Up to 40% bonus when you buy Flying Blue miles

Flying Blue, the Air France / KLM loyalty programme, is running a bonus promotion for anyone who is looking to top up their account:

Limited time offer – Receive up to 40% additional miles for free

Buy Award Miles between 18 February and 31 March 2013 and receive up to 40% bonus

Buy 2,000 – 8,000 Miles = No Bonus

Buy 10,000 – 18,000 Miles = 10% bonus

Buy 20,000 – 28,000 Miles = 20% bonus

Buy 30,000 – 38,000 Miles = 30% bonus

Buy 40,000 Miles = 40% bonus

At the top end, buying 56,000 miles (40,000 plus the 40% bonus) will cost €1,000. That works out at £865, so 1.54p per mile.

Is that a good deal? Well, Flying Blue is not exactly well regarded amongst European frequent flyer programmes. However it does have regular ‘50% discount’ sales on some routes.  This is the latest list of promotional routes which I discussed in this article.  Some of the deals to the US were quite attractive, I admit.

It is also worth noting that – at the top end – it is a poorer deal than the promotion which ran for the last 10 weeks of last year, which offered a 50% bonus when you bought the full 40,000 miles.  The Euro exchange rate was also better at that time, so you paid only 1.35p per mile when you bought the maximum.

Base level (Ivory) members can buy up to 40,000 miles per year, plus any bonus.  Flying Blue status members can buy up to 100,000, whilst top-level Elite members can buy an unlimited amount (although its not clear why an Elite level member who presumably already has a large pile of them would want to!).

At the end of the day, though, I don’t imagine anyone except an existing Flying Blue member topping up an account getting excited by this.

The ‘buy miles’ page on the website is here.

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How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (September 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:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with four free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 40,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 40,000 Flying Blue miles

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 10,000 Flying Blue miles. This card is FREE for life.

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, with any airline.