For a long time, the Flying Blue program has had a useful, “secret” calendar that lets you see award availability across a variety of dates. However, the ways to access this calendar have changed over time. In this post, I’d like to go over the details of how this currently works.
In this post:
The trick to seeing the Flying Blue award calendar
Air France-KLM Flying Blue is arguably SkyTeam’s most useful frequent flyer program, and award pricing on Air France and KLM can be attractive, especially if you can find saver level award availability. The catch is that it’s sometimes hard to come across saver level award availability, though there’s a secret way to find it.
When ordinarily doing an award search through the Air France or KLM website, you’ll only see availability for a week at a time (the date you searched, plus three days in either direction).
Fortunately there’s a trick to searching award pricing for a month at a time. When you go to the Air France USA website, start the process of searching for an award, by going to the “Book with Miles” tab. Select whether you want to travel one-way or roundtrip, the origin and destination, the number of travelers, and the cabin you want to travel in. However, leave the departure date blank.
By leaving the departure date blank, you’ll be brought to an award calendar that shows the lowest pricing for each month, and also displays the calendar for each month, when you click on it.
So within a minute, you can search availability in a market across a year, which is pretty tough to beat (Flying Blue opens award availability 359 days before departure).
Be aware that this only works for routes served by Air France and KLM. So for example, if you’re searching award availability for an itinerary that would require a Delta flight, then this wouldn’t work. Furthermore, in some cases there are discrepancies, where the calendar shows a lower amount than you’ll actually find when you select availability for that date. However, that’s the exception rather than the norm.
Why the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program is useful
The Air France-KLM Flying Blue loyalty program is useful for booking transatlantic business class award seats. Both Air France and KLM release a fair bit of transatlantic award availability (though not nearly as much as before), and the best way to book those seats is through the Flying Blue program. Fortunately Flying Blue is partners with major transferable points currencies, making the points easy to come by.
Also keep in mind that Flying Blue allows stopovers even on one-way awards, making these awards easier to maximize. For the time being, these awards have to be booked by phone, though. Still, this is a great way to get a stopover in Amsterdam or Paris enroute to your final destination.
Bottom line
The Flying Blue program has a hidden award search feature, which can be accessed through Air France’s website. Just go to the award search page, start your award search, but leave the travel dates blank.
This will then return a calendar that shows you pricing by month. With Flying Blue’s dynamic award pricing, this makes it easy to find the best deal.
Anyone else appreciate the Flying Blue award calendar?
Is there some trick to use the stopover benefits? I didn't think I can book this on my own so I called the AF reservation.
I was trying to book a trip from LIS-CDG-US with a stop at CDG. The reservation quoted mileage required to book two separate trips, rather than one trip with a stop over.
I started by fixing the Trans Atlantic portion of the flight first then found a date...
Is there some trick to use the stopover benefits? I didn't think I can book this on my own so I called the AF reservation.
I was trying to book a trip from LIS-CDG-US with a stop at CDG. The reservation quoted mileage required to book two separate trips, rather than one trip with a stop over.
I started by fixing the Trans Atlantic portion of the flight first then found a date with save award redemption rate availiable as LIS-CDG segment but perhaps there is another method?
Another great tip from OMAAT. Thanks Ben.
Well, not much of a ‘secret’ anymore, now is it? I kid… FlyingBlue has treated me well over the years. Those Promo awards for Business Class really are the sweet spot within the program. 60-80K for lie-flat across the Atlantic from select US cities (MIA-CDG, on AF’s 773, during the pandemic for me) was epic. I’ve kept their BofA card; spend $50/year, get your 5K points, keep things active. Eh. Probably wasting about $39/year on that. Oh well.
Ahh I needed this post a few weeks ago haha. I was driving myself mad trying to use the "old" method and it wasn't working. I figured they just removed being able to look at a month at a time. Thanks for this update!