Flying Blue Has Lowered Award Costs
Flying Blue is one of the most useful options for booking business class awards between the US and Europe. Air France and KLM fly to lots of US airport, release plenty of award availability throughout the year, and offer great promo rewards monthly. In a surprising move, Flying Blue has now lowered award costs for business class flights and adopted standard pricing, including for flights between the US and Europe. Let's get into the details and learn how Flying Blue is becoming an even more useful program for award flights to Europe.
Flying Blue's Dynamic Pricing
Flying Blue has had dynamic pricing for its award flights for a few years now. This meant that the cost of an award flight could change at any given moment with no notice, since Flying Blue did not have a published award chart.
When Air France or KLM did have saver availability (which happened often), the pricing was quite competitive. You could regularly snag a business class seat between the East Coast and Europe for around 53,000 miles or so one way.
Lower Award Costs
After some rumblings in the award travel space that it looked like Flying Blue had reduced award costs, this has now been confirmed directly by Flying Blue's Director. The new standardized rates for one-way flights between the US and Europe are:
- Economy for 20,000 miles
- Premium economy for 35,000 miles
- Business for 50,000 miles
Even better: this pricing is the same for the entire US! This is excellent news for our friends on the West Coast. Flying Blue used to charge higher rates out of the West Coast, but that is now a thing of the past.
This new pricing does reflect an increase in economy and premium economy award rates, but not by much. Also, this increase can be pretty much negated with transfer bonuses and promo rewards.
And here is the icing on the cake: it looks like Flying Blue has also lowered taxes and fees on award flights! Flights from the US to Europe typically incurred taxes and fees north of $250 per person (and even higher fees returning from Europe). But as shown above, these have lowered to around $200. Taxes and fees for flights originating in Europe appear unchanged (typically north of $350).
Flying Blue Lowers Award Costs : ToP Thoughts
When so many airlines are devaluating their award charts and making other “enhancements” that affect customers negatively, Flying Blue has been moving in the opposite direction. Earlier this year, they added free stopovers on award tickets (including for partner airlines). Now, Flying Blue has lowered award costs for business class flights between the US and Europe. Merci and bedankt, Flying Blue!
H/T Thrifty Traveler for first spotting this change.
H/T OMAAT for confirming it with Flying Blue.
