Capital One is offering a 20% transfer bonus to Air France / KLM Flying Blue through 8/31/22. This means that US-Europe/Israel business class could be had for as little as 45,900 Capital One miles if you can find saver award space.
The Deal
- Capital One is offering a 20% transfer bonus when converting Capital One Miles to Air France KLM Flying Blue. This brings the transfer ratio to 1,000 Capital One Miles = 1,200 Flying Blue Miles
Key Terms
- Expires 8/31/22 to 11:59pm EDT
- Rewards can only be transferred to a Loyalty Program registered to the exact user name on the Capital One account. If the account information doesn’t match, the transfer may be delayed.
Quick Thoughts
Flying Blue (and all partner airlines) ordinarily transfer 1:1 from Capital One, so the transfer bonus here means you’ll get 1.2 Flying Blue miles for every 1 Capital One mile. That’s a terrific deal for Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card holders or Capital One Spark Miles for Business credit card holders whose effective earn rate becomes 2.4 Flying Blue miles per dollar spent.
Flying Blue has several sweet spots that can make them very attractive, with the caveat that fuel surcharges, while not British Airways gigantic, can be significant. That said, I’ve found way more “saver” space on Flying Blue over the last few months than with SkyTeam partners Delta and Virgin Atlantic, and sometimes the best business class ticket is the one you can actually book.
Capital One miles can be transferred in increments of 100 (note there is a minimum transfer of 1,000 miles), so you can transfer what you need for a given reward and avoid ending up with orphaned miles. As always, we don’t recommend making a speculative transfer. Only do it if you have an immediate or very near-term use in mind.
- Air France Flying Blue Promo Rewards. Each month, Air France offers discounted award rates for a number of routes. Sometimes we see economy flights from the US to Europe available for less than 11,000 miles one-way.
- Fly to Israel for the same award price as to Europe. For example, you may see business class flights from the U.S. to Tel Aviv for as low as 55,000 miles one-way.
- Delta economy flights between the US and Hawaii for 17,500 miles one-way. Air France also has great award prices for Delta first class to Hawaii, but Delta rarely releases first class award space on its Hawaii routes.
- Air France awards usually incur taxes and fees.
- Award availability may be hard to find. Acquire Flying Blue miles only if you know that the awards you want are available.
- Flying Blue miles expire 2 years after they are earned. Keeping miles alive beyond two years is… weird:
- As long as you don’t credit any flying activity to your account, you can renew your miles by acquiring more miles through non-flight activity. For example, transferring miles from a transferable points program will renew these miles.
- If you earn miles by crediting flight activity to your account, then all of your miles become flight activity miles and can only be extended by taking an eligible flight (and crediting it to Flying Blue), or by being an elite member, or making a purchase with your Air France / KLM Flying Blue credit card.
- For more details, see: Air France’s Flying Blue miles are easier to extend than I thought
Other Transfer Bonuses
| Transfer From | Transfer Bonus Details | End Date |
|---|---|---|
| Amex Membership Rewards | 30% transfer bonus from Amex Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | 05/31/24 |
| Citi ThankYou Rewards | 50% transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Rewards to Accor Live Limitless | 05/11/24 |
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | 25% transfer bonus from Chase Ultimate Rewards to Air France KLM Flying Blue | 04/30/24 |
| Capital One Miles | 30% transfer bonus from Capital One Miles to Virgin Red | 04/30/24 |
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Drat – just more than 24hrs after I made an AF booking. Ah well, next time. Thanks for keeping us updated. I reference the Current Transfer Bonus page regularly!
Any news yet on American Express transfer bonuses for August yet?
Nothing from Amex at all this month (so far)!
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Hi Tim, what do you mean by “Rewards can only be transferred to a Loyalty Program registered to the exact username on the Capital One account. If the account information doesn’t match, the transfer may be delayed.”? My Flyingblue account “username” is a flying blue number or an email address, neither of which can be my capitalone username.
This is language that’s on all of C1’s transfer bonuses. It’s not referring to the user name that you use to sign-in to each website, but rather to the actual name of the account user. So if your name is on both accounts, it’s fine.
I’ve heard that there were some hiccups when they first started transfers in instances where people’s names didn’t match exactly, ie., Tim Steinke vs Timothy J Steinke…but I haven’t seen reports of those issues in some time.
Oh that’s reasonable, thanks!