Earlier today I wrote about getting transatlantic business class awards for an unheard of 13,500 miles each way.
It turns out there’s an even better deal out there. Business class for practically free: just 1,500 points to fly business class to France. This is bookable through Air France KLM’s Flying Blue, which is a transfer partner of all of the major bank currencies.
- Fly from Toronto, there are a few dates in January and February, or from Montreal in mid- to late-April or the first half of May.
- Book your trip to Lille, France
- That’s a non-stop flight to Paris, and then a train trip from Paris to Lille.
- That means if you book a one-way to Lille, you can just get off in Paris and throw away the train segment.
Normally you might have to hunt and peck for availability day by day but there’s a trick to see Flying Blue’s hidden award calendar showing a month of availability at a time.
Book quickly. Even if there were more than a handful of dates, I wouldn’t expect this to last, but some of you may jump on it and win the lottery.
There may be other destination cities with similar pricing. But you may wish to wait a few days before making additional plans, in case Flying Blue gets “seller’s remorse” about these redemptions.
(HT: Dan’s Deals)
@Gary, just wrote this on DansDeals 5 minutes ago, what is your take? –
Re: the Lille deal mistake at 1,500 miles –
@Dan – I’m concerned actually that with a program such as FB, which has been historically known to shut down accounts for “violations” (even those that weren’t really), that they might go after account holders that do this.
What do you think?
The deal is dead, at least for the dates I was looking at. Sure, the price was amazing but Montreal to Florence in 20 hours plus the repositioning flight to get to Montreal was too much for me.
@Dude26 Is the “violation” just booking this or skipping the Paris-Lille train segment? 😉
@Jonathan – I think it could be either. But, I think there is a very strong chance they will cancel all tickets purchased anyway. My only concern is if they go an extra mile afterwards to “audit” account holders that participated in this. This is really just specifically to FB and that this program has been known to play rough with auditing accounts and shutting them down.
It is a mistake fare just like the other and all of these will be cancelled by AF in a few days. They are under no obligation to honor mistake fares. Don’t get too excited about your upcoming trip.
damn, I found it out of Montreal in late April but I just can’t pull the trigger. I didn’t have a Flying Blue account previous and the combo of new account, transferring in Bilt points, and then error fare makes me think I would get screwed. Thanks for passing it on!
i booked it and transferring in points to make it happen. Found AA return flights using alaska miles too in J.
now comes the waiting to see if the hammer falls. There were very few seats avail, this wasnt wide open so the argument it was a mistake fare seems weak.
They very clearly labeled the flights a ‘promo’ awards – hard for them to get out of this
@ Gary — Boom. QXB-CDG-YUL for our return to pair with our earlier booking YOW-CDG-(ZAG). 18.5k + $600 “round” trip per person! Very nice.
@ AC — Why so negative about this anyway? If they cancel, I’m out an hour of my time. Good thing I enjoy booking travel and spend several hours per week doing it anyway. You win some, you lose some.
@ Gary — Amd that’s 18.5k roundtrip in J, just in case it wasn’t obvious. I generally don’t even look at economy prices…
@Gary. Why would you post a clear as day Mistake fare that will not be honored ?
This is certainly NOT real but the clickbait is !
Took me less than 10 minutes to book YYZ-CDG and oops: missed that damned train.
The 13,500+YQ+taxes for Eastern Canada to secondary Schengen area cities is marketed as a Promo Award.
Thank you Ben L.
Looks like the fare was corrected or sold out. Lowest I could find was 50,000 miles.
I don’t know what is being violated here. The mistake was on AF/KLM end so customers hopped on it.
@SMR – I warn readers of the risk, why NOT share that it exists? When it’s being reported elsewhere already even? People decide for yourselves. And I’ve had plenty of ‘mistake fares’ honored, some of my greatest trips. But I never assume that a price is a mistake, just let folks know that a travel provider might decide that even after the fact if they change their mind.
After getting alerted by the email, I did manage to find the deal, but couldn’t book it on my phone. Thought I’d list it, then went home and did it from the desktop. Took a lot of attempts, but it finally took. The system was overwhelmed. Then book the return late at night, not 1.5k, but still an amazing 5k J fare. For those who are worried you’ll be “punished” – why? You weren’t doing anything wrong, you were booking a legitimately posted fare. They may not honor it, but there is nothing wrong using their app and site to book a fare they published. I got confirmation emails and it’s showing up in my Air France account, so almost 24 hours in, I think this may hold.
Think about it this way – we’ve paid the taxes and fees, so AF is covered there. AF was essentially giving people what they offer employees and hoping we’d book a higher award cost to return. It’s not peak season, they didn’t sell that many seats, and it builds goodwill. The 1.5k J ticket will become legendary and give AF presence of mind forever. I’m not sure it was a “mistake”, but rather genius.
FWIW, there are still some deals out there, as low as 16k one-way in J. More at 20k, which is still amazing, it only pales in comparison to the 1.5k or 5k deal.
Oh Well. Didn’t have a chance till now and of course it’s gone. Though there was good availability for 50K, even over the summer to many spots in Europe. Mentioned above, transfers at CDG are a real pain and time consuming.
They just cancelled my 1500,Toronto to Lille I booked for February
Gary, nice movie link to your article. Good job!
My 1500 fare to Lille was cancelled while I was on the phone trying to ensure that my original 13,500 one was in fact cancelled as promised. The miles hadn’t appeared, and I got an email informing me it was booked two days after my first attempt to cancel that one. The person (in Chile) was able to reinstate it late on Sunday US time (out west) and I got an email shortly after: we’ve reinstated your flight. Still no refund of 13,500 but she said wait until Monday. Had to call four times and the last person was the most helpful and knowledgeable so far.
Still expect this 1500 one to be cancelled, however.
Matthew was that Feb 21?
And cancelled it was. Even the reinstated one!