Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program should be interesting to U.S. frequent flyers for several reasons.

1. They offer one-way awards, which Delta won’t have until next year.
   
2. They are an American Express Membership Rewards and a Citi Thank You points transfer partner.
   
3. They have access to award space that Delta won’t let you have.
   
4. They have most of their partners available for online booking

Unfortunately their call centers are frustrating, their website can be too (and has been known to show ‘phantom’ award availability, seats that look available but aren’t really here to book).

And they add fuel surcharges onto award tickets.

One of the great values, historically, has been their ‘promo awards’.

Award tickets discounted as much as half the cost of their regular award chart can be a great value, for a relatively short booking window and for travel between specific cities and Europe. (For instance, travel from a featured U.S. city through Paris on Air France or Amsterdam on KLM to anywhere in Europe half the usual miles.)

A few things have made these awards less valuable than they used to be, though.

1. The award chart got more expensive. So half off is still more miles than before.
   
2. Promo awards aren’t even always half off anymore, they’re frequently now 25% off. Raise prices, then discount them a little bit, and you’re really looking at ‘regular price’
   
3. Promo awards tend to be available for fewer destinations, at least for business class.

Indeed, the new promo awards list is out for January bookings and travel in March and April, and these become bookable on Thursday. Here are the North America-Europe options.

There are only 2 US cities and 2 Canadian cities. Still, and even with fuel surcharges, half off premium economy to Europe and back from Atlanta will be useful to some. Toronto and Montreal offer business class at half off.

---

You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!