Air France KLM Flying Blue is offering awards on short-distance Delta flights for as few as 1,500 miles (and just 4,000 miles in first class). Compare Delta for similar flights and you’ll find prices of 15,000 or more in coach, and over 30,000 miles for first class.
Both Frequent Miler (first) and now Dan’s Deals are highlighting the opportunity. For instance,
- Detroit – Cleveland: shows up as 5,000 points in coach and 15,000 points in first class but drops to 2,000 and 5,000, respectively, once you click through, plus about $16 in fees.
- Minneapolis – Rochester, M.N. has coach as low as 1,500 points and first from 4,000.
- New York LaGuardia – Boston coach drops down to 4,000 points after clicking through an initial higher price.
- Los Angeles – San Diego drops to 2,500 points for coach and 6,000 for first class.
- Albany – New York LaGuardia comes to 3,000 in coach and 7,500 in first.
- One commenter at Frequent Miler’s site found a similar deal in place for Aeromexico domestic awards within Mexico.
Search the Flying Blue website. Don’t worry, you’ll initially see higher pricing, as long as this unannounced sale is around the lower rates appear once you select a flight.
Fortunately, Flying Blue points are easy to come by. Transfers are generally instant, and Air France KLM partners with all of the major bank transferable point currencies. There’s even currently a 20% bonus on transfers from Chase to Flying Blue.
You won’t be able to use Flying Blue’s calendar view for Delta domestic awards. You’ll have to choose specific dates to uncover these deals, but availability on short flights is often quite good.
It’s been flagged that while the Flying Blue website says these tickets won’t include seat selection, many folks have reported being able to choose seats for free during booking. Bear in mind that you likely won’t want to make any changes to these awards – they’ll be effectively use it or lose it – given a €70 change fee (considering the number of points involved).
Without a published award chart, it’s tough to ever know whether a deal like this is an unannounced sale – and Flying Blue runs regular award sales! – or a mistake. I choose to believe it is the former.
A year ago Air France KLM had a mistake price on transatlantic business class where some flyers got tickets for as little as 13,500 miles, indeed in some cases just 1,500 miles.
They considered honoring it for everyone but were afraid of the precedent. Ultimately the deal was honored for Flying Blue Gold members and higher. There are now plenty of those (like me) from the Bilt status match.
Sometimes deals like this are honored. Sometimes deals like this are not honored. The best approach is to jump on them, and then if people are getting to travel for 1,500 points one of them gets to be you! And if the deal is not honored, but dealt with promptly by the travel provider, move on to the next deal.
LA – SD and Alabany to LGA are some great options here…. really worth the time to read.
There’s lots more. Go find them. But I also highlighted New York – Boston and that this even works intra-Mexico.
Sure, technically, this may be a ‘deal,’ but shouldn’t Delta, like, pay us for our troubles, if we have to endure one of its CRJ9s on an intra-Minnesota flight? Even in ‘First’ that tiny-ass plane is no bueno.
That said, I do have a bunch of FlyingBlue points from the BofA card’s sign-up bonus, and I cannot seem to ever find a reason to use them.
LGA-BOS is probably a better use, maybe on an E190, which I much prefer. But still, those ‘shuttle’ flights get delayed so often, the Acela is more reliable.
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to Ben L and the gang at AF-KL, and thanks for the holiday gift.
Alternatively, I suspect these mileage ticket prices are a reflection of the cash price paid by AF-KL to Delta for the DL-operated flights flown on AF-KL-issued mileage tickets. In other words, could be part and parcel of expanded “dynamic pricing” of mileage tickets but which won’t remain this low as AF-KL needs its margins.
These tickets are almost certain to be honored. They’re not even that “cheap” on a comparative basis — and pretty much useless if you don’t live near or are visiting a DL hub. For example, Alaska just bought Hawaiian, and many interisland award tickets are now only 3500 miles (like half what Hawaiian was charging). I’m sure that’s not a mistake. DL will almost certainly not like the AF move — it makes Skypesos worth even less — so buy them if you know you can use them for flights you really want to take.