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Update 12/21/23: Well, sometimes when it seems too good to be true, it is. Flying Blue has been cancelling numerous award tickets that were purchased during this unadvertised sale. The airline is blaming the pricing on a “technical glitch.” It sounds like folks who have Flying Blue Gold status or above were allowed to keep their bookings, while most of the rest of us were axed.
That said, Flying Blue is offering to reverse points transfers for those who used transferrable currencies like Ultimate Rewards or Membership Rewards to book these tickets. If you want to transfer back out of the program, contact Flying Blue at 1-800-375-8723 or use chat or email through your account on the website.
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We don’t often using words like “amazing” and exclamation points in titles. This is a run, don’t walk type of deal: Thrifty Traveler Premium and Award Wallet have reported incredible business class deals from Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa to Europe. Prices start at just 13,500 miles and ~$250 one way. That is an amazing deal for lie-flat business class to Europe and is a good enough deal to consider a separate positioning flight to/from Canada.
I don’t imagine this will last, so I’m keeping this post very short to get it out as soon as possible. The low business class pricing is available from Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. Cheap destination airports reported by Award Wallet include Zagreb and Athens for 13,500 miles one way. Thrifty Traveler updated to note that Bologna (BLQ) and Florence (FLR) in Italy and Antwerp, Belgium (ANR) are also pricing cheaply. As seen above, I found Ottawa to Florence pricing at 13,500 miles one way in business class. Some routes are ringing in at 17K miles one way.
As this is less than the typical cost of an economy class award ticket, you obviously won’t find availability every day. Availability is reported to be scattered from January through May.
Since Air France / KLM Flying Blue does not publish an award chart but rather chooses to price awards variably at any price they choose, I can not see how they could make the argument in good faith that this is a mistake. That said, I’d recommend holding off on making other nonrefundable plans around these flights unless you are prepared to fight it out if Air France gets seller’s remorse.
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Anyone had success with getting the transferred points from Flying Blue back to your credit card? If so, to whom and how did you make your request exactly?
I was a victim of this cancellation. I had a RT from Toronto to Zagreb, Croatia connecting in Amsterdam. Even as I was trying to book the ticket, it seemed like they were correcting the mistake fare, but I did get one ticket to go through. I never got any communication from Air France, Flying Blue or KLM. I just happened to notice that I had points in my account (I should have zero points) and then I noticed a pending refund on my credit card. When I called, they gave the line about the technical issues on the 15th (the day I booked) and offered to reverse the points I transferred from Chase. I was easily able to cancel my hotel reservation. The only area where I am out any money is the AA ticket I booked to position to YYZ. And even there, I have travel credits to use for my next trip. So ultimately, no real harm, Just huge disappointment.
AF would have a really difficult case arguing that this is a “mistake” if they’re honoring the tickets for people with certain statuses.
got no email but the taxes and fees are back on my amex and the bookingg is cancelled. really classy. am flyingblue gold
I booked my 13,500 trip through Air France and my husband on the same flight to Paris through KLM for 13,500 miles. Air France cancelled my flight but my husbands flight is still not cancelled as of today . He has no status with KLM. Not sure whether to continue to wait for his cancellation or try to rebook my flight ( now 66,000 miles).
I didn’t book this- but on 11/30- the last day of the FB chase transfer bonus there was a glitch w transfers to flying blue. Today I got an email saying if I want to transfer miles from chase they will offer 25% more miles until 12/31. They are also depositing 2500 miles in my account because of the issue. I never filed a complaint so very happy to see FB doing the right thing here.
They should have offered non elites the 37,500 fare. Instead, they offered to pick up the tab for reasonable costs of cancelling related bookings. Not very bright.
Received the email from flying blue about the mistake fares, but my flight still has not been cancelled. I booked a 5k fare to QXB, fingers crossed it doesn’t get cancelled!
Same here
View from the Wing says those with KLM gold status or higher will have their tickets honored. I have KLM gold, so keeping my fingers crossed
I saw that post, I hope that’s true and you get to keep yours! I have no status with the airline so I’m a bit shocked.
update: mine was just cancelled and refunded
Cannot find your post again on AF La Premiere! I tried it in October and really liked the seamless way everything was handled.
Has anyone tried calling regarding the cancelation? If so, what’s their response?
My YUL —> Lille and Provence —> YUL flights were just cancelled by AF. Any recourse given that this was labelled as a “Business Promo” fare and left up on the AF site for ~24 hours? Thanks!
Mine were cancelled too and yet they haven’t redeposited my miles. The least they could do is make sure the miles are automatically redeposited!
Mine cancelled as well. No mileage redeposit thus far.
Mine cancelled as well. I can see it on the website but the flights have been cancelled/greyed out.
Doubt there is, but any recourse for transferring miles over from a CC partner? For cash bookings, it’s straightforward- cancel the booking and I get my money back. For points, it seems a little different. Especially when transferring from a flexible currency. I know they can’t transfer back to Amex, but is there anything they can do or ask for to make things right or am I just stuck with orphaned miles in my flying blue account.
No, just gonna be stuck with orphaned miles.
Taking this as an opportunity to whine; it’s wholly unfair that AF comes out on top by posting mistake award fares. They realize revenue from all the miles transferred in to book 13.5k, 5k, and 1.5k fares, yet don’t have to offer any services in return. Moreover, they’ll likely realize more revenue in the future when you transfer additional miles to top off your orphaned balance to salvage some use out of it by booking a full-fare AF award. AF will rightfully lose some goodwill (abstract) when they retract mistake fares, but they come out ahead in dollars and cents.
Is it certified dead or are there any routes still live? Thanks
Being new to the travel rewards game, I just snagged 2 business seats from Ottawa to qxb for 5k points plus 500 taxes! Thank you FM!!
Just scored Florence to Ottawa, February 17th, 13.5k.
so i snagged a cheap flight to Athens. How long should I wait to see if they walk this back before making more plans?
I’d wait at least 2 weeks. FYI, there was a recent AF/KL + SQ Cash Error Fare Europe-SIN/KUL (optional-AKL add-on).
They cancelled those within 48 hours. Here’s hoping these stay, but I assume we will get a notification in the same timeframe of the cancellation.