Last week, there was a sudden Flying Blue devaluation—overnight, with no warning. Which meant no rushing to make any last-minute award redemptions before award prices went up. While we don’t love devaluations of any type, they’re a fact of life in the world of miles and points, and, as such, we’re at least glad that this one wasn’t worse. Remember that Flying Blue is the program for both Air France and KLM, so both airlines will be affected.  Here’s what you need to know.

 

The Lowdown

Before, economy-class flights to Europe on Air France could commonly be found for 20K Air France miles one-way per person. Now, they will be 25K miles. Business-class flights to Europe (when you could find them) started at as little as 50K miles, but now they will be starting at 60K miles. All in all, the flights will cost as much as 25% more. 

But overall, we aren’t devastated. We have long wondered how they managed to have redemptions at that very low price. The devaluation could have been far worse! And if you’re booking an award flight for a child or if you can use a Flying Blue Promo Reward, you still have an amazing deal!

 

Sample Flights With Devaluation

Let’s take a look at a couple of flights that we’re seeing now, after the devaluation.  You’ll see that there are still great deals to be found.

Economy class from my home airport of Denver to Paris is still a great deal at 25K each way, and look at all the great availability!

 

 

Business class is always more difficult but I quickly found some dates from JFK-CDG in business for around 64K miles. 

 

 

Alex can still find 25K flights from SLC, her home airport, to Amsterdam for a reasonable 25K miles on a KLM flight.

 

 

Flying Blue Is Still A Great Option

And keep in mind that even with this sudden devaluation, Flying Blue’s miles are some of the easiest out there to earn.  Flying Blue is a transfer partner of all the major credit-card programs, so you can combine points from different cards into one Flying Blue account easily.  

And when any of those credit-card programs has a transfer bonus, you’re able to transform those credit-card points into even more Flying Blue miles.  We typically see transfer bonuses to Flying Blue several times a year, so this is another thing that should soften the devaluation blow.

 

Bottom Line

Last week, there was a sudden Flying Blue devaluation, and while no one was thrilled about it, the sky isn’t quite falling. It’s still an amazing value for family travel to Europe in economy class. The business-class flights for the cheapest prices are still hard to find, but if you can grab one, they are also an amazing value! We still have a lot of love for Flying Blue and particularly Air France. What are your thoughts?

 

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