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. While this offer isn’t quite as good as some of the past deals we’ve seen from the program, it still has the potential to represent a good value.
In this post:
Promotion on purchased Flying Blue miles
Through 11:59PM CET on Wednesday, April 30, 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 24,000 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.
Historically Flying Blue has typically offered a 100% bonus on purchased points during a promotion, which is an opportunity to buy points for 1.53 cents each. However, it has been some time since we’ve seen such an offer, and the last five promotions have been for a 70% bonus, a 40% discount, a 45% discount (twice), and an 80% bonus. So perhaps the 100% bonus is no longer the norm.
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.
In this case the best option is the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review), which offers 2x miles and has no foreign transaction fees. Usually the Chase Freedom Unlimited® (review) or Citi Double Cash® Card (review) would also be good options for maximizing everyday spending, but the cards have foreign transaction fees, so wouldn’t be a good option in this case.
- Earn 1% cash back when you make a purchase, earn 1% cash back when you pay for that purchase
- $0
- Earn 3% Cash Back on Dining
- Earn 3% Cash Back at Drugstores
- Earn 1.5% Cash Back On All Other Purchases
- $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.
- 5x total points on travel purchased through Chase Travel
- 3x points on dining
- 2x points on travel purchases
- $95
- 3x points on Travel after the $300 Annual Travel Credit
- 3x points on Dining
- $300 Travel Credit
- $550
- Earn 3x points on travel
- Earn 3x points on shipping purchases
- Cell Phone Protection
- $95
- 4x points at restaurants, 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.
While not as good as the 100% bonus we’ve seen in the past, 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 is in the gutter.
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?
oh, let me add. they do NOT let you pick seats on award flights in eco.
LAME
their dynamic award engine is really messed up.
i've had a Paris => North America economy route that I been looking up since late January. At one point it went from
38500 to 50000 to 55000 to 60000 all in one week.
then i booked United, but kept looking randomly and this week it dropped down to
38500 to 25000 to now 38500 with just 1 seat left.
Every time I...
their dynamic award engine is really messed up.
i've had a Paris => North America economy route that I been looking up since late January. At one point it went from
38500 to 50000 to 55000 to 60000 all in one week.
then i booked United, but kept looking randomly and this week it dropped down to
38500 to 25000 to now 38500 with just 1 seat left.
Every time I was searching for my entire family of 3. Even yesterday, their web engine quoted me 74500 for 3 people where 1 person is a child. The child should get 25% off, but the web engine would only give a 500mile discount. When I called, they quoted me 68500, the correct price if 25k per adult and 25% off of 25k for the child. I wanted to sleep on it b/c Air france is so goddamn annoying this year.
Today it's back up. I swear their dynamic engine sees how often you're searching and then ups the prices to see if you pay for it. Then when I don't search for 4 weeks, it drops again. They suck. Buy only if you can get it right away. Even when I transfer miles from Chase, like a big amount (6 figures of miles), it takes 5 biz days. It's very risky to buy imo.
I got an offer for an 80% bonus instead of just 45%. When I clicked through to points.com the 80% bonus rate applied to purchases at 24k miles and above.
Is this a good deal to buy AF miles at that rate?
Please stop repeating inaccurate information, there are no 60k business class redemptions available on ANY AFKL transatlantic routes to/from Central or South America. An 85k minimum applies.
What routes are there consistently business class awards? Seems like someone in the US would be crazy to buy their points unless you
Want economy. Especially with the expiration policy.
I have 100k miles being held hostage.