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 each month 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, last year, 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 Promo Awards – July 1 – August 31
These awards can be booked between today and May 31 and are for travel between July 1 – August 31. These awards can be booked as one-ways, so you can use them for whatever direction suits you needs the best.
This month’s promo awards offering is actually pretty good. Not only did they include some business class awards again but they also have quite a few North American cities that you can depart from (or head to).
- Chicago (on KLM Business Class) – 46,875 miles one-way / 93,750 miles round-trip (25% off)
- Dallas (on KLM Business Class) – 31,250 miles one-way / 62,500 miles round-trip (50% off)
- Minneapolis (on Air France Premium Economy) – 42,187 miles one-way / 84,375 miles round-trip (25% off)
- Montreal (on KLM Business Class) – 46,875 miles one-way / 93,750 miles round-trip (25% off)
- Toronto (on Air France Business Class) – 46,875 miles one-way / 93,750 miles round-trip (25% off)
- Washington DC (on Air France Business Class) – 31,250 miles one-way / 62,500 miles round-trip (50% off)
You can book these awards through this link on the promo page. Typically, the best dates go pretty fast but availability does tend to be pretty good.
One of the great things about their award chart is that Israel is included in Europe for the purposes of awards. That means that you can book from any of the above cities to Israel at those prices (via the particular airline hub in Europe). That is always a nice, cheap way to get to Israel!
Getting to the gateway cities
If you live in one of the above cities, great! You are ready to go! However, if you do not live in/near one of them, you will have to travel to that city to take advantage of this promo. The good thing about the city selection for this month is that several cities – Chicago, Dallas, Washington DC – are reachable using British Airways Avios. That means, if you are within 650 miles of one of those cities, you can use 4,500 Avios (each way) to reach the gateway for your Flying Blue Promo Award ticket. Not bad!
Getting Flying Blue miles
If you have Membership Reward points, you can transfer them over at 1:1 (except for one American Express has bonuses) to Flying Blue. So, if you have one of the Amex Membership Reward earning cards (like the Amex Platinum – consumer/business/ Mercedes Benz – Premier Rewards Gold, Business Gold Rewards, or the new Everyday cards), you can transfer those points over. In addition to those cards, you can also transfer SPG points over at 1:1 with a 5,000 mile bonus for every block of 20,000 points transferred. Both methods are free.
