The Air France-KLM Flying Blue program has a credit card in the United States, issued by Bank of America. It’s a card that I have, as someone who has Flying Blue Platinum status. A few days ago, we learned about some changes coming to the product, which are entirely positive.
I’d like to provide an update, as the new version of this card is now open for applicants, and there’s even a limited time welcome offer to celebrate this.
What’s changing about the Air France-KLM credit card
Over the coming weeks, we’re seeing some major changes to Flying Blue’s credit card in the United States.
For one, in March 2026 we’re going to see the card converted from a Mastercard to a Visa — specifically, it’ll go from being the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard to being the Air France KLM Visa Signature Card. The transition should be seamless, so existing cardmembers should automatically receive a new version of the card, with a new card number.
More immediately, for applications effective immediately, plus for existing cardmembers, we’re seeing some improvements to the benefits of the card. It’s maintaining the same $89 annual fee it previously had, with a couple of major changes.
First, the card has a new bonus category of earning 3x miles on dining. This complements the previous rewards structure of 3x miles on Air France, KLM, and SkyTeam bookings, plus 1.5x miles on all other everyday spending.
On top of that, we’re seeing new anniversary rewards on the card. As before, the card offers 5,000 anniversary bonus miles after $50 in annual purchases, in addition to 20XPs each card anniversary just for having the card. With these updates, it’s also possible to earn 80 XPs for annual purchases of at least $15,000, and an enhanced offer of an additional 60 XPs for annual purchases of at least $25,000.
In other words, in total cardmembers are now able to earn 160 XPs if they spend $25,000 on the card in anniversary year.
For those interested in applying for the card, it has a limited time welcome offer of 70,000 miles plus 100 XPs after spending $3,000 within the first 90 days.
I’m very happy to see these changes to the card!
I find the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program to be super useful, which is why I have Platinum status in the program. It’s fantastic to see Flying Blue actually make it more compelling to use the card for spending.
If I can earn 160 XPs per year by spending $25,000 on the card, all while earning a minimum of 1.5x miles, I’d consider that to be a worthwhile opportunity. For context on XPs, that’s the metric by which you earn status with the Flying Blue program:
- 100 XPs gets you Silver status
- You then need 180 additional XPs to earn Gold status
- You then need 300 additional XPs to earn Platinum status
The clock resets as you work your way up the tiers. In other words, if you’re starting from scratch, you’d need a total of 580 XPs to earn Platinum status, but you’d have more than a year, since the tiers keep resetting. Meanwhile if you already have Platinum status, you only need 300 XPs to requalify for the status.
So by spending $25,000 on the card per year, that’ll get me over half way to Platinum status. Personally, I didn’t find it worthwhile to put spending on the card before, so I’m very happy to see this. I also find the annual fee on the card easy to justify, since the 5,000 miles go a long way to offsetting the $89 annual fee.
Kudos to Flying Blue on these changes. If I had any wish, it’s that it would be awesome if there were even more opportunities to earn XPs for spending on the card. The folks at Flying Blue are savvy and understand the US market really well, so you’d think they’d embrace credit card spending as much as possible.
Bottom line
The Air France-KLM credit card in the United States is seeing some updates. For one, the card is transitioning from being a Mastercard to a Visa, which is the smallest change, as I see it. On top of that, the card now earns 3x miles on dining, and it’s also possible to earn up to 160 XPs on the card per year, by spending $25,000.
When you consider that the annual fee is staying the same, I’d consider these to be entirely positive changes. At least for me, Flying Blue will accomplish its goal — I’ll be switching some spending to the card!
What do you make of these Air France-KLM Flying Blue credit card changes?
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