A really exciting change has just been made to the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program. In late 2022, Flying Blue introduced free stopovers for awards on Air France and KLM, and this functionality has now been rolled out for travel on all partner airlines. This is huge!
Continue reading: Flying Blue Adds Free Stopovers On Award Tickets
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Makes transferring those Bilt points to AF-KLM at 100% rate earlier this year more worthwhile— even on spec.
Does this include 5th freedom routes or just at the airline hub?
I’m thinking AMS -SIN -DPS on KL.
@ Adam -- It doesn't have to be at the hub. I'll update the post to reflect that.
The examples you give aren't relevant to me and I'm guessing many others. Here's what I would like to know. Can I fly from Paris to NYC on Air France and then months later continue on from NYC to Los Angeles on Delta?
On a related topic, @Lucky do you know how long it typically takes AF to load awards for a new route? I haven’t been able to find a single seat in any class for the new nonstop RDU-CDG route in either direction on any dates in the winter/spring. Just keeps offering me connecting flights through ATL or JFK.
Good stuff. More useful for people willing to book close in (typically) on SkyTeam for saver.
As far as I am aware it has not been confirmed that stopovers are possible outside of the AMS and CDG hubs. Do you have a source for this information?
What are Flying Blue's routing rules and do they allow stopovers in regions other than your origin/destination?
So, could you fly, say, CDG-LAX-NRT with a 3-month stopover in LAX and have the whole thing price at the Europe to Asia price?
While this is welcome news, FlyingBlue has very uncompetitive pricing on most partners... There may be concrete examples where it isn't too bad, notably international delta flights, but overall the rates are not the most competitive in the Skyteam ecosystem. This becomes especially true on non-alliance partners, where pricing is insane (JAL and Qantas are example). I suspect that even with these changes, the best deals will be with AF KLM
The source is Ben Linsey, director of flying blue who posted this on flyertalk a couple days ago.
This is insane for people based in ams/cdg. You can threat a one way with stopover as the in/outbound if 2 diffrent trips... Last week I booked scl-ams-del, wich was online 6k milles more expensive then just scl-ams.
At some times you even get an actual discount. Wonder one they nerf this...
Note that similar to Air Canada, Flying Blue does have a telephone booking fee, which is not waived. In practical terms I don't think that this really costs Flying Blue much - they get to collect an additional cash fee and stopovers are so inconvenient to book that most people won't do it.
I have a one way award booked on AF from ZNZ to CDG to IAH. We need to fly from NBO to ZNZ a week before our AF flight. Would adding NBO to ZNZ with a one week stopover in ZNZ be a valid ticket? Looking on AF's website, there is Kenya Airways award availability...
Anyone knows if this can be done retrospectively? I have ticket for December EWR-PRG via CDG and would like to stay in Paris for 2-3 nights...