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Flying Blue, the loyalty program for Air France and KLM, has had a partnership with Accor’s ALL program for some time and in the past few hours, that partnership has got a little bit more interesting as the ratio in which Accor points transfer across to Flying Blue was improved significantly.
A quick overview
The partnership between ALL and Flying Blue is a little bit like the partnership between Hyatt and American Airlines in that you can earn points/miles in both programs when you fly or stay.
Members of ALL and Flying Blue who have their accounts linked (start here), will earn…
- 1 ALL Reward Point for every €2 spent on a flight
- 1 Flying Blue Mile for every €1 spent on a stay
In addition, there’s a welcome bonus on offer which, currently, gives those who link their accounts, 10 XP (in Flying Blue) and 2 elite status nights (in ALL) after they complete their first flight or stay.
The transfers
As well as allowing members to earn miles & points when they complete hotel says or when they fly, this partnership allows members to transfer Flying Blue Miles to ALL and ALL points to Flying Blue.
Historically, the transfer ratios were as follows:
- 4,000 Flying Blue Miles convert to 1,000 ALL Reward Points
- 2,000 ALL Reward Points convert to 1,000 Flying Blue Miles
Now, however, Flying Blue has announced that the while the ratio for transferring miles to points is remaining the same, the ratio for transferring points to miles will now be 2,000 : 2,000 (1:1).
That’s a big improvement and for a limited time, Flying Blue is also throwing in a 15% transfer bonus.
Are transfers a good idea?
Because Accor Rewards Points have a fixed value (2,000 points will get you a €40 discount on a future stay) it’s quite easy to see how good or bad these transfer ratios are.
- 4,000 Flying Blue Miles will transfer to €20 worth of ALL points and that values miles at €0.005 each.
- €40 worth of ALL points will now transfer to 2,000 Flying Blue Miles and that would see a member effectively buying miles at €0.02 each.
If you’re a big fan of both programs, neither deal is particularly good (you can often buy miles for considerably less than €0.02 through one of the frequent sales that Flying Blue runs).
If, however, you’re someone who doesn’t really use one currency but has a use for the other, these transfer options can be a useful mechanism by which to convert a mostly useless small balance into a currency that will be of more use.
I, for example, value Flying Blue Miles at ~€0.012 cents each ($0.0125) and that means that on the face of things, both of the transfer options represent poor value.
However, because I rarely stay at Accor properties and because I use Flying Blue Miles at least once or twice a year, it could be argued that it would make sense for me to move what few Accor Points I earn into Flying Blue rather than waiting and hoping that I get a chance to redeem them on a future Accor stay (which could be years away)*.
Put simply, there’s no catch all answer to the question that asks if these transfer ratios offer good value as the value on offer will depend on how (and how often) a member usually uses their Flying Blue Miles and their ALL Points.
*In reality, I wouldn’t transfer ALL points to Flying Blue as I would prefer to transfer them to Iberia Plus (3,000:3,000) where the Avios that I would generate would be a lot more use.
Bottom line
Flying Blue has improved the transfer ratio that’s offered when a member moves Accor ALL points into their Flying Blue account. While, in the past, 2,000 Accor Points would only convert to 1,000 Flying Blue miles, the same number of points now earns 2,000 miles.
