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No Flying Blue qualifying flights with CityJet CitySaver fares

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This is a rather niche topic, but many Heads for Points readers with Flying Blue status are likely to have achieved it by shuttling around Europe with CityJet, Air France / KLM‘s UK offshoot, from London City Airport.

I received an email from a reader who flies CityJet on a regular basis.  CityJet, with CitySaver being the easyJet equivalent – no free checked baggage, no advance seat choice, non refundable and non changeable etc.

CitySaver also offers no Flying Blue miles.  More importantly, though, the reader pointed out that these fares are also not treated as ‘qualiflying’ flights with Flying Blue.

This has two impacts:

The first is that you need to fly once with a Flying Blue airline or another SkyTeam member every 20 months to stop your miles expiring.  A cheap CityJet will no longer do the trick here, so don’t waste your money.

Secondly, if you live in the UK and do mainly short-haul flights with Air France / KLM / CityJet, you will earn status more quickly based on segments (15 one-way flights for Silver) rather than miles flown.  However, CityJet CitySaver flights will not now count towards status either.

I’m not sure if this is old news or not, although it is not something I had come across before.  It is certainly something to bear in mind when booking CityJet flights.

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (April 2024)

Air France and KLM do not have a UK Flying Blue credit card.  However, you can earn Flying Blue miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.

These cards earn Membership Rewards points:

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Flying Blue miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Flying Blue mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.

Category

Air France KLM and Flying Blue, SkyTeam alliance partners

Comments (4)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • vindaloo says:
    20 May20 May 07:17

    I think you’re doing easyJet a disservice! They have allocated seating now and you can choose seats in advance for a fairly small fee. They also sell flexible tickets that include luggage etc..

  • Roger says:
    20 May20 May 09:16

    One more nail in the coffin for Flying Blue – sad for me as a former Royal Wing member of KLM Flying Dutchman.

    Pause for amusement: reinforcing your view of the UK as the 2nd best market for miles-earning credit cards, I’ve just had an e-mail shot for the Flying Blue World Mastercard Switzerland. Like Miles and More cards, using the FB card extends the life of miles.

    Good earning potential at 2 miles per CHF – approx 2.8/£ – BUT 230 CHF (£164) annual fee, additional card 70 CHF p.a., 1.50 CHF a month for paper statements …

    We won’t be bothering.

  • Alan says:
    20 May20 May 20:08

    Hmm not sure when this was introduced as I only fly CityJet on DND-LCY and they don’t do CitySaver fares on that route, just CityValue and above. Certainly the infogrid that appears when you click on the ‘i’ next to the fare names makes it clear there are no loyalty points – quite a pain if trying to maintain an active account as you say! Of course the earning rate is appalling with AF/KL regardless of fare. Flew EDI-LHR return and DND-LCY return in the same week – same fare but base earning for the RETURN was only 350 with AF/KL vs 1000 with BA (plus a bigger 100% bonus vs 75% bonus of a smaller amount with FB Gold).

  • Idrive says:
    21 May21 May 19:40

    Very unfortunately this is old story, it cost me the expiration of my hard earned miles back in 2009…while i flew from City airport with a non qualifying flight without knowing it. At the time I could not fly a lot therefore my miles expired next day …and I was not that savvy with all this, although I started collecting miles in 1999…experience for the future, airliners are so good to draw t&c that only Raffles and people like him can track them all!

    Now I find myself with some other 100,000 miles ready to expire if I do not book flights by the end of June…that’s why I prefer non expiring programs…anyone willing to swap?

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