Flying Blue (the frequent flyer program of KLM and Air France) runs a program they call Promo Awards. I have discussed these awards before, but here is an overview. These promo awards are award routes that offer a 25% – 50% discount off of normal award mileage requirements for certain city pairs. The promo awards come out on a regular basis and are applicable for certain cities in the US to Europe. These awards must be redeemed on the Flying Blue airlines (such as Air France, KLM, etc). As a result, these awards come with large fuel surcharges/taxes.
However, in 2013, Flying Blue announced a devaluation of their award program. With that devaluation came them dropping that fuel surcharge on economy award tickets (not everything in a devaluation is bad!). Now, these economy awards come with a flat 50 euro surcharge each way (plus any taxes). This makes the economy promo awards a lot more enticing if you live in or near the targeted cities. Business class awards, however, have retained the higher surcharges (in the high hundreds of dollars for a round-trip).
Flying Blue Awards To Europe For Up To 50% Off
Here are the cities for this month’s Flying Blue Promo awards
Unfortunately, there are only two North American cities that have 50% off the regular price, the others are 25% off. One of the airports that they have at the 50% off level is Miami, which is a good thing if they had to pick an airport to keep for 12,500 miles. The bad part is that it is only Miami to Madrid instead of all of Europe.That is because you can use 4,500 Avios (if you do not have the British Airways Visa, it will give you 50,000 Avios after meeting the spending – link) to fly American Airlines there if you are within 650 miles and still keep your total award cost to less than anyone else (with the exception of US Airways and their off-peak awards to Europe – see here).
The cities from North America that are valid for this promo (and the type of class offered) are:
- Dallas (in KLM World Business Class) – 46,875 miles one-way / 93,750 miles roundtrip (25% off)
- Edmonton (in KLM World Business Class) – 31,250 miles one-way / 62,500 miles roundtrip (50% off)
- Mexico (in Air France Economy) – 18,750 miles one-way /37,500 miles roundtrip (25% off)
- Montreal (in KLM World Business Class) – 46,875 miles one-way / 93,750 miles roundtrip (25% off)
- Toronto (in KLM World Business Class) – 46,875 miles one-way / 93,750 miles roundtrip (25% off)
- Miami – Madrid (in Air Europa Economy Class) – 12,500 miles one-way/ 25,000 miles roundtrip (50% off)
- Miami – Madrid (in Air Europa Business Class) – 31,250 miles one-way / 62,500 miles roundtrip (50% off)
These awards are bookable from now until March 31, so if something strikes your fancy, better to move on it! The awards are valid for travel from May 1 – June 30th. While the awards are nothing extra special, it is nice to have 6 North American cities available for summer travel to Europe.
Summary
If you want the sale with economy tickets to avoid the large surcharges, that leaves you with only two cities to use for departures – Miami and Mexico City. It is far from the best promo that they have run but it still gives you a chance to get to Europe for less during peak travel time.
If you need miles in your Flying Blue account, American Express Membership Reward points and Citi ThankYou points transfer to your Flying Blue account at 1:1. You can also transfer Starpoints from your SPG account over at a rate of 1:1 with a bonus of 5,000 miles for every block of 20,000 points transferred.
