Tag Archives for flying blue.
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue credit card is now live for rent payments through Bilt, earning 3x miles on up to $50,000 in annual rent spend. The bigger play is not just buying miles at a 3% fee — it is turning rent into card spend that can help unlock Flying Blue elite status.
Something strange is going on with Air France KLM Flying Blue partner award pricing
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.
Lately there have seemed to be fewer 50,000 point business class awards between the U.S. and Europe – at least if you’re looking to fly non-stop to Paris or Amsterdam.
However Find Flights For Me reminds that an important tip for finding the best award pricing with Air France KLM Flying Blue is to remember that they often charge different prices for different destinations, even when traveling on the same flights across the Atlantic.
Since all of the major transferable currencies – Chase, American Express, Citi, Capital One and Bilt – transfer to Air France KLM, most of you have access to these points. Pricing is much lower than you’ll find through El Al directly, or through Delta.
Air France KLM Flying Blue will now status match customers in the U.S. and Mexico up to the Gold level, with status valid for 12 months. This is fantastic if you have a stash of bank points that transfer to miles, and great if you fly Delta as well.
Bilt Rewards has been promising new elite benefits and they’ve just announced two new elements of their Platinum status: dedicated support, and Air France KLM Flying Blue Gold status. Both of these benefits launch February 29.
Air France KLM Flying Blue is offering status matches up to Platinum, the level required to redeem points for first class awards on Air France. They’ll even match United Platinum and American Platinum Pro members to Flying Blue Platinum.
When business class mistake fares from 1,500 to 13,500 points one way were recently offered, Flying Blue considered honoring the deal – it wouldn’t have cost that much – but they were afraid of the precedent.
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue was already the best loyalty program in SkyTeam (although some partisans might argue for Korean Air Skypass) and has made several improvements over the past couple of years – better expiration rules, the addition of free stopovers, lower redemption prices.
They seem to be one of the few rewards programs to have re-discovered that better programs are more profitable programs.
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 »
