Why transferring credit card points to Flying Blue is my favorite way to book flights to Europe

Before the pandemic, you could easily find an inexpensive flight to major European cities if you were flexible with your exact destination and travel dates. Not only that, but you’d often see open seats on flights and maybe even be next to one of them, making it easy to spread out, relax and enjoy the ride.

These days, however, flights to Europe are packed and empty seats are largely a thing of the past. Airfare to Europe has also become downright expensive, even in economy. Data from Airports Council International (ACI) even shows that European airfares were up 36% on average in May 2023 compared to the same month the previous year.

Since most airline loyalty programs now use dynamic award pricing instead of fixed award charts, the higher prices we’re seeing can be a problem whether you’re planning to pay for flights with cash or miles. However, there’s one program that tends to stand out from the rest when it comes to using miles for flights to destinations like Athens, Rome or Berlin — and that program is Air France-KLM Flying Blue.

I have used this frequent flyer program for flights to Europe for my own family for years, and there are several reasons why I continue to do so. If you’re hoping to get to Europe and you’re looking for a way to earn travel rewards to make it happen, read on to find out why Air France and KLM’s combined Flying Blue loyalty program is worth checking out.

Earning Flying Blue miles is easy

First off, you should know that earning Flying Blue miles is an absolute breeze, even if you live in the US. This is largely because Flying Blue is partnered with American Express Membership Rewards®, Bilt Rewards, Capital One Miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards® and even the Citi ThankYou program.

This means you can earn points with cards like the American Express® Gold Card, Bilt Mastercard®, Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Citi Strata℠ Premier Card(see rates and fees) and the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, and transfer your rewards to your Flying Blue loyalty account at a 1-to-1 transfer ratio. If you have several of these rewards currencies at your disposal, you can rack up Flying Blue miles quickly.

Many of these cards offer welcome bonuses to new card holders. This means you can earn a bulk of points by opening a new travel credit card and meeting a set spending threshold by a certain date. These are some of our favorite cards and their respective welcome offers and annual fees.

As you’ll see later in this article, these welcome bonuses are often enough for multiple flights to and from Europe if you transfer the points to Flying Blue.

Also note that Bank of America offers the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard®, and it’s available to US citizens. This card has its own welcome offer you can earn as well, and you’ll earn Flying Blue miles for each dollar you spend on the card.

With that out of the way, let’s look at a few reasons why I’m big fan of using Flying Blue miles to fly to Europe.

You can often find award availability for families

I’m usually traveling to Europe with my family of four, and one aspect of the Flying Blue program I like is the fact you can usually find four award seats (and potentially more) on a single flight. This is not necessarily the case with other programs that limit award availability or drive up prices when you look for multiple awards at once. The fact is, Flying Blue tends to be rather generous when it comes to availability for families.

The best way to find award availability for multiple flights on a single itinerary is being as flexible as you can with your travel dates and potentially your destination. However, you won’t have to look hard to find what you need.

For example, my family of four (myself, my husband and our two kids) are all flying business class on KLM from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) to Rome, Italy (ORD) for fall break this year. Not only did we find four available awards on the plane, but our flights cost 61,000 miles, plus around $200 in airline taxes and fees per person.

And my itinerary isn’t an anomaly. As you can see in the screenshot below, a one-way economy flight from Athens, Greece (ATH) to Los Angeles (LAX) costs 144,000 miles, plus $971.10 for six passengers on this sample date in March. That works out to 24,000 miles, plus $161.85 in airline taxes and fees per person.

Reasonable business class fares are out there

Speaking of flying business class with miles, Flying Blue still offers reasonable prices and availability if you’re flexible with your travel dates. That flexibility is key if you’re hoping to save as many miles as you can since the lowest mileage rates aren’t offered every day of the week.

But they’re definitely out there. We easily found business-class flights from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) to Berlin, Germany (BER) on various dates in November 2023 for just 67,000 miles, plus $224.50 in airline taxes and fees per person.

On similar dates, we found well-priced awards from Atlanta (ATL) to Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS) as well.

Again, these prices aren’t guaranteed, but they’re definitely out there. Be flexible with your dates and routes and search often to find the best Flying Blue business class award tickets.

Economy flights to Europe can be downright cheap

If you’re willing to fly economy to Europe, the options become even better for everyone in your crew. It still helps to be extremely flexible with your travel destination and dates, but flight awards to Europe and back can be downright inexpensive and plentiful in economy.

To stretch our miles as far as we can, my husband and I usually try to book business class with miles for the overnight flight to Europe, then flights in the economy cabin home. When we do that, we typically get great deals with Flying Blue miles.

Here are a few examples of what we found through searching the Air France website. The first is Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) to Rome, Italy (FCO) in March of 2024 for 13,125 miles, plus $83.80 in airline taxes and fees.

We also found a flight home from Rome, Italy (FCO) to Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) a week later for 13,125 miles, plus $161.05 in airline taxes and fees.

Another example is this flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) in March of 2024 for 24,000 miles, plus $83.90 in airline taxes and fees.

Award flights can be with Air France or other SkyTeam partners

Finally, not all flights booked with the Flying Blue program wind up being with Air France or KLM. That’s because the Flying Blue program is part of the SkyTeam airline alliance, which also includes partner airlines like Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic.

In turn, you can use Flying Blue miles to fly to even more destinations around the world, and with better award availability to boot. Of course, partner flight options vary depending on where you plan to fly.

For example, this Virgin Atlantic business-class flight from New York-JFK to Manchester, United Kingdom (MAN) costs 72,500 miles, plus $204.40 in taxes and fees. This is a significant saving on taxes and fees when compared to booking with Virgin Atlantic’s own Flying club loyalty program.

You’re not limited to booking flights to Europe either. For example, you can often get a good deal on domestic Delta flights with Flying Blue. This flight from New York-JFK to Pittsburgh (PIT) costs 10,500 miles and $16.78 in taxes and fees with Flying Blue.

Keep an eye out for Promo Rewards

Another perk of Flying Blue is its monthly Promo Rewards. These are limited-time, heavily discounted deals from specific cities around the world to Europe. Flying Blue posts Promo Rewards to its website at the beginning of each month, and you have until the end of the month to book them.

This month (August 2023), Flying Blue is offering discounted award economy tickets from Atlanta (ATL), Austin (AUS), Denver (DEN), Houston (IAH), Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) and Washington-Dulles (IAD) to various cities in Europe. However, these cities change monthly and you’ll sometimes find discounted premium economy and business-class award tickets too.

Bottom line

If you’re hoping to avoid the high costs of flights to Europe this year or next, the Flying Blue loyalty program is worth looking into. This is especially true since you can earn points in flexible programs like American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards, then pool them in your Flying Blue account for the flights you want.

Just remember to be as flexible as you can when you search dates for the lowest-cost awards for where you want to go. It can also help to book ahead as far as you possibly can, and to have some flexibility when it comes to the European airport you fly into.

Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored chose as our best travel credit cards currently available.