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Flying Blue has published its latest Promo Awards offers for February 2021 and if you were hoping for an improvement on the recent offerings you’re going probably going to be disappointed. Offers are only available for two of the world’s regions and Business Class offers are limited to just five routes.
February 2021 Promo Awards
As usual, I’m going to focus on the long-haul Promo Awards on offer for travel in the premium cabins. If you’re looking for more information on short-haul or Economy Class awards, you’ll find everything you need on this webpage.
The February 2021 awards are on sale through 28 February 2021 and are for travel through 31 August 2021 – this is the longest validity period we’ve ever seen a single set of Promo Awards.
Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that Flying Blue is running a flash sale right now in which miles are being sold at just 1.375 Euro Cents/mile (~ 1.66 US cents/mile) so anyone who’s a little sort of the miles needed to book an award could top up their account reasonably economically.
Asia-Pacific Promo Awards
As has been the case with the past few sets of Promo awards, there’s very little variety in the destinations on offer. In fact, in the case of the Asia-Pacific Promo awards, there’s only one destination on offer:
The good news (if you look hard enough!) is that Flying Blue appears to have realized that some of the recent award prices that it has been publishing have been nothing short of ridiculous (132,000 miles + taxes for roundtrip Premium Economy fares to/from Tahiti back in November was ludicrous), so even though there’s only one destination on offer here, the award costs are an improvement. Once taxes and fees are added in I’m not sure that I’d be tempted by the Business Class fare, but 88,000 miles for roundtrip travel to/from Tahiti looks good value to me.
However, there is an added issue right now.
Per the Air Tahiti Nui website, the High Commissioner of France has announced that as of Wednesday, February 3rd, the borders of French Polynesia are only open to international travelers who are arriving with a “compelling reason” for visiting. Compelling reasons include visits for health, professional, or family reasons and, unsurprisingly, do not include tourism. Admittedly these restrictions will (hopefully) not be in place in a few months’ time so Promo Awards booked for later in the year may be fine, but travel to Tahiti in the near term is clearly not going to be an option for most.
Caribbean/Indian Ocean Promo Awards
Apparently, no one has bothered to tell the guys at Flying Blue that Beirut isn’t in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean so it’s still appearing in this region’s Promo Awards (it’s been appearing in this list for months) but, that, aside, these are the February Promo Awards for the Caribbean/Indian Ocean (with the premium cabin options highlighted):
Essentially, these are very similar to the Promo Award destinations that we saw published at the end of last year (Saint Martin has been added and French Guiana has been removed).
The good news here is that there’s a little more choice with this set of Promo Awards (compared to the Asia-Pacific awards) and in case you don’t know where one or more of these destinations are, here’s a map:
This set of Promo Awards look a lot more promising as 67,500 miles (+ surcharges) for roundtrip Business Class travel between Europe and Guadeloupe (PTP), Martinique (FDF) looks very good, and 76,000 miles (+ surcharges) for roundtrip Business Class travel between Europe and Saint Martin (SXM) isn’t bad either.
54,000 miles (+ surcharges) for roundtrip Premium Economy travel to/from the same destinations is pretty good too, although I would probably do my best to scrape together enough points for a Business Class trip (13,500 miles more for Business Class in both directions looks good value to me).
As is the case with a lot of French Overseas Territories, the entry rules can change quickly so anyone considering travel to one of these destinations should make sure they keep on top of the news. Right now it looks like all of the destinations mentioned above require passengers to provide proof of a negative Covid test and some destinations are requiring arriving visitors to self-isolate for a period of time. Check all details before booking.
Bottom Line
Given the state of transatlantic travel right now it’s not really a surprise to see that there aren’t any North American destinations included in this set of Promo Awards, and given the state of global travel as a whole, it’s not really surprising that we’re not being offered a much wider range of options.
Some of the destinations on offer are looking tempting right now (I’d love to be somewhere warm!) but don’t forget that even if you don’t have issues entering these countries, your own home country may impose restrictions on you upon your return if it considers those destinations to be “high-risk” – make sure you check the rules carefully before you make any firm plans.
