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Air France and KLM are offering a 120% bonus on the purchases of Flying Blue miles, the best bonus that we’ve ever seen. With this sale, it’s possible to buy miles for as little as 1.39 cents each. This could be especially useful if you want to take advantage of the current 25% transfer bonuses from American Express and need additional miles.
The Deal
Buy Air France / KLM Flying Blue miles with up to 120% bonus (Buy points from 1.39 cents each):
- Valid 6/10/22 to 6/30/22
- Bonus offer is tiered:
- Buy 4,000+ miles, receive 50% bonus (2.03cpm)
- Buy 16,000+ miles, receive 70% bonus (1.79cpm)
- Buy 32,001+ miles, receive 100% bonus (1.52pm)
- Buy 50,000-100,000 miles, receive 120% bonus (1.39cpm)
- Maximum purchase per calendar year: 100,000 miles (not counting bonus miles). Elite members are not limited in how many miles they can buy, but they can only receive a maximum of 300,000 bonus miles.
- Maximum bonus miles that can be earned during promotion: 100,000 for non-elites / 300,000 for elite members)
- Direct link to Offer (must log-in to see bonus)
- 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
Final Thoughts
This is the best deal that we’ve seen Flying Blue run for buying miles, previously, the best we’ve seen is 100%. While we never advise that you buy miles speculatively, this promotion might make sense if you need to top off for an award…or even to buy one. 1.39cpp means that purchasing miles for an award could make sense, especially for promo rewards. As always, make certain that you have a specific redemption in mind before you buy.
Flying Blue mileage purchases are processed by Points.com, so this will not code as travel – use your best “everywhere else” card to purchase.
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Would buying miles extend the expiration of existing AF miles? I have about 20K miles stuck with AF from a previous transfer and they’re due to expire end of this year. I tried going the shopping portal route but that resulted in a small number of miles that will expire in 2024 while the bulk of my miles expire end of 2022. Is there any way I can prevent that from happening? Thanks
Air France miles are quirky. The short is that, it depends in how you earned them…or if you have credited any flight miles to your account while the transfered miles were in there. If you haven’t credited actual flight miles into the account, you should be able to transfer another 1,000 miles in and extend what you have by 24 months. Check out this post for the full details.
Thanks, Tim. I read through that post just now. But according to the logic that’s described there the shopping portal thing I tried should have extended my other miles, which I transferred in from a card. But that isn’t what happened. Instead I got 2 expiration dates, one for the bulk of my miles and one for the portal miles. Is there a way to verify how miles were earned? I *think* they were from a transfer but maybe I’m remembering wrong? The miles are old enough that the Miles Overview page on AF doesn’t show them under history. Thanks again.
Have you ever credited flights to that account?
Yes, I just looked it up. 20K transferred from a card in April 2020. 232 miles credited from a Delta flight in June 2020. And now (June 2022) 500 miles credited from a Budget car rental. That’s the full history. The system says “20,232 valid until December 31, 2022. 500 valid until May 31, 2024”
Unfornately, once those flight miles are credited, all older miles turn into “flight miles” and can only be extended by crediting flights, credit card spend or elite status. That’s most likely why you’re showing different expiration dates for the two sets of miles.
Thanks, Tim. So if I credit another Delta flight before the end of the year I should be able to extend my miles?