American Express launched a new 25% transfer bonus to Air France/KLM Flying Blue today. Off the back of that, I ran some award searches for a flight I need from the US back to the UK later this year.
Award pricing was all over the place depending on the origin and destination airports. In at least one case though, I find wide open award availability for at least four people from the US to Europe from June to August 2026 and again from January to March 2027, something that’s notoriously hard to find usually with Flying Blue.
I’d found that availability out of New York, but the pricing depended on where you’re flying to in Europe. For example, if you just want a nonstop business class award to Paris (Air France’s hub) in February, you’re looking at having to redeem at least 170,500 miles.
If you were to fly through Paris or Amsterdam on the way to Dublin, the pricing drops to a still-high 101,000 miles one way in February.
If you instead wished to fly to London in February, it’s possible to get that for 67,000 miles. Unfortunately that’s on one solitary day at the start of the month, with everything else that month being 138,000+ miles. As you can see in the screenshot below though, every month from January to May has at least one day bookable for 67,000 miles which isn’t much higher than the standard business class award pricing of 60,000 miles.
It’s on flights to Newcastle where the availability and pricing really shines though. I’d searched this as it’s the closest “major” airport to where we live and I couldn’t believe how many days in February had at least one flight bookable for only 60,000 miles—that’s only 48,000 Membership Rewards with the current Amex transfer bonus. January and March had similar availability too.
I figured there might only be availability for one person, but that’s not the case. Here’s the availability for two people (note that the award calendar displays the total cost for two people, so 120,000 miles is the total cost for two people).
But what if you have a family of four you need to book for? Good news—there’s availability for four people for 60% of that month. The taxes and fees would total more than $1,000 which would mean you could take advantage of this Amex Offer that’s awarding 20,000 bonus Membership Rewards if you’re targeted.
All the 60K award availability that I found routed through Paris rather than Amsterdam. Seeing as you’d be flying on Air France metal rather than KLM, it would sadly mean you wouldn’t get a Delft house, but that’s a minor disappointment in the grand scheme of things.
I wasn’t able to find other cities with wide open 60K pricing, but I only checked just over half a dozen cities. Air France and KLM have such a massive route network that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other opportunities out there.
The screenshots in this post use February as an example as that’s where I was tending to find slightly more reasonable pricing to other cities, but there’s excellent availability from June through August this year too from New York to Newcastle.
In case you’re not familiar with Newcastle, it’s a city in the northeast of England. It’s only a 2.5 hour drive to Edinburgh in Scotland, or a 1.5 hour train ride that can cost less than $35. You can also take a train down to London in about 3-3.5 hours (it’s a ~5-6 hour drive), or a car or train to Liverpool in 3.5 hours. If you’d like to check out the beautiful Lake District, that’s a 1.5-2 hour drive from Newcastle. This award availability could therefore be a good option if you want to explore the UK and don’t mind traveling a bit from the airport you arrive at.
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Newbie question – How do you get the monthly calendar rather than the scrolly wheel at the top?
Leave the date field blank.
Sometimes it’s easier to use one of the free (or paid) award search tools to find the deals, then go to the airline’s site to pull up the specific flight you want to book. Obviously check the dates around it, too, in case the search tool didn’t show all the available deals.
It’s a great deal – plenty of secondary cities on offer throughout central/eastern Europe as well. Looks to be all AF not KLM. If you value MR at 1.5cpp the 48k = $720 in value. Even if you add on ~$500 in taxes or whatever, it’s a o/w business class ticket for, say, $1250/pp. Not sure what unicorns folks are expecting that are much better value than that. Take the wins.
I found that the calendar isn’t always reliable. It shows x miles and when you click on the day it is actually y miles (which can be more or less than x)
I’ve wondered if it might be due to time zone differences.
Is a similar value ever found from the West Coast? Like Tim, I really don’t want to take a 5 hr positioning flight from West Coast to East Coast and only have a couple of hours to sleep when over the Atlantic.
It is possible, although they’re much, much harder to find. I just checked Portland, OR to Newcastle and there are a handful of days over the next year for 60K.
This has to be a joke…your entire findings are based on the off season of Feb. What about May to September.
There you have to pay through your nose. And than there are taxes and fees.
Flying Blue is a dead program.
As mentioned at least a couple of times in the post, similar availability can be had in January and March. There were other months with at least some 60K availability too. That’s so rare that it’s worth highlighting seeing as people don’t just avoid visiting the UK outside of May to September.
I just noticed there are tons of dates in June, July, and August this year as well.
But they are not as readily available. Even in you NewCastle example the cost in May is 163500 miles. Plus hefty taxes and fees.
But if we are missing something, a destination where there is plentiful availability for summer, please correct me if i am wrong.
They are readily available. There are 10 days in July and 12 in August – that’s far, far more than normal.
You asked about May to September. I highlighted that June to August this year has a ton of availability which was seemingly what you wanted, so now you’re complaining that 60K isn’t available in May of next year?
You are not going to make him happy.
When I read posts like his I figure that is one less person I have to worry about when I am looking for hard-to-find award space.
@BBT, you are being unreasonable. The post is showing that it is possible to get several dates in business class to Europe using Flying Blue for as little as 60k miles. It is available for spring break, which many of us are interested in, others are interested in Europe regardless of the season when good deals are available. The whole point of this game is to be flexible and creative, and you can find great deals. It doesn’t seem like you’re interested in doing either.
@Liam You can’t fix stupid.
I just looked and there is a lot of availability. It was a good find.
lmao hilarious comment. WHY ISNT EVERY AWARD ALERT CATERED TO MY SPECIFIC NEEDS?!?!?!
Good find Stephen!
Prefer the food on AF, and the Delft Blue houses on KL.