Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Book a good KLM business class flight sale deal from the UK

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KLM is running a new business class sale for departures from the UK.

It is especially good for readers outside of London since these sale prices are valid for departures from 16 UK airports, via Amsterdam or (on Air France) via Paris.

You won’t earn Avios or tier points on these flights, as KLM and Air France are part of the SkyTeam alliance.  However, you WILL earn Virgin Atlantic miles and tier points as long as the airlines are integrated into Virgin Flying Club by the time you fly.  This is expected to happen in the next couple of weeks.

Fares start from £1,266.  The sale page very helpfully allows you to sort the fares by UK departure airport, which gives a great overview of all the destinations available.

These are return prices from Heathrow although you can also fly from Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Humberside, Inverness, Leeds, London City, Newcastle and Norwich.  You can book these sale deals on the KLM site here – the site shows both Air France and KLM pricing if both airlines serve the same city.

Here is a sample of fares from Heathrow – there are many others:

Middle East:

  • Abu Dhabi – £1,266
  • Dubai – £1,356
  • Kuwait – £1,517

Asia:

  • Bangalore – £1,646
  • Mumbai – £1,657
  • Tokyo – £1,896
  • Xiamen – £1,596
  • Seoul – £1,537
  • Chengdu – £1,586
  • Beijing – £1,586

South and Central America:

  • Bogota – £1,426
  • Havana – £1,726
  • Quito – £1,387
  • Fortaleza – £1,535

The fares seem widely available.  For example, if you look at Abu Dhabi it shows £1,200-ish fares available most of the time (although not on every day in every month).

We have never reviewed the KLM business class product, although I did get a tour of a KLM Boeing 787 when I went behind the scenes at Schiphol in 2018.  This has an attractive 1-2-1 seat layout.  The Boeing 777 and A330 fleet are still 2-2-2 I think.

I reviewed the impressive Air France Boeing 777-300ER business class product recently – see here.  Some Air France aircraft still have sloping seats in Business Class, including their A380 fleet, so research the aircraft type you are getting.

Your best option to maximise your miles when paying is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  This offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.

You can get more information, and book, here.


How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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 American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it, not just with Air France and KLM but with any airline.

Comments (137)

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

  • Nicko says:

    Hi, I have just downgraded from Black to Blue BA Amex (I already earned by 2-4-1 last year. Card anniversary date is 1 April 2020. Total spend on the Black card was about £19k)

    On my BA Blue online account, it says “spend another £850 by 1 April 2020 to receive your companion voucher”. Is there a chance I will receive another voucher so soon?

    • Sean says:

      No – normal IT error

    • TGLoyalty says:

      no and that’s why its worth cancelling. You CAN earn a 2-4-1 the next time you sign up for a BAPP even if you haven’t got a sign up bonus.

  • nick says:

    Rob, whats the deal with this Brighton self-refer story?

    a) Brighton could easily code their referral not to “pay out” if its the same person (referring and applying)
    It can be quite easy to click on one of the “amex refer your friends promotional” emails, then sign up for a new card a few days later. Unintentionally self-referring oneself.

    Amazon Associates do this easily – if you buy a item yourself, you don’t get any commission.

    b) If self-referral is picked up by Brighton, simply claw back the points. Done. Talk of closing accounts is absolutely pathetic.

    • SimonW says:

      Someone’s having a panic up and preparing some horrendously weak excuses!

    • TGLoyalty says:

      a) everyone knows exactly what they are doing especially if it wasn’t a one off.

      b) AMEX are free to choose who they do business with and if they feel you haven’t treated their referral scheme in the spirit it was intended and specifically gamed it multiple times you probably aren’t the type of customer they want to keep a relationship with.

    • memesweeper says:

      Any UK implementation would have to pass the broad-brush test of ‘fairness’. If you accidentally followed a link of your own, I’m sure they’d have no case for completely removing all your accrued benefits. Banning those who were engaged in systematic self-referral might pass the test though. Why they don’t just hurry up and fix their IT I just don’t understand — it ought to be an easier fix that retrospectively doing a big data analysis of customer behaviour over time, and excluding unprofitable customers.

      • memesweeper says:

        … it ought to be an easier fix *than* retrospectively doing a big data …

        • nick says:

          Has anyone every received referral bonus when downgrading from black to blue BA card? Even historically?

      • Genghis says:

        Amex have form for being overly draconian when they don’t get their own way (even if unfair customer outcome and Amex in the wrong).

  • Benilyn says:

    OT: Have ~9k Etihad points each on my and OH’s. Don’t think will fly with them in a while, ideas for use? I was thinking to use on their shopping portal.

    • MD says:

      They have some amusing/expensive raffle prizes through the shipping portal, that was now I got rid of a small stash I had left, after taking most in Amazon vouchers. I thought they didn’t expire now, or did I dream I read that?

      • Rob says:

        Turn them into cash via Points Pay – you’ll get a virtual visa card for £45 or so.

        • Benilyn says:

          Thanks!

          • meta says:

            Or you can create a household account and use them for flights in Europe and elsewhere with one of their partners. One-way to Belgrade from London in economy is 10.4k, Brussels in business is 9k, one-way in business to Seoul on Czech from Prague is 25.6k… You can also top up with Amex points.

  • Grant says:

    OT – Another Amex SPG data point – the IT with regards to the sign up bonus is still unreliable. Just had an undexpected windfall.

    • Anna says:

      Interesting…might go try a 4th (between me and OH) unreliability bonus later this year!

    • mark2 says:

      I received the bonus recently. My qualifying transaction was at a Marriott property; was yours?

      • Grant says:

        Ha! No, completely the other end of the spectrum. It was at a Paypoint transaction in the Co-op.

  • xcalx says:

    Spooked enough with the latest comments to transfer 410,000 MR over to BA left some in to do some hotel top ups tommorow. Then I think it’s an Amex break for us I have a couple of lounge pass cards from Gold cards and just 2 SH economy flights this year that would not get us lounge access. So I might buy the Dufry lounge access and start the 6 month Amex free period now. Had an Amex in one form or another since 2008. This is my biggest clear out since the greatest Amex give away ever in January 2012.

    Enjoy your night folk

    • nick says:

      1) You gotta wait 24 months? not 6?

      2) Amex since 2008 – ok – but plenty here have had it much longer than that

      3) so what happened in Jan 2012?

      • xcalx says:

        1 Wrong
        2 And
        3 Amex wrongly priced cash cards at a very generous MR rate.

        • Harry T says:

          @xcalx
          How did you get 410k MR?

          • xcalx says:

            Mainly caed sign ups and referrals (only done 3 self referrals but dont want to lose the lot for that) Not as easy to convince people nowadays that this game is worth persuing.

          • Harry T says:

            Makes sense. Yeah, the complicated new Amex sign up bonus rules make it harder to persuade people of the benefits (which are objectively less now you can’t churn).

      • Chas says:

        6 months for Business Plat

    • koroleon says:

      What are the latest comments that spooked people?

      • xcalx says:

        Much talk of what happened in the US re self referrals was enough for me to take action.

  • Grant says:

    For those of us waiting on an update on the recent 50% bonus offer for Amex MR > Bonvoy points, there is a depressing update on the relevant FT thread. I’ve no idea if UKTraveller4Fun frequents these parts, but I hope they won’t mind me repeating their post here:

    “I have just completed a conversation with a manager in Centurion at Amex who informed me that actually I was informed incorrectly by the agent I spoke to in November that the offer was open to all UK membership rewards members and actually only those who were targeted.

    They made no dispute of the fact I was misinformed and then said all she could do is the standard process in this situation to offer me £ 25 or 5000 points whichever I preferred. Pointing out neither came close to the lost points and I would never have transferred them (In 20 years I have never transfered MR to SPG or Marriott before) without the offer. I have asked it to be escalated to a formal complaint to which they have up to 28 days to respond.”

    Don’t say it, Rob…

    • Harry T says:

      Doesn’t matter. I have screenshots and they will honour their promises, one way or another.

      • Grant says:

        I’d love to share your optimism. Assuming we all receive simllar responses, and one would think a Centurion manager is amongst the better informed Amex CS agents, how do you propose to get them to honour their promises. Ombudsman?

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Why the panic? The T&C’s clearly said 8 weeks after the promotion closes and it closed 31st Dec 19.

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

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