Air France / KLM Flying Blue has had a checkered last few months. It raised award prices on its own flights in January under the auspices that it was necessary in order to provide more availability, but then it took a hatchet to award space from the US – Europe.
However, Thrifty Traveler has noticed an unusual bright spot in the way that Flying Blue is pricing award flights on its SkyTeam partner, Delta. Starting in 2026, it appears that it has slashed award rates for many Delta economy flights by ~20-30%.
The Deal
- Starting in 2026, it appears that Air France / KLM Flying Blue is lowering its award prices for many economy flights on Delta by ~20-30%
- 2025 flights are unaffected.
- Here’s a few examples, including some from Thrifty Traveler (2025 price/2026 price):
- Atlanta – Chicago (8,000/5,500)
- Columbus, Ohio – Salt Lake City (16,500/11,000)
- Detroit – Honolulu (30,000/24,000)
- Detroit – Munich (32,000/26,000)
- Los Angeles – New York (20,000/13,500)
- Los Angeles – Sydney, Australia (53,000/42,500)
- Minneapolis – Amsterdam (28,000/22,500) r
- Minneapolis to Mexico City (14,500/9,500)
- Seattle – Tokyo (65,000/51,000)
Quick Thoughts
This is an odd, although very welcome quirk. It doesn’t appear to apply to the few Delta One flights that I found and it also doesn’t seem to apply to ALL Delta economy flights. That said, it certainly is widespread.
The fact that the discount is exclusively on 2026 flights makes me think that this is one of the periodic Flying Blue pricing guffaws that will at some point be corrected. I’d love to be wrong, of course, and would applaud Flying Blue for actually lowering award prices on partner flights. If it does stick, it will make Flying Blue one of the most appealing ways to book Delta flights using points and miles. I’m just having a hard time understanding why they would intentionally reduce award pricing on 2026 flights six and a half months beforehand without any sort of public mention.
Regardless, it creates some significant value opportunities assuming you have flights that you feel comfortable booking this far out. However, do note that Air France imposes a €70 change/cancellation fee on award bookings.
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Are these booking into regularly economy, or basic economy (or whatever Delta has re-named these fare classes)? Delta’s not my primary airline but I would fly them occasionally if not for their basic economy award rules. I have an AMEX platinum card, and Delta now excludes basic economy pax from their lounges. Add no seat assignment, and I’d just as soon fly Frontier. 🙂 Now if I could book reasonably priced award tickets into regular coach, that would be a different story.
They book into regular economy. Not basic economy.
This would obviously make me WAY more interested in booking DL award tickets since, if you book them directly with Skymiles, you typically have to pay about 5000 extra miles on a domestic ticket to avoid basic economy. Given that I don’t want to pay 5000 miles/person to get into the lounge and get a seat assignment, and I don’t want to fly them without these benefits, I just avoid DL. Now I won’t. That said, I just priced a domestic DL award ticket for August, and Flying Blue wanted 2x DL’s basic economy award, so that doesn’t work for me either.
I am curious where to go to find these Delta flights as I don’t ever seem to see them on the Air France site
You have to login into Airfrance.com and in the search select “Book with miles” and enter the air port Delta flies, try one way to get better results.
Thank you so much! I take Delta flights to commute and was excited to see that my flights only cost 5k in 2026. With the current transfer offer, I was able to use 4k to book a flight that costs $180.
Flying Blue seems to have removed some of the Delta flights. A few that I saw earlier are now gone. They are still available on VA’s website, so it looks like Flying Blue took them down.
Update–the flights are back!
Thanks for these updates Lee. Very interesting.
What route have you been monitoring?
I regularly book flights to GEG from east coast origins like CLT and DCA. I’ll likely pass only because I’m put off by the redeposit fee, given how likely our plans are to change by 2026. Am spoiled by AA’s always 100% free cancelations for award tickets!
Which transfer offer?
Chase to Flying Blue (25%)
https://frequentmiler.com/current-point-transfer-bonuses/