Flying Blue Mistake Fare
Yesterday, December 15, 2023, is a day that will go down in award travel history. The internet, and most of our email inboxes, lit up with cheap business class deal after cheap business class deal. Call it what you want, but these awards are probably a Flying Blue mistake fare. We snagged flights for only 750 miles per person, plus $240ish taxes per person. Will these get cancelled? Who knows, but book now and plan later. Let's break down these fares and discuss how you can find them, too.
12/17/23 UPDATE: Flying Blue has started canceling these fares.
First Set of Flying Blue Mistake Fares
Shortly before 10 a.m. ET, my email inbox started filling with flight alerts. A Reddit user, with username Scott77k, spotted some really good deals to/from Europe from Canadian airports. Straight to the Points picked this up first and did an email blast to its premium members. These awards were 13,500 points in Flying Blue (Air France & KLM) business class between Toronto and Zagreb or 16,500 points in business between Toronto and Athens. Fares were available to and from Europe, so roundtrips were possible for as low as 27,000 points.
Second Set of Alerts
Within two hours of STTP's alerts, Thrifty Traveler Premium sent out it's own alert, first with a hat tip to STTP, and then confirming additional space. Flights were now available for 13,500 – 16,500 points in business class from Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. Destinations remained Zagreb and Athens.
In this quickly-evolving situation, STTP sent out an updated email minutes later. Suddenly, space was showing to many destinations in Europe! As noted by STTP, other cities worth checking: Antwerp, Bologna, Cork, Florence, Graz, Gothenburg, Krakow, Split, Turin. I personally checked all of these and found at least one fare available to all of them.
Third Set of Alerts
Things quieted down a little bit in the early afternoon. I scrambled to find something that worked, especially Krakow. Poland is very high on our travel list and we really wanted to make it work. Unfortunately, we could not line up dates that made sense, as our first quarter 2024 is already jammed-packed with travel.
However, around 5 p.m. ET, the deal of the year hit my inbox. Dan's Deals, expanding on earlier alerts, flagged business space on Flying Blue from Canada to Lille, France for only 1,500 miles and taxes. STTP pushed this alert to its readers and this is how I received the alert. This deal is just too good to not make it work, so I quickly booked. 3,000 miles and $480ish in taxes for 2 people in business Montreal to Lille, France. I was quite excited (pardon my enthusiasm in the text below) about this booking and had to let Spencer at STTP know that I appreciate his alert.
Fourth Set of Alerts
As you can imagine, the 1,500 mile awards disappeared quickly. However, in the early evening, Thrifty Traveler Premium flagged even MORE space, this time for 5,000 miles in each direction. This is getting ridiculous, right? This space was available to or from Europe. This space ended up lasting a couple of hours. Kudos to TTP for flagging it and congrats to everyone that got it booked!
How We Booked for 750 Miles Each
As I mentioned, Sarah and I booked a business class flight between Montreal and Lille, France. This is a newer A350 airplane and we are excited to try it. The cost was 3,000 miles and $478.80 for us both. So how did we get this price even lower? A transfer bonus! Back in May, Bilt Rewards' Rent Day promotion was a 100% transfer bonus to Flying Blue. We had a trip planned, so I transferred over 50,000 Bilt Rewards to book our trip. Unfortunately, that trip was canceled and the points are sitting in my Air France account. So I used 3,000 Air France miles, from 1,500 Bilt Rewards, to book us both in business class to France!
How to Learn About Future Deals
It goes without saying that if you are not signed up for one or more flight alert services, you should do so ASAP. I personally spend all day, everyday online and dealing with flights and award bookings and even I subscribe to many alert services. Unless you spend your time endlessly scrolling Reddit and Flyertalk or searching for random award space, award alert services are your best bet in finding and booking insane deals. Two of the best are the ones that flagged various portions of the December 15th madness: Straight to the Points and Thrifty Traveler Premium. I subscribe to both services and get outsized value from both! Note: the links to these services are affiliate links and ToP receives a small commission if you sign up. I personally use the services and recommend them, but did not receive any compensation for mentioning these products (or excluding others).
Flying Blue Mistake Fare: ToP Thoughts
Shew, what I a day! I spent over 12 hours on December 15th on the ToP blog and also furiously searching award space to and from Europe. I am so happy to have finally located something that worked for us (we hope). I've never heard of award flights as cheap as 1,500 miles (750 miles for us!) and I am calling this the “deal of 2023.” However, as with all mistake fares, there is a strong liklihood that these fares are cancelled. Do NOT book any nonrefundable hotels, tours, car rentals, etc. for a couple of weeks. Let's see how all this shakes out and see if we're all happy or sad in the end. Good luck to everyone that snagged these deals.
Were you one of the lucky ones? Come over to our Facebook group and let us know what you booked.
