more stark when flying in business class, since Air France, KLM, and Virgin Atlantic flights all come with carrier-imposed surcharges, while flights with Delta don’t.

4. First Class Flights with Partner Airlines

Flying Blue points can also be used to book First Class flights on select partner airlines. This has only been a possibility since the fall of 2023, when First Class award space began to appear with China Eastern, Garuda Indonesia, and Xiamen Air.

It’s certainly possible that more First Class partners will become available to be booked with Flying Blue miles in the future.

5. Upgrade Using Flying Blue Miles

Flying Blue miles can be used to upgrade an economy class seat to a business class seat on Air France, KLM, Aeromexico, China Airlines, Aircalin, Czech Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Kenya Airways, Korean Air, and TAROM.

Upgrades are subject to availability. There’s no published chart for how much an upgrade costs, but they are bookable by calling customer service and payable by miles until check-in opens. After check-in opens, upgrades can be done online, at the airport, or even after boarding, and are payable by miles, cash or a combination of the two.

Air France KLM Flying Blue Sweet Spots

Flying Blue has a few great sweet spots to keep in mind if you’re planning a trip to Europe, Africa, or even within North America. We’ve already discussed flying to Europe extensively, so let’s focus on Africa and within North America.

1. Flights Within North America

Flying Blue miles can also be useful for economy class flights with WestJet and Delta, either within North America or to Europe. Seat availability for both airline partners appears to be good, often with at least several seats available for redemption on any given date.

Flying on Delta using the airline’s own SkyMiles program can often cost an amazingly large number of SkyMiles. Using Flying Blue miles to redeem for Delta flights can represent a significant cost savings.

For example, flying from Toronto to Salt Lake City costs 32,300 Delta SkyMiles, but only 18,500 Flying Blue Miles.

Assuming your points were transferred from an Amex card issued in the United States, where the transfer ratio to Delta SkyMiles and Flying Blue Miles are both 1:1, you would definitely save a lot more miles by redeeming through the Flying Blue program.

The cost may not always be the cheapest through Flying Blue, so you’ll want to check the cost between the programs to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

2. Flights Between North America and Africa

Using Flying Blue miles to book an economy class seat from Toronto to Nairobi costs as little as 35,000 Flying Blue miles and $236 (CAD) in taxes and fees. If we were to once again compare the cost to using Aeroplan points, you’d need at least 20,000 more points for a similar itinerary.

To Morocco, a one-way economy flight from Toronto can cost as little as 20,000 Flying Blue miles and $196 (CAD) in taxes and fees.

3. Flights Within Africa

If you’re flying within Africa, then Flying Blue miles can save you a lot on your flights.

For example, a flight from Nairobi to Victoria Falls will cost over $1,000 (CAD), but only cost 14,000 miles and $122.50 (CAD) in taxes and fees.

Air France KLM Flying Blue Unique Features

1. Air France La Première

Air France’s First Class product, La Première, is one of the most difficult to book using points. The airline only allows Platinum members to redeem Flying Blue miles for La Première, and up to three award seats are released on any given flight.

As an example of pricing, a one-way redemption in La Première will cost 160,500 Flying Blue miles between Paris and Washington DC, which is equivalent to a whopping 229,286 Amex Membership Rewards (Canada) points.

If Platinum status with Flying Blue is unattainable and you don’t have any friends who can assist with booking, your next option is to book a low-priced business class ticket on a First Class route and chance it for an upgrade.

2. Promo Rewards

The best way to use Flying Blue miles is to redeem them in conjunction with Promo Rewards.

Promo Rewards are monthly specials that Air France KLM Flying Blue offers to its members that reduce the cost for redemptions by up to 50%.

For example, the lowest cost for a flight between Europe and Montreal is 50,000 Flying Blue miles in business class.

If there happens to be a Promo Reward that’s offering a 50% discount for flights between Europe and Montreal, you’ll only pay 25,000 miles for that same flight. 25% discounts seem to be much more common than 50% discounts, but the latter still do appear from time to time.

Keep in mind that Promo Rewards aren’t always valid for travel in business class and that the best deals are usually found in the shoulder seasons. However, if you want to score a great deal on flight to or from Europe, Promo Rewards are your best bet.

3. Flying with Children at a Discount

An often overlooked feature of Flying Blue, for families specifically, is the 25% discount on award tickets for children ages 2 to 11 on all Air France and KLM operated flights. The discount applies to any cabin and can be booked directly online.

If you were hoping to enjoy a business class flight to Europe, it will only cost you 37,500 Flying Blue miles to bring your child along, instead of the usual 50,000 miles.

4. Free Stopovers

If you make a reward booking through Air France KLM Flying Blue, you can add a stopover of up to a year for free! This feature was released recently, and it has added further value to a program.

You’ll need to call in to the contact centre to add the stopover, which is a bit of an inconvenience, but well worth your effort if you want to stretch your miles a bit further.

Keep in mind that the highest fare between any two regions when redeeming Flying Blue at the saver award price is 95,000 miles. As examples, you could fly Sao Paulo–Paris–Tokyo or Toronto–Amsterdam–Nairobi for just 95,000 miles with a free stopover in Paris or Amsterdam.

Free stopovers can be booked when flying on partner airlines as well, which is also done only when calling in.

Air France KLM Flying Blue Elite Status

Like many airline loyalty programs, Flying Blue has elite status tiers that can be earned by flying with any of the Flying Blue partner airlines.

Qualifying for Flying Blue Elite Status

You can gain Flying Blue elite status by earning Experience Points (XP), which is mostly accomplished by flying on paid flights.

The number of XP you’ll earn for any given flight depends on the class of service you’re in and the distance of the flight you’re on, which is summarized in the following chart:

Based on the chart, you’ll earn more XP for higher classes of service and on longer flights.

For example, if you flew Montreal to Paris in economy, you would earn 8 XP since the distance between the two cities is 3,442 miles and you flew in economy class.

You can also earn XP by holding a co-branded credit card.

For example, the welcome bonus on the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard® has offered 60 XP upon being approved, and 30 XP on each cardholder anniversary.

XP can also be earned through sustainability initiatives. For example, you can donate miles to charities or purchase Sustainable Aviation Fuel and be rewarded with XP for both.

Lastly, if you connect your Flying Blue account with an Accor Live Limitless account, you’ll earn 10 XP after you complete your first stay at an Accor Live Limitless hotel or your flight eligible flight.

Conclusion

Air France KLM Flying Blue is becoming more and more attractive to North American travellers due to good coverage throughout the continent, having many transfer partners, attractive monthly Promo Rewards, and family-friendly award redemptions.

In particular, redemptions to Europe and Africa on Air France and KLM, within North America on Delta and WestJet, and within Africa with Kenya Airlines are sweet spots of the program.

Now that Air France KLM has a co-branded credit card available in Canada and the United States, it makes it even easier to earn Flying Blue miles at a more favorable rate. even more If you’re heading to Europe, or to anywhere else that Air France or KLM flies, be sure to consider Flying Blue as your program of choice for most SkyTeam airlines.

†Terms and conditions apply. Refer to the card issuer’s website for complete, up-to-date information.