How to Find & Book Air France & KLM Award Flights

What if you didn’t have to spend $1000+ per person to fly to Europe?
What if I told you, you can OFTEN find economy flights for less than 40K points per person, ROUNDTRIP to Europe (+250ish in taxes/fees) on Air France & KLM?

In the example above the flight is from Chicago O’Hare to Florence, Italy (& back).
This was a random date in the year. But this isn’t an anomaly. That is what I LOVE about Air France & KLM…
If you have flexible dates and/or flexible destinations, you can usually find some amazing deals.

But who has Air France/KLM miles? NOT ME!

Do you have Chase Ultimate Rewards® Points? American Express Membership Rewards® Points? Or Capital One Venture Rewards Miles?
They are all transfer partners with Flying Blue (Air France/KLM loyalty program).

Great, I’ve got plenty of points/miles…
Now What??

Go to Flying Blue and create an account. Do this sooner than later so you can start practicing searching for flights. ***Make sure the name on your FlyingBlue account matches the one on your credit card EXACTLY. Don’t use a nickname, etc***
Go to the Air France website and use your Flying Blue login.
Practice running award searches. Click “Book with Miles” and perform search.
Leave date BLANK when searching so you can see lowest price dates. When you do this, you’ll be able to see month by month availability. This needs to be done on the desktop (not app).

example monthly view, business class – green dates have lowest fare

Always run 1 way searches. There’s no benefit to roundtrip. One ways give you more flexibility.
Want to go to Rome but don’t see availability? Try Florence or Milan. Train travel is SO easy between the 3. You can also travel super easily between London & Paris by train. Or Madrid to Barcelona by train!
Thinking outside of your “exact” target location can save thousands of miles/points!
For US airports (departure/arrival), focus on airports Air France/KLM fly out of. Some examples are:
MIA, RDU, MCO, ATL, IAD, JFK, BOS, ORD, DTW, DEN, IAH, DFW, LAS, PHX, LAX, SFO, SEA.

I found the flight, HOW do I book it?

Step 1: Login to your credit card account (we are using Capital One Venture Rewards Miles for this example – but here you can see a step by step on transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards® Points)
Scroll down to where it shows your rewards. Click “View Rewards”

Step 2: Scroll down and select “Convert rewards”

Step 3: Scroll down until you find flyingblue. Then click “Transfer Miles”

Step 4: You’ll get this pop up that you’ll input your name & your FLYING BLUE membership #.
Then you’ll be prompted how many miles you want to transfer.
****DO NOT transfer miles/points until you are 100% ready to book. Once you transfer your points, they become FlyingBlue miles and it can NOT be reversed.***

Clicking the final button to transfer the miles can be nerve wracking. Many people have had success calling Flying Blue (not Air France or KLM, you want to actually call Flying Blue) to have the agent confirm ticket availability and have it put on hold while you transfer the miles. I have actually not done this myself but I know others have and felt more at ease doing this when making transfers.

Considering how EASY it is to rack up transferable points/miles, you could easily start earning now and fly your family to Europe next summer!

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