Air France KLM Flying Blue offers promo awards which are specific routes discounted 25% – 50% for a month.
- You can fly the discounted route to Paris, and include a flight beyond Paris with the discount. So you can use any of their destinations in Europe.
- The deals can be good enough you might want to position to the city where the discount is offered from. They are usually offered on routes that aren’t filling up, so award space can be plentiful.
- Air France used to limit how far into the future you could book these (to just two months) but the booking window is now much greater – these are available for booking in April and travel through September 30.
Throughout the pandemic transatlantic promo awards have been sparse, especially in business class. However there’s finally a U.S. business class route that’s offered. And Air France KLM miles are easy to get, they are a partner of all of the major bank transfer currencies.
Here are the routes this month:
- Air France business class Houston – Paris and beyond (25% off)
- KLM coach Atlanta – Amsterdam and beyond (25% off)
- Air France coach Boston – Paris and beyond (25% off)
- KLM coach Boston – Amsterdam and beyond (25% off)
- KLM coach Los Angeles – Amsterdam and beyond (25% off)
- KLM coach San Francisco – Amsterdam and beyond (25% off)
Paris – Houston at the saver level should run 49,500 miles but if you’re starting or ending beyond Paris with a European connection that price can go even lower. I’ve had great luck booking this flight, in fact I even took it myself in March (as a booking for 3 passengers in business).
You can stack this with the new 25% bonus transferring Chase points to Air France KLM Flying Blue that runs through May 15. 40,000 Chase points yields 50,000 Flying Blue points under that offer, enough for Houston – Paris as a promo award at the lowest level. Other destinations beyond Paris may cost even fewer points.
Would be useful to also mention that while the points saving for these routes are great, the taxes and fees are not so much. $300 per person each way.
I did the same thing a while back. Af/KLM offered 25% off ORD – CDG in J, and Amex also had a transfer bonus. It came to 35K OW. Going to Bordeaux as a result of that.
Let the buyer beware
Flying Blue must get an award for the worst IT in history
I’ve almost never been able to book an award online without calling and they have some pretty rotten call centers,long hold times with subpar service at best.Many agents don’t do all that well with clear English.
Their miles expire easily and flying sky team for revenue or having the BOA credit card is the only way for the most part that can extend your miles.Activity won’t
Partner Delta (the crooks) has the worst availability of seats in North America likely since the start of FF programs.Shockingly bad. Other than that nice program 🙂
I am seeing no availability at these low levels on Paris to Houston for most of the summer.
Ditto. It’s so frustrating to find an award on their website and not being able to book it. Calling in is a real crapshoot but I must admit when I recently got through to someone they were extremely helpful. And yeah, those $300 fees are a little hard to swallow. But 50k from the West Coast to CPH is worth it for a July booking.
Just tried to Book on May 2nd
IAH- ZRH oneway in C and the cheapest was 195.000
Did I got something wrong?
For the prior two posters complaining about IT, just use the app. It works extremely well!
I usually do better with Virgin Atlantic miles for AF-KLM flight awards. And they often have 30% transfer bonuses.