Flying Blue Elite Status (XP) With Sustainable Aviation Fuel, Donations

Different airline loyalty programs give members different pathways to earning elite status. As I’ve written about, I’m pursuing elite status with Air France-KLM Flying Blue, with the goal of earning Platinum status in the program.

In this post I wanted to look at the program’s unique opportunities to earn elite status by buying sustainable aviation fuel, and making donations to charity. This can help you earn status more quickly, and for some, it will prove worthwhile. I’ve now used both of these opportunities, so wanted to cover them in detail, and share my experience.

Earn Flying Blue XPs with Air France-KLM’s sustainability efforts

Flying Blue uses XPs (“experience points”) as its elite qualification metric, and has three primary elite tiers — Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Elite status requirements differ based on whether you’re qualifying or requalifying for status:

• If you’re starting from scratch, you’d need 100 XPs for Silver status
• Gold status then requires 180 XPs; if you’re starting from scratch that means you’d need a total of 280 XPs, while if you’re already Silver or Gold, that means you’d need 180 XPs
• Platinum status then requires 300 XPs; if you’re starting from scratch that means you’d need a total of 580 XPs, while if you’re already Gold or Platinum, that means you’d need 300 XPs

Note that as you progress through the tiers, your membership year always resets. So if starting from scratch, you don’t need to earn 580 XPs within a year to earn Platinum, but rather you’d have a year to reach each tier. Also keep in mind that Flying Blue has a rollover elite status feature, so if you earn Platinum status, you can rollover up to 300 XPs toward the next year.

With those basics out of the way, Flying Blue has two opportunities to earn XPs for doing good, and I wanted to go over the details of those in this post.

Earn Flying Blue XPs for donating miles to charity

Flying Blue lets you earn XPs for making donations to charity. Specifically, you earn one XP for every 2,000 Flying Blue miles that you donate to charity. You can choose from a variety of causes, ranging from education, to preserving sea life, to reducing poverty.

There’s no limit to how many XPs you can earn this way, and this doesn’t have to be done in conjunction with any flights. So in theory, you could just outright buy elite status this way, without ever stepping foot on a plane. The XPs from this initiative post instantly, and when you make your donation, you’ll even immediately see how many XPs you’ll earn (in case you’re really bad at math). 😉

To state the obvious, if you wanted to requalify for Platinum and needed 300 XPs, you could redeem 600,000 miles to earn those XPs, all while doing good.

However, personally I think this is the much less interesting of the two opportunities. I wouldn’t consider this to be an efficient use of miles, even when factoring in that you’re doing good. I certainly wouldn’t do this on a widespread basis, though if you’re a limited number of XPs short of earning elite status, then I’d say it could be worth considering.

Earn Flying Blue XPs for buying sustainable aviation fuel

Flying Blue lets you earn XPs for purchasing sustainable aviation fuel to offset your flight. You can expect that you’ll get one XP for roughly every €10 of sustainable aviation fuel purchased (the exact cost varies, but that’s the average). To cover some of the basics of this opportunity:

• You can purchase sustainable aviation fuel only for tickets issued by Air France-KLM flights; it’s fine if it’s for travel on partner airlines, but you need to be ticketed through the airline
• You can make the purchase any time between when you book your ticket and when you check-in for your flight
• You can purchase sustainable aviation fuel on both revenue and award tickets
• For a given itinerary, you’ll have the opportunity to purchase sustainable aviation fuel in one of three amounts, and those amounts will be based on the distance you’re traveling and the class of service you’re traveling in
• You only receive the XPs once you complete your itinerary, so you can’t book a ticket, buy sustainable aviation fuel, cancel it, and receive the XPs
• For those curious, sustainable aviation fuel purchases post to your credit card the same as airfare, meaning you should purchase it with a card that qualifies for bonus points on airfare (and if there’s an Amex Offers deal for Air France-KLM flights, that could work with this as well)
• The XPs from sustainable aviation fuel purchases should post to your account in the days following a flight, but sometimes they don’t post automatically, in my experience, and you need to contact customer service

So, how many XPs should you expect that you’ll be allowed to buy for a particular itinerary? Let me give a few examples of extremes.

On one end of the spectrum, a one-way Air France economy ticket from Paris to Amsterdam gives you the option of purchasing 1-3 XPs.

Meanwhile a one-way Air France business class ticket from Miami to Paris to Nice gives you the option of purchasing 16-114 XPs.

And on the other end of the spectrum, a one-way Air France first class ticket from Los Angeles to Paris to Singapore gives you the option of purchasing 57-561 XPs…

As you can see, you can rack up a lot of XPs with this system. To state the obvious, Flying Blue Platinum status requires 300 XPs on an ongoing basis, meaning you could “purchase” those 300 XPs for €3,000, and that would buy you the status (of course you’d still have to take some flights, but those could be award flights).

Should you earn Flying Blue XPs with these programs?

The above covers the basics of Flying Blue’s two programs that can earn you XPs for contributing to the carrier’s sustainability efforts. Are they worth it, though?

Let me of course note that it’s nice to contribute to good causes in general, though we should still crunch the numbers, since you can do good without essentially making a donation to an airline. Personally I wish the sustainable aviation fuel initiative were replaced with some sort of a reforestation initiative instead, since I question whether sustainable aviation fuel in its current form will ever become something that’s viable on a larger scale, given the economics.

With that out of the way, personally I think there’s limited value to earning one XP per 2,000 miles donated, since that’s a very high cost to rack up XPs, and I’d rather just separately donate to a good cause. The exception is at the margins. If you’re a limited number of XPs from earning status and don’t have plans to fly (where you can buy sustainable aviation fuel), then this could make sense.

I think the ability to earn XPs by purchasing sustainable aviation fuel is much more interesting. I’m not saying you should purchase this with every flight, but with a specific use in mind, I think it’s quite a good value.

Let me share this in the context of my own journey with trying to earn Flying Blue Platinum status. As mentioned above, Platinum status requires 580 XPs if starting from scratch, or 300 XPs if you’re requalifying. Here’s how I’m getting there:

• It’s possible to get a Flying Blue Gold status match in the United States at the moment, either if you have Bilt Platinum status, or through the status match campaign (which is paid); if you have Gold status, you only need 300 more XPs to earn Platinum status
• The Air France-KLM Card in the United States offers up to 100 XPs as part of its welcome bonus, so if you combine that with crediting some flights to Flying Blue, this could be a way to supplement that
• I’m trying to get to Flying Blue Platinum status as fast as I can, so on a recent transatlantic itinerary I purchased 114 XPs for $1,213 (I also had an Amex Offers deal for $200 off an Air France-KLM purchase), and I’m now very close to Platinum status
• So while I don’t plan on buying sustainable aviation fuel on an ongoing basis, I think in certain situations it could be worthwhile, especially if you’re aiming for a certain elite tier
• I’ve credited a few flights to Flying Blue as well, and am considering donating some miles to charity just to unlock Platinum status already, since there’s quite a bit of incremental value

If nothing else, the cost to purchase sustainable aviation fuel is a useful reference point for the rate at which you can rack up XPs, and also to qualify for status.

Lastly, I should briefly mention Flying Blue Ultimate, which is the program’s absolute top tier status. While Platinum requires 300 XPs, Ultimate requires 900 UXPs, with UXPs being earned exclusively from Air France-KLM flights. So it’s three times as hard to earn, and then some. For those curious, buying sustainable aviation fuel does count as UXPs, while donating miles to charity doesn’t count as UXPs (but does count as XPs).

Bottom line

The Air France-KLM Flying Blue program gives members the opportunity to earn elite status by purchasing sustainable aviation fuel or donating to charity. I’d say the better deal is buying sustainable aviation fuel, as you can usually rack up XPs for roughly €10 each this way. Meanwhile you can earn one XP for every 2,000 miles donated.

This won’t be something with mass appeal or that represents a great value for most, but it’s worth being aware of, especially at the margins. I appreciate this opportunity for members to engage in the program without flying.

Anyone see value in earning Flying Blue XPs with this sustainability program?