20% Transfer Bonuses From Capital One To Air France & British Airways Through 8/31/22

Through August 31, 2022, Capital One is offering new transfer bonuses to both British Airways Executive Club and Air France KLM Flying Blue.

Great Offers For Both Programs

I find Air France KLM Flying Blue to be very useful.

  • All of the major points transferable currencies work with Air France KLM Flying Blue To Air France this is a way to get a piece of the lucrative U.S. credit card market, when card isn’t nearly as profitable in Europe due to capped interchange.

  • Air France KLM Flying Blue is the most useful program in SkyTeam for U.S. members. Their award availability, especially for their own members, can be quite good and Air France and KLM fly to numerous U.S. destinations and beyond. Pricing is generally reasonable.

  • There are frequent points transfer bonuses from various currencies for moving points to Flying Blue.

They also run monthly promo awards that can reduce the cost of redemption even further. However I would not move points speculatively. They don’t have an award chart and can change points pricing at any time. Besides, the option value of having points in a transferable account is high – you never know where you might need the points later.

It is, at a minimum, a good idea to open a Flying Blue account now even if you’re not going to use it for awhile. Brand new accounts, with points transferred in and redeemed immediately, have been known to cause fraud alerts (especially for online redemption, less so for booking over the phone). Having an aged account can be helpful when it comes time to do a booking.

I find less use for the British Airways program generally, though I like short distance awards especially in Europe, intra-Asia and Australia. The reason I find myself using their program less than others is because – unlike SkyTeam – there are valuable programs within oneworld I can use. For instance I’ll get better value on many redemptions using miles in an American AAdvantage or Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account.

Still, the ability to move BA’s points into an active Iberia account is useful for redemption son Iberia which can be head for as little as 34,000 miles one-way in transatlantic business class, and BA has recently reduced the cost of Qatar Airways redemptions now that BA and Qatar Avios can be transferred back and forth as well.

Great Offer Even If You Won’t Use It

Ultimately I’m thrilled to see these offers even though I’m not going to take advantage of them now. I often don’t know when I’ll need it, and I check each of my transferable points accounts for a bonus before choosing which one to transfer from. I’ve recently redeemed Flying Blue points for a Paris – Chicago flight, and just last week redeemed something intra-Europe (since, while Virgin Atlantic was cheaper for the same award, the Virgin site kept erroring and a telephone agent was not helpful).

It’s also good to see Capital One continuing to offer transfer bonuses. That’s a credit to the value of their miles.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. I have found Air France/KLM very difficult to use. They never have what I need. On the other hand, a few weeks ago I took Aadvantage of BA’s 30% transfer bonus and booked business class to Europe for cheap. I moved the points from BA to Iberia and saved on BA’s outrageous taxes/fees.

  2. I agree with Alan BA slams typically with nuisance fees and their website for a long time now won’t allow redeposit of miles when needed offering expiring travel vouchers instead unless calling with longgggggggg hold times

    Flying blue KLM Flying blue has a poor website to book constant errors and up to 900,000 one way business class awards from the West Coast to Europe.If your lucky you may find something for 60:to 100 k but slim pickings if you do.I would need @ 300% bonus with their outrageous pricing
    Added to that good luck finding Delta awards in the US rarely ever available and still higher then delta if you do.I’m out

  3. Flying Blue just went through two massive and subsequent devaluations, the most recent on 8/1. Don’t transfer any points to this program speculatively. Prices have changed a lot!

Comments are closed.