Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Air France / KLM Flying Blue long ago ditched its award chart in favor of dynamic pricing. Still, business class awards between the US and Europe fairly reliably started at 55,000 miles one-way from the East Coast, with starting prices rising as one moved west within the United States. Thrifty Traveler points out that Flying Blue seems to have standardized the low end of their award pricing scheme, with “saver” type awards now pricing at a consistent 50,000 miles one-way from across the United States to Europe when available.
The Deal
- Air France / KLM Flying Blue has standardized pricing at the low end of the spectrum for awards between the United States and Europe as follows:
- Economy class: 20,000 miles one-way (with some routes pricing a little less)
- Premium Economy class: 35,000 miles one-way
- Business Class: 50,000 miles one way
- Search at airfrance.us
Quick Thoughts
Whereas we used to see Flying Blue award pricing starting from 55,000 miles one-way to Europe from East Coast cities, we now see award pricing out as low as 50,000 miles one way.
You obviously won’t find awards pricing at 50,000 miles every day (as seen above) or even in every month (as seen above), but the cheapest flights now price from 50K. Keep in mind that we are talking here about Air France’s approximate equivalent of a “Saver” award (which doesn’t exactly exist since they don’t have an award chart, but nonetheless we are distinguishing this rate from Promo Rewards, which may see rates that are discounted even further).
Even more notable is the fact that we are seeing 50K pricing from airports that aren’t on the East Coast. Greg reports that flights from Detroit used to reliably start at about 70K miles one way, they now begin from 50K miles one-way to/from Detroit.
And the same holds true for other airports around the country. Even flights from Los Angeles to Europe are available starting at 50K miles one way.
Premium economy is ringing in at a consistent 35,000 miles each way with pretty solid availability. I understand this to be a slight increase from the east coast, but a decrease from other parts of the country.
While Thrifty Traveler reports economy class redemptions starting at 20K miles each way, I’m seeing some routes price out a bit less, like my New York to Paris to Marseille example, which comes in at 18,000 miles in economy class.
In the situation above, the itineraries that cost 18K miles include a leg on the train. But not all routes with a train leg price at less than 20K. For instance, these itineraries from Los Angeles to Paris or Amsterdam that continue to Brussels on a train cost 20K miles, the more standard one-way economy class price.
Keep in mind that this decrease in pricing makes Air France / KLM Flying Blue a fantastic option for family travelers. That’s because long-haul business class child tickets get a 25% discount over the cost of an adult award, meaning that a child ticket in business class costs just 37,500 miles one-way. That’s not a lap infant ticket, but rather a ticket for a child between 2 and 11 years old. See this example with one adult ticket for 50K and one child ticket for 37,500 miles.
That’s a great deal. If you caught a 25% transfer bonus to Flying Blue, that’s just 70,000 transferred points. Paying an affective 35,000 transferable points per passenger is amazing (again, assuming a 25% transfer bonus, which we periodically see from each of the major currencies to Flying Blue). This is especially useful to me since I often find that if Air France or KLM has award availability, there are usually options with enough seats for a whole family.
Overall, I think this is great news. I find Air France business class to be perfectly comfortable and KLM’s 787 business class to be excellent. I imagine I will probably take advantage of the chance to book awards at good value using this newly reduced pricing in the future.
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As a west coaster, this is incredible. I’m a small human so economy is completely fine for me on long flights so I now have available to me (checked march/april of next year):
LifeMiles
LAX – ZUR for 23.5k + $26.7 via Swiss
LAX – LIS for 30k + 26.7 via TAP
LAX – MAD for 30k + 12.91-44.44 via United/Swiss
LAX – CGD for 30k + 12.91-63.3 via United/Lufthansa
LAX – BCN for 30k + 12.91-44.44 via United/Swiss
FlyingBlue
LAX – CDG/MRS/LYS for 20k + 62.8-81.5 via AF/KLM
LAX – LIS for 20k + 80.1 via AF
LAX – MAD for 20k + 80.1 via AF
LAX – BCN for 20k + 80.1 via AF
Plentiful award slots across the months, return flight wise all fees are roughly 2x/same points (minus LM ZUR-LAX thats 30k).
As an east coaster this is awful. Gone are the days of EWR-Europe-EWR for 30k + $180 and here are the days of 40k + $280.
I just booked LAX to Vienna next August for 50K business. Since I had done a speculative transfer during a recent bonus, this is essentially costing me 40K! Thanks for the heads up!
I booked business award flights 2 weeks ago for Monday to FLR at 70,500. Assuming I can find the reduced award rate, can I (safely) cancel and rebook at these lower rates? Online or do I need to call? I understand I will pay ~$50 change fee.
I see 50k rates but not on my date. Looks doable for the return later in November.
YMMV. At least mine did. Two times recently, for basically the same OWs, executed about two months apart:
There is a post a few months back by Nick about something else, where he notes his success with the on-line cancellation, and that was what motivated me to try it the first time – with success as well. But you can also see if you look at the Flyer talk thread about this that people have the same mixed experience that I have had: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So I would say that it doesn’t hurt to try cancelling on line first, but if you don’t see your miles back very soon thereafter – and especially if you need them to book your next ticket – don’t wait: Call.
Thank you!
I understand it’s back up to 70k yesterday.
I don’t think so. I just ran some searches and still found 50K biz class to Paris from LAX and also from Detroit. To be clear, those are the only searches I ran: I assume that other routes would show the same.
I just looked and found a couple dates ORD-CDG and vice versa for 50K in business. There are a bunch for 52.5K. And even better, there are a whole lot of dates ORD-AMS and vice versa for 42,375 miles. Some of those were on the direct KLM flight, some were on a connection thru CDG on AF. And at least some had 8 seats available
Ben at OMAAT linked to Flyer Talk forum where Flying Blue Director Ben Lipsey stated
“It’s not a mistake
We are progressively implementing a new pricing model that will lower the pricing on 71% of O&Ds in J, 68% in W, and 66% in Y. The rest will either stay the same or increase slightly (eg JFK went from 15k to 20k in Y), but there shouldn’t be anything too shocking I hope. There are still some routes to be rolled out, particularly the 5th freedom routes, so please be patient.”
5th Freedom too in future. There are some DPS-SIN in Business for 13k in both directions but nothing better than 70k for LAX-PPT.
What are other 5th freedom flights for Flying Blue?
Great find. I used Air France and KLM business class to fly from Washington to Warsaw. It was always a great experience. It was better than British Airways, Lufthansa or Austrian business. Added fees are reasonable