Flying Blue, the loyalty program of Air France and KLM, may not be the program you immediately think of when considering flying from the US to Europe and beyond. However, their new free stopover program, along with excellent point redemptions and monthly promos, make it a program that should be top of mind, especially if you want to see multiple European cities for the price of one (or even less as we'll see). Let's unpack.
Background
Air France, from it's hub in Paris (CDG), serves many locations throughout the world, but especially in Europe. They fly from the following US airports:
Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego
Denver, Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Detroit
Miami, Atlanta, Washington (IAD), New York (EWR,JFK), Boston
Likewise, KLM flies from its' hub in Amsterdam (AMS) to:
San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City
Minneapolis, Chicago, Austin, Houston
Miami, Atlanta, Washington (IAD), New York (JFK), Boston
Their routings, then from those European hubs are extensive.
Award flights
Finding well priced award flights from the US to Europe through Flying Blue can be successful on many levels.
First off, they run monthly promos from select US cities to Europe that allow you to find excellent economy award tickets. Here are several dates in August Chicago-Madrid for 11250 points in economy.
Unlike other airlines, they often have decent award availability in coveted business class if you are flexible with dates.
For families, Flying Blue is great because you can typically find multiple award seats in both economy and business class, which can otherwise be challenging. Here are several flight options in business class Denver-Oslo with up to 7 seats at 65K each.
Flying Blue is a transfer partner from all the transferrable currencies (Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt) which makes their miles easy to obtain, unlike other airlines such as American Airlines. Not only that, there are often transfer bonuses, like the 25% from both Chase and Amex May 2023 that allow your points go even further.
Free stopover
But wait, there's more. For all the reasons above, you can see why you should consider Air France/KLM when flying to Europe, but if you plan to visit Paris or Amsterdam during your trip, it gets even better. Flying Blue recently added free stopovers on award tickets, meaning you can fly into Paris or Amsterdam, stay a few days, then continue on to another location for no extra miles. We will look at the conditions for a stopover in a minute, but first let's understand how to price out these awards.
At the moment, stopovers can only be booked over the phone with a Flying Blue agent, so it may be confusing what this type of itinerary may cost using miles. Well, in this example, if searching a connecting (no stopover) flight from Detroit (DTW)-Paris (CDG)-Rome (FCO) you can see it is 61K miles in business class.
This total is what you should then expect the stopover to cost. So you can fly to Paris, stay X number of days then continue on to Rome for 61K miles. You should be able to pick any available flight from Paris-Rome after your stopover with the phone agent and it will still price out at 61K. When budgeting how many miles you will need, search a typical connecting flight at airfrance.us or klm.com from your US airport to Paris/Amsterdam to another location, pick out a flight on the day you desire, and you will have your stopover cost.
Now you can call flying Blue, feed them the info for the first leg (date, cities, times) and then add a stopover leg several days later.
The beauty of this free stopover is that the way Air France prices their awards, it is actually advantageous to connect through Paris, not stop there. From our example above, it costs 70K miles to fly just the Detroit-Paris leg on that itinerary, NOT continuing onto Rome.
So instead of spending 70K miles to fly to Paris, spending a few days there, then paying more money/miles to fly/train to Rome, you are getting both legs with the stopover for 61 miles. Not a free stopover, but a -9K miles stopover!
Other Possibilities
This free stopover capability can ellicit some creativity. Flying Blue has a miles price estimator, which will show you the theoretically lowest award possible. In this example, Denver-Johannesburg starts at 95K miles in business.
Just because it's possible, doesn't mean you still don't have to search for awards at that mileage. And sure enough, here is an example of the connecting itinerary. If you call and book this as a stopover, you can get time in Paris in the middle of 20 total hours flying business class.
Stopover Rules
A stopover is considered anything over 24 hours and can be as long at 12 months. This could be used strategically to fly to Paris then use the 2nd leg for a trip months down the road. It appears that stopovers are possible not only on Air France/KLM flights but also their partners like Delta and Virgin Atlantic.
Conclusion
You may have noted in the several screenshots above that Flying Blue does have higher taxes/fees than US carriers. Also, beginning April 13th, they began charging €70-90 to select business class seats prior to check-in. This policy doesn't apply to flights to/from North America...yet.
That aside, there is tremendous value to be had with Flying Blue's new free stopover program. Combine that with decent award redemptions in economy and business as well as the ease of acquiring Flying Blue miles through transfer partners, and it is a program you should look hard at when planning your next trip to Europe.
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