Flying Blue status match for US residents

Air France / KLM Flying Blue is out with a status match opportunity for US residents. While we’ve seen Flying Blue offer a status match for customers in other countries, Award Wallet reports that this is now available for residents of the US and Mexico. Unfortunately, the match isn’t free, so whether it is worth considering will come sown to how often you’ll be able to use the benefits. That said, it certainly could be worth it if you have a number of flights coming up where SkyTeam benefits may come in handy and it could also be useful for a future match to another airline.

The Deal

• Air France / KLM Flying Blue is offering paid status matches. US Members can match to either Silver or Gold status, but neither match is free. You’ll need to show status with another airline and pay a fee to match — $99 for a match to Silver or $299 for a match to Gold status
• Direct link to this deal

Key Terms

• Flying Blue publishes a full matrix here. Below I’m only including airlines where readers are most likely to have status either based on their US presence or the ability to earn status through credit card activity or some combination thereof. You can check the full matrix for more details.
• Note also that US members can only match to Silver (for a fee of $99) or Gold (for a fee of $299), not to Platinum (even if you have a status that would otherwise match to Platinum), so I removed that column here for simplicity
• Note that status will be valid for 12 months from the date of the match.
• You will be informed within three (3) business days following your completed application of the requested information and documentation whether or not your Status Match has been approved. Once approved, your new status will appear on your account within (5) business days.
• Only 1 match is allowed per person.
• May end at any time

Chart:

Quick Thoughts

Flying Blue elite status benefits are pretty good if not wildly exciting. With this match, US members can either match to Flying Blue Silver or Flying Blue Gold.

Flying Blue Silver key benefits:

• One free extra checked bag on SkyTeam flights
• SkyTeam Elite status
• Free selection of standard seats
• Free seat options 24 hours before departure (I’m not sure what this opens in addition to “free selection of standard seats).
• Earn 6 Miles for each Euro spent

Flying Blue Gold key benefits:

• One free extra checked baggage item on SkyTeam flights
• Free access to SkyTeam lounges worldwide with a guest (conditions apply)
• SkyPriority: priority access throughout the airport
• Free selection of standard seats
• Free seat options 72 hours before departure (again, I’m not sure what this opens in addition to “free selection of standard seats)
• Earn 7 Miles for each Euro spent

Either match could be useful even for someone who primarily flies on Delta because the SkyTeam benefits would mean that you’d qualify for an extra checked bag on SkyTeam flights and as a Gold member you’ll additionally get access to SkyTeam lounges (with a guest!) and SkyPriority throughout the airport.

I don’t know for sure whether you can request to match to a lower tier than the max for which you are eligible. For instance, if you have American Airlines Platinum status, that would match to Gold. I’m unsure if you’re able to instead request a match to Silver (since you may care about the free checked bag but not the lounge access / other Gold level benefits enough to pay an additional $200. That said, I’m not sure I’d consider a match to Silver since I could get the Air France KLM Flying Blue Mastercard and earn enough XPs for Silver status along with a welcome bonus after meeting the minimum spend at a cost of an $89 annual fee.

I’m mildly interested in the match to Gold as a way to match onward to another program in the future, but I’m not sure I want to invest $299 in Flying Blue Gold status right now. We’ll see.

Keep in mind that this match opportunity may close at any time, so if you’re interested you may want to consider applying sooner rather than later.

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