Strategically buying miles & points for luxury travel can be a great deal. We’ve just seen the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program launch a new promotion on purchased miles. This offer is just about as good as the deals we see from Flying Blue program nowadays, since it has been over a year since we’ve seen a 100% bonus or 50% discount.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased Flying Blue miles
Through 11:59PM CET on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program is offering a promotion on purchased miles. The accounts I manage all show a discount of up to 45%, which you can unlock as long as you buy at least 50,000 miles in one transaction. It’s possible that different accounts may be targeted for different promotions, as you do have to log into your Flying Blue account to see what your offer is.
How much does it cost to buy Flying Blue miles?
Ordinarily you can buy Flying Blue miles for as little as 3.05 cents each (in USD), before any discounts or bonuses (the cost per mile is lowest if you buy lots of miles). If you maxed out the promotion and purchased 100,000 Flying Blue miles, you’d receive a total of 100,000 miles at a cost of $1,677.50, which is a rate of 1.68 cents per mile.
Back in the day, Flying Blue consistently offered a 100% bonus on purchased points during a promotion, which was an opportunity to buy points for 1.53 cents each. However, it has been a long time since we’ve seen such an offer, and among the last several promotions, this is in line with the best that we’ve seen.
How many Flying Blue miles can you purchase?
Those without status in the Flying Blue program are limited to purchasing at most 100,000 Flying Blue miles per calendar year before any bonuses. Elite members can purchase an unlimited number of miles, though there may be limits on how many bonus miles can be earned during promotions.
Which credit card should you buy Flying Blue miles with?
Flying Blue mileage purchases are processed by points.com, meaning they don’t count as an airfare purchase for the purposes of credit card spending. Therefore I’d recommend using a card on which you’re trying to reach minimum spending, or otherwise, a credit card that maximizes your return on everyday spending.
- Earn 1% cash back when you make a purchase, earn 1% cash back when you pay for that purchase
- $0
- 2x points on purchases up to $50k then 1x
- Access to Amex Offers
- No annual fee
See this post for more on which credit cards are best for buying points.
Is buying Flying Blue miles worth it?
The Air France-KLM Flying Blue program has dynamic award pricing, though has more consistency in pricing than in the past. Generally speaking, saver level transatlantic business class awards cost 60,000 miles one-way, which is great. The catch is that Flying Blue has become really bad about releasing saver business class award space across the Atlantic. However, in other markets availability is often better.
The way I view it, the big selling point of the Flying Blue program is that Air France and KLM make more award seats available to members of the Flying Blue program than to members of partner airline frequent flyer programs. Furthermore, nowadays Flying Blue allows free stopovers on awards, which is an awesome feature.
If you’re looking to book a long haul award ticket, especially in business class, it’s hard to beat the value proposition of booking through Flying Blue. Not only is there a good amount of availability in some markets, but both Air France and KLM offer solid long haul business class products (read my review of KLM’s 787 business class, read my review of Air France’s A350 business class). 
Does Flying Blue have fuel surcharges on award tickets?
Flying Blue does have carrier imposed surcharges (often referred to as fuel surcharges) on award tickets, though they’re mild in comparison to what you’d pay for a British Airways business class award, for example. Expect Flying Blue carrier imposed surcharges to generally be around $200 one-way for a transatlantic business class award (and then taxes and fees are in addition to that, but you’d pay that with any airline).
On what airlines can you redeem Flying Blue miles?
As you can see above, personally I think there’s the most value to be had when redeeming directly on Air France & KLM. Beyond that, Flying Blue miles can also be redeemed on a variety of other airlines:
- Air France & KLM are in SkyTeam, so you can redeem miles on all SkyTeam partners; however, I generally find SkyTeam isn’t as good as oneworld or Star Alliance when it comes to reciprocal award space
- Flying Blue has some unique airline partnerships outside of SkyTeam, including with airlines like Aircalin and Etihad
- Flying Blue also allows first class redemptions on select partners, including China Eastern and Garuda Indonesia
How much are Flying Blue miles worth?
Everyone will value mileage currencies differently, but personally I value Flying Blue miles at ~1.3 cents each. However, I tend to value points pretty conservatively, and there are many ways to get way more value from Flying Blue miles than that.
Do Flying Blue miles expire?
Flying Blue miles expire if you have no qualifying flight or credit card activity in your account for 24 months. You can extend the expiration of miles by crediting any eligible flights to Flying Blue, having Flying Blue elite status, or by having a co-branded Flying Blue credit card.
Note that buying points directly from Flying Blue, or transferring them from a Flying Blue transfer partner, wouldn’t extend the expiration of the miles.
What other ways can you earn Flying Blue miles?
While buying Flying Blue miles could represent a great deal, keep in mind that there are lots of other ways to earn Flying Blue miles. Most significantly, Flying Blue is transfer partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Brex, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou, and Marriott Bonvoy. As you can see, there are lots of ways to acquire points with the program through other currencies.
- 4x points at restaurants worldwide, on up to $50,000 in purchases annually
- 4x points at U.S. supermarkets, on up to $25,000 in purchases annually
- 3x points on flights booked directly with airlines or through amextravel.com
- $325
- Earn 5x points on flights purchased directly from airlines or through Amex Travel (up to $500k/year)
- $200 Annual Uber Credit
- Amex Centurion Lounge Access
- $695
- Unlimited 2x miles per dollar
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Capital One Travel Portal
- $0 intro for first year; $95 after that
- 3x on Dining
- Earn Points on Rent with No Fees
- 15 Points Transfer Partners
- $0
Bottom line
Air France-KLM Flying Blue is offering a promotion on purchased miles, giving members the opportunity to buy miles with up to a 45% discount. This is an opportunity to acquire miles for 1.68 cents each.
There are still plenty of situations where this could represent a good value. There is lots of merit to Flying Blue, especially for long haul business class redemptions, where award pricing is generally reasonable. That being said, currently transatlantic business class award availability isn’t great.
The only thing I’d remind people of is that there are lots of ways to earn Flying Blue miles, so outright buying them won’t be necessary for a lot of people. Always crunch the numbers for yourself and search availability before buying miles.
Do you plan on purchasing Flying Blue miles with a 45% discount?
My offer is expressed as 80% bonus miles.
Mine was the 45% Ben cited, zero points zero activity member. And in USD not EUR, although I'm in Australia.
Co pay in 'J' BKK to MUC $ 218, seat $ 175. Total $ 383.
Can have seat assigned at check-in, but I prefer my own space by the window.
I thought purchased miles could extend the life of previously-purchased or transferred miles (but not "in-seat" miles and vice versa).
I was thinking of dong a small purchase (or transfer) for precisely that reason.
Am I mistaken? Will my purchased/transferred miles expire without any way to extend their life if I fail to use them by X Date?
If so, that's a pretty big reason not to buy/transfer AF miles.
Before...
I thought purchased miles could extend the life of previously-purchased or transferred miles (but not "in-seat" miles and vice versa).
I was thinking of dong a small purchase (or transfer) for precisely that reason.
Am I mistaken? Will my purchased/transferred miles expire without any way to extend their life if I fail to use them by X Date?
If so, that's a pretty big reason not to buy/transfer AF miles.
Before anyone jumps down my throat about the evils of "speculative" transfers/purchase, they weren't - I had 2 trips booked with AF miles and had to cancel. Since then, flights on China Air have all but disappeared.
VN have decent availability if they work for your routes. I think you're right about the validity rules- they are a bit complicated, but, even if you do have to fly it doesn't have to be on AFKL, any Skyteam flight will do.
CDG-BKK in J for 85k + $400 on AF is not a bad deal.
Not a bad deal. if you can get it for 85 + 400. I discovered a kind of 'progression' of reduced mileage. I wanted to book for June 14, 26, BKK to MUC in 'J'.
At that time 85 K was only available until June 08, after that it was 134K. Few days later it was available until June 11, few days later until June 14, now until June 18, and 4 more dates...
Not a bad deal. if you can get it for 85 + 400. I discovered a kind of 'progression' of reduced mileage. I wanted to book for June 14, 26, BKK to MUC in 'J'.
At that time 85 K was only available until June 08, after that it was 134K. Few days later it was available until June 11, few days later until June 14, now until June 18, and 4 more dates before June 23. I know that general availability starts around 330 days out, like end of July. I have just never seen the 'progression' of lower mileage availability over time.
You should consider playing with the local connections. MUC may have different availability to NUE etc.
I certainly played with it. Doing this since about 10 years. MUC, VIE, ZRH, BER. It was very similar search results with all those destinations. As long as I can get 'J' for the long haul portion, I don't mind a few hour train ride in Europe. I even flew Aeroflot in 2018, with Delta miles. SEA-SVO-VIE-MUC. This was at a time when I believed that Russia is just another nation, and Aeroflot just another airline. Too bad they decided to turn into a nation non grata.
It’s 60k for a handful of days, when all bloggers complain about lack of award availability. Otherwise it’s a dead program.
I can see lots of 'saver' availability, just not on the N. American routes. Whether anyone wants to pay 85k miles each way for a 6 hour journey from CDG to West Africa is another question.
Ben, you really need to change the bit about 'transatlantic' tickets 'generally' starting at 60k because it's just not correct anymore. The bulk of AFKL entry-level business class transatlantic availability is to places like BOG, SJO and LIM, and they all go for 85k.