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Air France and KLM offering excellent Abu Dhabi and Dubai flight deals

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There is an excellent deal running from many European cities to Dubai at the moment, via the SkyTeam alliance.

From the UK, you can depart from any UK airport with Air France or KLM flights, and change in either Paris or Amsterdam.

If you are willing to depart outside the UK, you save even more.

Here some examples based on a seven night stay (appears to be the minimum required) – you can book for the rest of 2024:

  • From London Heathrow – £1,343 to Dubai return
  • From Budapest – £1,050 to Dubai return
  • From Dublin – £1,069 to Abu Dhabi return

Here is an example from London in October at £1,343:

These are ‘Business Light’ fares which do NOT come with lounge access or free seat selection unless you have SkyTeam / Virgin Atlantic status.

These tickets book into ‘O’ class which does not earn miles or status points in Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. You would probably end up crediting them to Air France KLM’s Flying Blue programme (4 miles per €1 but excluding taxes) or Delta Air Lines (100% of miles flown) from where you could – if you wished – top them up with American Express Membership Rewards points and redeem for Virgin Atlantic flights.

As you would be paying in Sterling, irrespective of where you start, your best card to pay with would be American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. This gives double points – two per £1 – on all airline spend, and the points convert at 1:1 into many airline programmes including Avios and Virgin Flying Club.

You can book for either airline via the KLM website here.

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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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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.

Category

Air France KLM and Flying Blue

Comments (28)

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

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:
    20 Jan20 January 05:04

    Over the last 2 years I’ve noticed BHX is the cheapest UK departure point for AF. £1260 fares to DXB when MAN has been £1400.

  • AlanC says:
    20 Jan20 January 05:12

    Dublin to Singapore £1550 AF/KLM.

    • BBbetter says:
      20 Jan20 January 10:03

      Backtracking through AMS or CDG? That’ll be an insane amount of time in J per £ spent.

  • Andrew J says:
    20 Jan20 January 06:03

    Isn’t there a Club Eurostar redemption promotion coming soon?

    • meta says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:33

      Yes starts 6 Feb. So maybe fixed by then?

      • Lady London says:
        20 Jan20 January 12:51

        Or not…
        Would Eurostar welcome the use of natively earned points for this, or transferred in card points more? I wonder if there is any difference from Eurostar point of view

        • Rob says:
          20 Jan20 January 13:25

          The discount is EXACTLY equivalent to the price increase, so the sale is clearly a way of allowing people to redeem at the old rates. Effectively, they are saying that not giving any notice of devaluation was a mistake and here is a small window to cash in at the old levels.

          I think they would be happy for people to top up and redeem.

          It is still a worse deal for people doing Amex transfers. As you remember, everyone got a 20% balance boost on their existing balance. The sale adjusts for this (eg was 1000 points, now 2000 points, sale takes it down to 1200 which is the equivalent of 1000 in the old scheme) but anyone moving in from Amex is still 20% worse off than if they redeemed pre-October.

    • Rich_A says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:42

      Yep, sale is 6-16 Feb, travel by 13Nov (Eurostar Blue) or 7 Sep (Eurostar Red).

      It seems to be a blanket 40% off, reducing the cost back to previous levels.

      I need an Amex transfer to top up for a redemption.

    • Rob says:
      20 Jan20 January 09:25

      Covering that separately.

  • Stuart says:
    20 Jan20 January 07:56

    It’s 4 miles per €1 for Flying Blue Explorer status. And 6/7/8 miles per €1 for Flying Blue Silver/Gold/Platnium, respectively. Still not great.
    Flying Blue changed to this spend based Miles earning on AF and KL flights only back in April 2018 (not spend based on SkyTeam partner flights, so better to fly with partners to earn FB Miles). The focus of HfP is BA, which switched to this method much more recently.

    • Tim says:
      20 Jan20 January 16:44

      Remember to link your flying blue account with accor hotels before you fly. You then receive same smount if accor points as you do flying blue points…

      • Rob says:
        20 Jan20 January 19:26

        Problem is you can’t do the Avios / Accor partnership if you do that.

      • Roy says:
        21 Jan21 January 04:11

        On the subject of transfers being unavailable, transfers from Flying Blue to Accor are unavailable due to a “recent incident”. Other direction apparently is still available though.

  • Qrfan says:
    20 Jan20 January 08:25

    Finnair had similar ex London prices (at least last week when we booked) earning 440 tier points, wide body on the return from Helsinki and the new seat on 3 of 4 legs. Surely a better option for most on here? The transfer at Helsinki could not be easier.

    • KP says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:39

      Definitely a better option if you have OW status and you pick the long haul aircraft from London. We did just that to Seoul last November.

      • Qrfan says:
        20 Jan20 January 08:46

        Only the early morning narrow body gets to Helsinki in time for the Dubai flight, but finnair let’s ow sapphire take row 1, so it’s still a pretty reasonable experience. You can get the a350 on the return to London.

    • daveinitalia says:
      20 Jan20 January 08:45

      That’s well worth a look. I find the new AY seat so comfortable and for most of us the tier points are more useful than a handful of SkyTeam miles.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:
      20 Jan20 January 13:42

      I was booked on a wide body HEL-LHR last Monday but there was a last minute swap and it was an A321 so no sofa suite or IFE.

      Luckily I had IF for a little extra room.

  • Rich_A says:
    20 Jan20 January 09:28

    Rob, if you have a contact at Eurostar, is it possible to ask if they can extend February’s Club Eurostar redemption sale until Amex transfer is fixed?

    Worth an ask?

  • Gary says:
    20 Jan20 January 10:58

    What’s the recommended newsletter/website to subscribe to for good flight deals in J? Subscribed to Jack’s Flight Club (free one) 2 weeks ago and nothing interesting so far.

    • Qrfan says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:07

      Flyertalk premium fare deals, but there’s a lot of noise as it’s global departure points and destinations.

    • Rob says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:34

      Luxury Flight Club. We only cover around 1/3rd of the EU deals they send out.

    • LittleNick says:
      20 Jan20 January 11:37

      Jack’s flight club is economy focused (and some prem. econ) from all the emails I get, barely anything in business or first, different target market to us on here. Lux flight club is much better

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

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