(EXPIRED) Flying Blue Promo Rewards For March 2020: Europe from under 16K each way (DC econ, Seattle prem econ)

Flying Blue Promo Rewards for March 2020 are out and it’s a fairly poor selection this month. Only a couple of US cities are included and they’re only offered at a 25% discount, with no discounted business class options available from the US.

The Deal

• Save 25% on economy flights from the following cities to Europe:
  • Washington D.C. on Air France & KLM
• Save 25% on premium economy flights from the following cities to Europe:
  • Seattle on Air France
  • Direct link to offer.

Key Terms

• Book by March 30, 2019.
• Valid for travel from April 30, 2020 to June 29, 2020

Quick Thoughts

This month’s selection of Promo Rewards is one of the worst I remember seeing in quite some time, certainly from a North American perspective anyway. Only a couple of US cities are listed, no Canadian cities are included and no business class awards are discounted unless you’re traveling between Europe and Fortaleza, Brazil or Quito, Ecuador and those are only discounted by 25%.

Still, it might make sense in some circumstances to take advantage of these Flying Blue Promo Rewards, especially if you live near Washington D.C. or Seattle and so wouldn’t have to worry about the time and cost of positioning to them.

Flying Blue doesn’t have a set redemption rate when booking awards to regions, so you’ll need to run searches for the European cities you’re interested in visiting to get an idea of what the cost would be. For example, flights from Washington D.C. to Dublin can be booked for as low as 16,125 miles + $99.07 in taxes and fees. Note that the screenshot below makes it look like there’s only availability on two dates due to where it highlights “Promo Reward”. There are actually nine days displayed in May for 16,125 miles, but the other seven days have taxes and fees that are a couple of bucks more expensive which is why their search engine doesn’t highlight them as a “Promo Reward”.

Availability coming back the other way is much better, with most days in May having availability at the 16,125 level. Again, slightly higher taxes and fees mean not every day is highlighted as being a “Promo Reward”.

As always with Flying Blue award tickets to Europe, the taxes and fees can have a large impact on whether or not it’s worth booking as you’re looking at paying 32,250 miles + ~$230 in fees round trip. Paid flights between Washington D.C. and Dublin can be had for as low $525; those are nonstop flights on Aer Lingus, whereas these award flights booked through Flying Blue would require a connection. You’d therefore be redeeming 32,250 miles to add a connection and effectively save $295 which is poor value, especially if you’d be transferring in Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, ThankYou points, etc.

Flights from Seattle don’t necessarily represent great value either. Flights to Europe from Washington D.C. come in at ~16k in economy each way, while from Seattle they carry almost double the miles requirement due to being in premium economy along with even higher taxes and fees. For example, here’s Seattle to Prague…

…while Seattle to Paris comes at an even higher price, albeit with slightly better availability.

Overall, there’s nothing exciting here, but there might be better redemptions out there to other European cities.

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