Flying Blue Devaluation
We know that devaluations are a part of miles and points, it is why we preach earn and burn. Those miles and points sitting in your account are never going to increase in value, they will only decrease. While we know devaluations are a part of the game, it is the no notice devaluations that sting the most. Because no notice devaluations is the loyalty programs showing how little they actually care about us. That is exactly the message being sent with this no notice Flying Blue devaluation.
Hat tip to Jenny in the ToP Facebook Group who noticed this first thing this morning. I know it happened overnight because I found awards at the old price at around 10PM ET last night. The good news is that this seemed to have hit economy awards much harder than business (for the most part).
New Economy Saver Prices
Let's start off with the really bad part of this Flying Blue devaluation, which is economy saver awards. We are noticing an increase from 20,000 Flying Blue points up to 25,000 Flying Blue points. This appears to be the case for all saver awards outside of their monthly promo awards. It also appears to be the fact for partner awards and their own metal.
I was searching for a Paris (CDG) to Detroit (DTW) flight last night and found a flight for 20,000 points. This morning it was 25,000 points for the same flight. I even searched the flight on Virgin Atlantic just to ensure it was actually still showing as a saver flight, and it was.
That is an overnight 25% no notice Flying Blue devaluation right there. A real kick to the teeth. It makes Virgin Atlantic the better option for booking economy saver awards now, even if they often have higher taxes and fees. That is especially true since they have similar cancellation and change fees.
Business Routes Not Hit Quite As Hard
We also checked out business awards on partners, and their own metal, to see what kind of Flying Blue devaluation we were looking at there. It is a bit harder to pin down for these, since Flying Blue business awards were always based on routes for partners. They didn't have a flat price across all routes, or even within the same areas at times. We did notice increases across the board though, at least for the routes we checked. Here is some of what we noticed:
- Copa Airlines YUL – PTY went from 28,500 to 29,500
- Etihad JED – AUH went from 18,000 to 19,500
- Etihad AUH – KUL went from 51,000 to 54,000
- Etihad AUH – CDG went from 46,500 to 50,500
- Air France – SFO – PRG went from 50,000 to 60,000
- Air France – DTW – BCN went from 50,000 to 60,000
As you can see, partner business class awards didn't get hit too hard. We are looking at a 1,500 – 5,000 mile difference for the flights we were able to track down. As for Air France's own metal, we were hit a bit harder there. After they reduced the business class awards to 50K a little over a year ago, they have now ratcheted them back up to at least 60K per person.
Flying Blue Devaluation: ToP Thoughts
This no notice Flying Blue devaluation hits really close to home, since I had been planning on scooping up 4 economy seats home from Paris this morning. I decided to wait until I had a night of rest to book everything for a bigger trip. I can not tell you how many times waiting until the morning has cost me dearly. You would think I would have learned my lesson by now! I guess higher taxes with some Virgin Atlantic bookings are in my future instead.
The semi-good news is that the business awards were not hit as hard, at least not on partners. It looks like the increase in prices will be in the 1,500 – 5,000 miles range (depending on the route) for those flights. The same can not be said if flying on Flying Blue metal. That increase of 20% is going to sting pretty bad for many.
Let us know if you find any more signs of a Flying Blue devaluation over in the ToP Facebook Group.
