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BA Gold Guest List? Here’s some very interesting news ….

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Yesterday we covered a new status match launched by Flying Blue, the loyalty scheme for Air France and KLM.

For a £99 fee, Flying Blue is matching all three British Airways Executive Club tiers to their Flying Blue equivalents. This is an excellent way to try out the competition if you have realised that you have no chance of retaining BA status beyond April 2026.

If you have British Airways Gold Guest List status (see here for what it takes to earn Gold Guest List) there is some very interesting news.

Flying Blue Ultimate card

Based on feedback in our comments and on Flyertalk, Flying Blue is quietly matching British Airways Gold Guest List members to Flying Blue Ultimate.

This is the Flying Blue equivalent of Gold Guest List and comes with some very strong benefits.

To put Ultimate in perspective, it requires 3x the flying that Platinum, the ‘normal’ top tier, requires. It also requires all of this flying to be on Air France or KLM – partner flights are not counted. It’s a fairly exclusive club.

(To put the maths into context, you’d need to fly nine return First Class cash flights or 15 return long haul Business Class cash flights, all on Air France or KLM, to achieve it. If your flights are under 3,500 miles you need to fly more, if they are over 5,000 miles you can do a bit less. Unless you are living on a plane you can forget about achieving it via short haul economy!)

What do you get with Flying Blue Ultimate status?

These are the standard benefits of Ultimate, as taken from this page of the Flying Blue website:

  • Receive four complimentary cabin upgrade vouchers per membership year, valid on cash or reward flights
  • One Flying Blue Platinum card for a travel companion
  • A blocked adjacent seat where possible
  • Earn 9 miles for every €1 spent
  • Access Air France and KLM lounges with up to EIGHT travel companions
  • Enjoy SkyPriority services for you and your travel companions
  • Bring one free checked bag on SkyTeam flights or two free additional checked bags on Air France and KLM flights
  • 24/7 support from Ultimate Assistant
  • Hertz Platinum status
  • Free same day flight changes
  • Exclusive check-in facilities in some airports
  • Exclusive areas in some lounges
  • Pre-boarding ‘on demand’
  • Fast track immigration (where allowed by law)
  • An overdraft facility of up to 100,000 Flying Blue miles – book a reward now, earn back the points later
Flying Blue status match

I believe that the cabin upgrade vouchers can be used in pairs to jump by two cabins, eg from Economy to Business on long haul, bypassing Premium Economy.

It’s a decent package, although – unlike Lufthansa’s HON Circle and BA’s Gold Guest List – you don’t get to access First Class lounges. That said, KLM does not have First Class and Air France’s La Premiere is a very niche luxury product with only four seats per aircraft and lounges to match.

For clarity, it isn’t clear if matched Ultimate members receive all of these benefits. We won’t know for a while if people are receiving the upgrade vouchers or the ‘Platinum status for a friend’ perks.

Just to be clear ….

Flying Blue has not said publicly that it is matching British Airways Gold Guest List members to Ultimate. It just so happens that everyone who has done a match so far has been given it ….

(The confirmation email you will receive after doing a match shows that you are getting Platinum, as expected, but your match is processed into Ultimate.)

I suspect there will be a hard cap on the number of GGL members given Ultimate. Please be very aware that if you are Gold Guest List and do NOT get Ultimate you won’t be getting a refund of your £99 status match fee, because it wasn’t a published benefit in the first place.

You can find out more about the status match, and how to apply, in this article from yesterday.


How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Flying Blue miles from UK credit cards (February 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 (77)

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

  • Maz says:

    How long are these status matches running for?

    • Rob says:

      Not long BUT they are likely to return this time next year as the BA status cliff approaches on 30 April 2026.

  • PH says:

    Seems like it would take €45K+ of spend to reach this level thru AF/KLM flying so what level do GGLs who spend significantly less than that and are upset with BA’s changes get after the honeymoon is over (assuming they shift all flying to SkyTeam)? Does Flying Blue do soft landings? In any case, seems a no-brainer to enjoy it for one year at £99

    • Watson says:

      You can buy SAF at about €10 per XP/UXP along with your flights (amounts offered differ according to route lengths) but long hauls can easily attracts 300+ for €3000 (ish). So, take 3 long haul returns in Y, pay €9000 in SAF for 900 XP/UXP, and you’re Ultimate for another year.

    • Throwawayname says:

      Where does the €45k figure come from? A couple of years ago I made FB gold on the back of just one long-haul business ticket and a few random short Y flights. I don’t keep detailed information on my flight purchases, but the long haul was a stonking deal so there’s absolutely no way I could have spent more than €3k in total- and I definitely wasn’t doing any status runs, although I did once pay Garuda an extra £30 to ensure that I get a booking class eligible for miles (I suppose that makes me an unworthy Free Lo4dre!!!!1111!!!!!!!1). Ulti obviously would be a bit more difficult, but not €45k difficult.

      • PH says:

        In the article Rob says “you’d need to fly nine return First Class cash flights or 15 return long haul Business Class cash flights, all on Air France or KLM, to achieve it.” I was reckoning €5K for a F return or €3K for J, altho these figures are likely conservative. I understand the tier below Ultimate is achievable for much less but that maps across to BA Gold not GGL. My point was – I don’t think this is necessarily a long term better solution for lower spending BA elites

  • JB says:

    How long did it take for your status to update after receiving the confirmation email?

  • Ben says:

    Status updated on Flyingblue today and GGL only matched to Platinum 🙁

    • Rob says:

      Sorry about that. I know they had exhausted their allocation on Saturday, I’m not sure when they hit the cap.

  • Stuart says:

    I got the confirmation of upgrade to ultimate on 15th, still no update on app as yet.

    • DK says:

      I got the email on the 17th Jan stating Platinum but I’m still waiting for the app to update. 😪

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

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