Whether you're looking to use your points and miles to get to Europe in business class, book a Delta flight somewhere near or far, or fly all the way to Tahiti, there are few better – or cheaper – ways to get there than Flying Blue miles.
Flying Blue is the shared frequent flyer program of French carrier Air France and Dutch airline KLM. And they're some of the easiest in the world to earn – Flying Blue is a transfer partner of all the major banks. If you're earning points with credit cards from American Express, Bilt Rewards, Capital One, Chase, Citi, or Wells Fargo, you can easily turn them into Flying Blue miles and book flights like these.
Flying Blue charges fewer miles than many (if not most) airlines for countless routes. While you'll get hit with some higher cash fees when redeeming miles, and might encounter some quirks when booking award tickets online, it can still be well worth it. And thanks to a workaround we recently discovered, finding the best deals is easier than ever.
Read on to learn how to find – and book – flights through Flying Blue.
Step 1: Sign Up For a Flying Blue Account
First things first, you'll need to create a free account on the Flying Blue website.
It doesn't matter whether you're booking flights on Air France, KLM, or a partner airline: If you're planning to transfer credit card points to book, this is a critical step to ensure your points don't get stuck in limbo. Brand-new accounts (or repeatedly transferring points in quick succession) is where we regularly see hiccups with points going through.
You'll use your Flying Blue number to log in and search for award flights through either Air France or KLM. You'll also need to keep this number handy to transfer points regardless of which credit card program you've got points with.
Step 2: Start an Award Search
You can search for award flights through Air France or KLM regardless of the airline you intend to fly.
Click the tab “Book with Miles.” You'll be prompted to log into your Flying Blue account if you haven't already.
Enter your departure airport and desired destination, but leave the departure date blank … for now, at least. Oh, and don't bother searching for roundtrip fares at the start. It will be much easier to search for flights one way at a time.
If you're hoping to book premium cabins like business class, select “Business” from the drop-down menu of cabin options.
Step 3: Pull Up the Flexible Calendar to Find the Lowest Fares
Flying Blue's dynamic award pricing means award rates are still all over the map – especially in business class.
Flying up front, you're still more likely to see rates closer to 200,000 miles or more. But Flying Blue Promo Rewards – the airlines' monthly specials with discounted award rates of 25% to 50% on select routes – are also still around, so you might occasionally find an even better deal. It makes it harder to work out what's the best deal.
To find the lowest rates for Air France or KLM award flights, you'll want to pull up the flexible calendar. Thanks to a workaround we discovered recently, you can also use this trick to find availability on partner airlines like Delta and Virgin Atlantic … but only by using the Dutch website KLM.nl. Don't worry: You can change the language to English.
Simply enter your departure and arrival destinations but leave the “departure date” field blank. Then hit “Search flights.”
It's easiest to search one way and for one passenger at a time.
The airline's site will pull up a month's worth of availability – with the ability to quickly tab over to another month. If you're on the hunt for a business class fare, look for months that show business class flights available for 60,000 miles. Once you select a month, it'll list out dates in green to display the lowest rates.
Click on a date to see the available flights. You can use the filters at the top to narrow the results to just the flights you want. You can filter by cabin and sort by price, duration, or departure and arrival times.
If you're looking to book roundtrip, simply reverse the departure and arrival airports to find award availability for your flight home. Once you've found your outbound and return flights separately, plug those exact dates into a roundtrip search.
If you're searching for two passengers, the prices shown in miles will be the total for all passengers – not per person. This is true both in the calendar view and when choosing flights. Here's an example below.
Another thing to note: Air France's website can be wonky at times and you may get an error message during your search or in the final booking process.
If that happens, try searching for flights through KLM or in a new browser. If that fails to solve the issue, you may need to try booking via the mobile app (more on that below) … or even call Air France or KLM to complete the booking. Note: Flying Blue's monthly promo rewards at discounted rates can only be booked online – a phone agent won't be able to book those for you.
How to Find Award Availability for Partner Flights
Searching for flights operated by partner airlines like Delta or Virgin Atlantic? Unfortunately, Flying Blue's monthly calendar function doesn't work for partner airline flights. Instead, you'll need to enter dates during your search and search day by day.
… unless you use KLM's Netherlands-based site, in which case that blank date trick works even for partner airline redemptions. By heading to KLM.nl instead of the normal dot com, you can leave the date blank on your search for Delta awards (or other partners) and trigger a month-by-month calendar view of flights. That's absolutely invaluable to quickly find the Delta flights you can book using Flying Blue miles.
Normally, you'd have to search one day at a time, hoping to eventually strike a hit … or else error out. But by leaving the departure date blank, this search for Delta flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Mexico City (MEX) suggests there might be availability from February onward – including several dates in February like Feb. 1, Feb. 8, Feb. 9, Feb. 18, and Feb. 22.
One thing to note is that if you search too many dates within a short period of time, Flying Blue's website may stop showing partner airline availability altogether, meaning you may only get results for Air France or KLM flights. This is another instance where it may help to use the mobile app or call to verify availability.
In some cases, it'll still be easier to start by using another airline website or a special award search tool to find availability first, then enter those exact dates on Air France or KLM's website or app.
Say you want to book this Thrifty Traveler Premium deal using Flying Blue miles to fly Delta to Hawaii and back.
Then head to Air France or KLM's website, and search those exact dates.
Using the Air France Mobile App
Since Air France's website can be buggy, it can sometimes help to use the mobile app, which is generally more stable and has fewer errors.
This is especially true if you're trying to search and book partner airline awards like flights on China Airlines, Delta, or Virgin Atlantic – but the app also has a few nuances you should know about – particularly when searching for these partner airline flights.
Once you've downloaded the app to your phone, open it and select “Buy now” at the bottom. Then, enter all of your search parameters and make sure to switch on the “Pay with Miles” option – you must be logged in to your account to see this.
For this example, I'm specifically looking for nonstop Virgin Atlantic business class flights from Boston (BOS) to London (LHR) using my Flying Blue miles, and I know that availability exists on this specific date of July 3rd. However, my initial search on the app is only showing options on Air France or KLM flights.
This is an important quirk to keep in mind when using the app – your initial search often won't show any partner airline flights at all. You may either get a screen that shows “no flights available” or results that only include Air France and KLM flights.
In these cases, the trick is to simply tap on a different date at the top of the screen, and then back to the date you want to book. This simple workaround will sometimes help you find availability on these partner airline flights when using the app, like this example.
Step 4: Transfer Your Points & Book!
Once you've found your desired flights, it's time to lock them down.
If you don't already have Flying Blue miles, you can transfer them from all the major banks – Amex, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bilt – straight to your Flying Blue account.
All these points transfer on a 1:1 basis, so 60,000 points with Chase, Amex, or Capital One gets you all the miles you need to book that one-way business class seat to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG). Occasional transfer bonuses of 25% from the banks to Flying Blue can make it even cheaper.
Read more: Save Points When Booking Flights: Transfer Them to an Airline Partner
These transfers are typically instantaneous, so there's no need to worry about the flights you want to book disappearing … but not always. Occasionally, there will be a hangup with transferring points, leading to a delay of minutes, hours, or even days.
Just keep your fingers crossed your points go through straight away – and prepare to call your bank, Flying Blue, or both if they don't.
Book a Free Stopover!
Booking a flight with a connection? You can add a free stopover to any award ticket booked with Flying Blue miles … whether you're flying Air France, Virgin Atlantic, Delta, or dozens of other partner airlines.
Think of a stopover like a layover on steroids: A stopover is any connection over 24 hours … meaning you could stop for multiple days if you'd like. It's a great way to see two destinations for the price of one, heading into the city where you're connecting for a few days before hopping on another flight to your final spot.
You'll need to call Flying Blue at 1-800-375-8723 to book an award ticket with a stopover. As of publication, they're not bookable online.
Critically, you'll also need to confirm award availability for both flights first. Let’s say you want to fly to Munich but take a stopover in Paris for four days on the way there. You’d want to search separately for award availability on each of those flights – for example, a flight from New York City (JFK) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) on April 27, then a second flight from Paris onward to Munich (MUC) on May 1.
If both flights are bookable with miles, copy down the dates and flight numbers for both segments then call Flying Blue, inform an agent you’d like to book an award ticket with a stopover, and relay the information for both flights.
Bottom Line
Air France and KLM's Flying Blue frequent flyer program is among the best in the world. It combines low award rates with excellent award availability. And because it's a transfer partner with all the major banks, it's one of our go-to options to book almost any award ticket.
Use this guide to book award flights on Air France, KLM, or any of their partner airlines using Flying Blue miles.
Great article. I’m going through a few of these issues as well..
I bought a roundtrip ticket with Delta (it was a good discount rate), where most of the flights are on AIR FRANCE in business class. Can I still get a free layover in Paris with Air France?
Excellent.. this is … mostly how I book Bus. Cl. With miles…
Also call the partners and book or on the partners website… making sure I have both airlines frequent flyer numbers on the record.