You Can Now Buy Flying Blue Miles With A 75% Bonus

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Flying Blue, the rewards program for Air France/KLM, has launched a mileage sale in which it’s offering a bonus of up to 75% to anyone buying miles through 10 April 2019. As with most mileage sales that we see this one is tiered so you get a higher bonus for buying more points.

Flying Blue Mileage Sale – Headline Terms & Conditions

• Elite members can receive a maximum bonus of 100,000 Miles, while Explorer members can receive a maximum bonus of 56,250 Miles.
• Bonus Miles will be rewarded on transactions made between 2 and 29 March 2020, 23:59 CET +1, and will be credited to the recipient’s account when the transaction is complete.
• Miles are sold in units of 2,000 Miles.
• Elite members may purchase an unlimited number of Miles, while Explorer members may only purchase or receive up to 75,000 Miles in any calendar year, unless a promotion is active in which case it is possible to either purchase or receive Bonus Miles on top of the 75,000 Miles.
• Miles are sold by Points Inc.
• You have the right to withdraw your purchase within 14 days as provided in the Buy and Gift Miles Program Terms and Conditions.
• To exercise the withdrawal right or to obtain assistance with the Buy and Gift Miles Program, please contact the Customer Service Centre.

Full terms and conditions can be found by following this link to the promotion page

Click To Buy Flying Blue Miles

The Mileage Sale

Here’s what the tiers look like:

• Buy 2,000 miles and get zero bonus
• Buy 4,000+ miles and get a 75% bonus

Flying Blue sells miles in Euros but here’s how those tiers translate into actual costs in US cents:

• Buy 2,000 miles at ~3.07 cents each
• Buy 4,000+ miles at ~1.76 cents each

The way Flying Blue arranges its tiers means that it doesn’t matter how many miles you buy within each tier as the cost per mile remains constant.

So, if you were to buy 30,000 Flying Blue Miles they would cost you €825 (~€922) and you would net 52,500 miles:

That works out to approximately 1.57 Euro cents or ~1.76 US cents per mile.

If you were to buy the maximum amount a non-elite (like me) is allowed to buy (75,000 miles) it would set you back €2,062.50 (~$2,304) and you would net 131,250 miles.

This also works out to approximately 1.57 Euro cents or ~1.76 US cents per mile.

Is It Worth Buying Flying Blue Miles In This Sale

While we have seen Flying Blue sales offer a bonus as high as 100% in the past that was a while ago and a 75% bonus seems to be as high as the program is willing to go right now.

Flying Blue offers variable price awards so the value you can extract out of a sale like this one will, unsurprisingly, very much depend on the cost of awards you can find.

If we take a look at some of the recent promo awards (not the ones that have just been published – they’re not much use at all!) the better deals we’ve seen have been these:

• Chicago – Europe – 79,500 miles for roundtrip Business Class
• Edmonton – Europe – 53,000 miles for roundtrip Business Class
• Calgary – Europe – 79,500 miles for roundtrip Business Class
• Toronto – Europe – 90,000 miles for roundtrip Business Class

If you were to buy points at 1.76 cents each in this sale this is how much those awards would cost:

• Chicago – Europe – $1,399 + taxes and fees for roundtrip Business Class
• Edmonton – Europe – $933 + taxes and fees for roundtrip Business Class
• Calgary – Europe – $1,399 + taxes and fees for roundtrip Business Class
• Toronto – Europe – $1,584 + taxes and fees for roundtrip Business Class

Thos all look like very good (or even fantastic) deals but you have to be careful with the surcharges that Flying Blue loves to add to its awards….and these will vary from route to route. Some will make the deals average (at best) while on other routes the cheapness of the fare means that even with the high surcharges the deal to buy points is a pretty good one.

Bottom Line

There is absolutely no point in buying Flying Blue miles with the idea of using them to buy a regular award fare – the surcharges are way too high and the overall cost makes the entire exercise pointless.

During Flying Blue Promo Award sales the story can be different and there can often be times when points purchased in a sale such as this one lead to a very nice deal when paired with a good Promo Award…but you’re still reliant on good Promo Awards being published.

The latest set of Promo awards is poor (I’ll get around to writing about them in the next day or so) and that shows just how hit and miss this game can be. If you were relying on the latest set of Promo Awards to be good you’d be seriously disappointed…but that doesn’t mean that next month won’t through up a few fantastic options.

Buying points in this sale is a risk and a risk that I advise novices to walk away from. The more experienced miles and points enthusiasts may wish to gamble.

Click To Buy Flying Blue Miles