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Dubai £999, Japan £999, Mumbai £999 – stunning Air France KLM business sale

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Well, this is potentially the best sale offer that I have ever run on Head for Points.  We had the British Airways £777 Club World tickets to Seoul, but was a one-off promotion to launch a new route, and for a limited period.  This is different.

For four days only – you need to book by August 18th – Air France / KLM is selling business class tickets from London and other regional airports to the following destinations for £999 return:

Air France new business class 3

Dubai

Osaka

Kyoto

Tokyo

Mumbai

£999 business class to Dubai is pretty impressive.  You can get this over October half-term – seats are available at the time of writing.  I am currently sitting on reward tickets with ‘taxes’ which come to 60% of the cost of buying these Air France KLM tickets outright ….

To Japan, though, £999 return in business class is crazy.  This is a l-o-n-g flight.  I remember paying £1700 for a BA Club World seat about nine years ago and thinking I had got a good deal.

Even if you don’t want to visit Japan, it would make sense to fly to Tokyo for £999 and pay for a connection onwards.  Remember that Japan Airlines is an Avios partner so you could redeem for a connection.

Tickets will also earn miles in the Flying Blue scheme.  This is not the most generous frequent flyer scheme out there, but it does have regular sales (for example this one) which can be good value.

You may end up flying either Air France or KLM depending on route and which flight you select.  The new Air France business class seat is still rolling out.  I ran a few pictures of it earlier in the year although there is no guarantee that you would get this on any particular flight.  You would need to be on a Boeing 777 to even have a chance of getting it.   If you fly on a KLM 747 then you should get the new flat seat – it may be more pot luck with a 777.

These discounted tickets must be booked by 18th August.  You can travel at any point to 31st March 2015.

Full details can be found on the KLM website (which will show you both Air France and KLM options when you try to book) here.

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

Comments (43)

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

  • tony says:
    16 Aug16 August 06:45

    If you’re a family and thinking “what do I do with Skyteam points”, AeroMexico allow you to run a family account. Miles (or more accurately kms) can then be merged in blocks of 1,000. They also have a very generous top-up scheme – in terms of how many extra points you can buy.

    The scheme isn’t however that well documented so I don’t know what the exact ins and outs of redemptions are (although I hope to find out soon enough).

  • rob says:
    16 Aug16 August 06:54

    The ability to fly from Humberside airport (my local airport) is a massive bonus. Shame I’ve no spare holidays left.

    Price for 2 adults and 1 child from Humberside to Tokyo business class was just over £3k

    Worth noting that other flights are discounted as well – Humberside to Amsterdam came in at £128 return including taxes – cheapest I’ve seen

  • Robbo says:
    16 Aug16 August 07:26

    Cool, thanks for the tip, just booked ‘im, Just over 1000GBP with the fees and charges, Very good.

  • andystock says:
    16 Aug16 August 07:34

    Great View as KLM New Business class beats club world.

  • Worzel says:
    16 Aug16 August 07:36

    Just a quick thank you Rob(and Tony)-looking into possibilities for Tokyo.

  • Polly says:
    16 Aug16 August 07:41

    Rob, good spot, just checking if we did fly these airlines, what program could we transfer the miles into? I guess into le club accord, then to baec? Or Iberia plus? I noticed they are the same transfer these days 1:1. Just a thought……

    • Rob says:
      16 Aug16 August 08:00

      Needs to go into Flying Blue or one of their alliance partners. Delta would let you redeem on Virgin and is also an Amex partner.

      • Polly says:
        16 Aug16 August 08:16

        Ok, so we could put the miles direct into amex then? Interesting. Was searching for their partner list, didn’t see amex, thanks.

        • Alan says:
          16 Aug16 August 08:32

          No it’s the other way round, Polly 🙂 Rob is meaning that you could put your miles with Delta and would then be able to top them up from your Amex Membership Rewards account (ie transferring from Amex to Delta, not vice versa). Flying Blue (Air France/KLM) is also an Amex partner, but they’re not a Virgin Atlantic partner like Delta.

    • Charlie says:
      16 Aug16 August 18:54

      Their P&P is extortionate!

  • Phillip says:
    16 Aug16 August 08:53

    As much as I am not a fan of the airline, don’t discount crediting miles to Alitalia’s MilleMiglia, particularly with Etihad slowly taking it over and becoming a earning/redemption partner. Z Class on AF/KLM nets 150% miles and they allow you to pool miles for children between 2-13 years of age into your account. They too are an Amex partner and also partner with Qantas and Malaysia Airlines along with, of course, the rest of SkyTeam.

    • Alan says:
      16 Aug16 August 08:57

      Although be aware that they do have a track record of closing the programme at fairly short notice then reopening again in a slightly different guise – a great way to get miles liabilities off their books, but would make me want to have a reasonably achievable short term redemption option in mind…

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
    16 Aug16 August 08:56

    What a shame I don’t have enough holiday left this year to take advantage (September/October a good time to visit Japan, Q1 less so). I priced up LHR-KIX at £996, even cheaper than their ‘from’ price.

    Great Avios availability to Japan though so not quite such a loss.

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