Update: Several readers report that they received this same email, but that the email subject line was missing and that their accounts still reflect Explorer status. It therefore looks like this might be a glitch rather than a legit status offer.
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If you received an email from Flying Blue today or recently, it’d be worth opening the email rather than sending it to trash. That’s because some Flying Blue members unexpectedly received an email today announcing that they’ve been awarded with Ultimate status for free – the top tier in the loyalty program.
The Deal
- Some Flying Blue members are being awarded Ultimate status.
Key Terms
- Expiry date unknown.
Quick Thoughts
This is an incredibly surprising elite status opportunity being given by Flying Blue for those lucky enough to have been targeted. Airlines offer temporary status every so often to members, but that’s usually at a lower level like Delta recently offering Silver or Gold status via its partnership with Hilton. This Flying Blue offer on the other hand is, dare I say it, unprecedented as some members are being awarded Ultimate status.
Ultimate status is an extremely hard-to-earn status level. Based on this guide from One Mile At A Time, you’d have to fly an absurd number of flights or spend an absurd amount of money to achieve that status, like 90 round trip economy tickets or 9 round trip long haul tickets in first class.
Benefits include an Ultimate Assistant, four voucher upgrades (you can redeem two vouchers to upgrade from economy to business class), enhanced lounge access for you and travel companions, the ability to gift Flying Blue Platinum status to someone else and more.
Perhaps the best benefit of suddenly finding yourself with Ultimate status will be the ability to book La Premiere with miles. La Premiere – Air France’s first class cabin – is bookable with cash by anybody with a fat enough wallet, but if you want to book with miles the only way to do that is if you have Platinum or Ultimate status with Flying Blue. That means that the Platinum status you can gift to someone else is also extremely valuable.
It’s not clear how easy Flying Blue will make it to retain this status. Ordinarily, someone with Ultimate status has to earn 900 UXP over the course of 12 months to retain the status. From what I can tell, if you don’t achieve that you get a soft landing the following year to Platinum status. I doubt that people who are given this Ultimate status will get that soft landing, but perhaps they could earn 300 XP to get Platinum status which is the number of XP required to retain Platinum status if you already have it.
There’s no way of knowing why or how Flying Blue is targeting members for this offer. The person who gave us a heads up about receiving this status shared that they received Silver status with Accor this year and subsequently linked it to their Flying Blue account. However, other than a few award flights in the past, they’ve had no other activity that would give any reason to explain why they’d be given Ultimate status; they don’t even have the Air France/KLM credit card.
h/t Hilario
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I received this email, and contacted flying blue as I wasn’t even aware I was a member, but I had recently booked a flight with KLM so I thought they added me automatically. The email is clearly from a flyingblue.com address. I called flying blue and was told to send a screenshot of the email, which I did.
They replied:
Thank you for your message.
The email address you mentioned is a spam email.
Please always check whether the email address you receive is our airline email address.
Always email address ending is flyingblue.america@airfrance-klm.com,
Depending on the country we are sending to, a different country is written instead of America, but the ending is the same (airfrance-klm.com).
If possible, please block spam email addresses. The most effective way to stop spam emails is to unsubscribe spam email and please adjust privacy settings.
We truly appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
Best regards,
Jessie from your Flying Blue team
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This sounds suspicious to me as flyingblue.com is actually in fact their website address and all the links lead to their actual website. I think it is more likely that they screwed up and don’t want to admit it.
Hi, I received the same email yesterday, the only difference I’m a 8 years Platinum member by end of the year. Would be nice if it’s not spam. The vouchers for cabin upgrades would make a nice pre-Christmas present for next year 😉
I called Air France to fix a seat issue and asked about this email since I got one as well. Agent confirmed it was an error and I was still Explorer. Was half hoping he was going to say it was legit and really help fix my seat issue
To set expectations, Ultimate sounds great but the incremental benefits past Platinum are not earth-shaking. It’s more about service than perks.
Same with the extremely selective invite-only Hippocampe.
I got the email and I assumed spam but hoping that’s not the case. I checked my account and still explorer. Seems odd but my wife didn’t get it so who knows!!
+1 to suspected error, got the email with no email subject, logged in and still explorer status
Like others, I received the email but still show as Explorer in my account.
The email also said (No Subject) in the subject line, so almost undoubtedly a glitch…
I’m not sure that this is actually real, and not a glitch. I received the email, but when I log into my account it still says that I am Explorer level.
Same here. The email also had no subject line. I’m sure this is an error and will be corrected soon.
Same here, received that email but still Explorer level…
Same thing here.
Same here