Flying Blue is the shared award program for Air France and KLM airlines, which are based in Paris and Amsterdam, respectively. Flying Blue is one of my favorite ways to travel to and from Europe (and other destinations!), especially for families. They’re a transfer partners for all four major banks, they tend to have a lot of available award space, they offer a 25% discount for kids ages 2-11, and they have monthly promo rewards that offer discounted rates on certain routes. What’s not to love?

Let’s deep dive into all things Flying Blue.

How to earn Flying Blue miles

Flying Blue miles can be earned in a variety of ways. As I mentioned, they are transfer partners for all four major banks – American Express, Chase, Capital One, and Citi. This means that you can earn flexible points through any of those banks, then transfer your points from the bank to Flying Blue.

There are some great flexible points cards from each of those banks. This means you could earn points through multiple cards from multiple banks, then transfer all of those points into your Flying Blue account. It’s super easy to have a ton of Flying Blue miles this way!

Here are my favorite cards that earn flexible points which can be transferred:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
• Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card
• Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
• American Express® Gold Card
• American Express® Business Gold Card
• The Platinum Card® from American Express
• The Business Platinum Card® from American Express

Related: Business cards are easier than you think

<All information about the Chase Sapphire Preferred® and Ink Business Preferred® has been collected independently by The Traveling Hansens. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.>

Make sure you set up a free Flying Blue loyalty account so that you can transfer your points. Flights are a standard 25,000 miles per person per way from the U.S. to/from Europe, however, you can find some dates with flights for 18,750 miles from the East Coast. Furthermore, Flying Blue uses dynamic pricing, which means that 25,000 miles is the standard, but there are dates and times that will cost more.

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How to book an award flight

Once you have miles in your account, you can get to actually booking your flight! Step one is to find availability. I always start on the Air France website, but you could also start on the KLM website.

Click on “Book with Miles”. You will be prompted to log in to your account.

Enter your departing airport and destination.

A few tips:

• The major U.S. airports will have much more availablility than mid-size/small airports. Those airports may have no options.
• Search one way at a time. This will give you more flight options and also allows for future changes or the option to return from a different airport.
• Leave the departure date blank so you can see the award calendar. This will show you when the cheapest dates are. I recommend doing this even if you have specific dates. You may be able to shift by just one day and save a lot of points!

Here’s what the award calendar looks like. As you can see, there are many dates with the low 18,750-point flights from New York, but there are also dates that are the standard 25,000, and some dates where the lowest price is 51,000.

Flying Blue airline alliance

Flying Blue is part of SkyTeam airline alliance, which has other popular members like Delta and Virgin Atlantic. This means that you can sometimes use Flying Blue to book flights on one of their alliance partner airlines. This may or may not be a cheaper option than booking directly with the airline, but it’s worth checking.

Kids discount

One major perk to Flying Blue is their kids discount. Kids ages 2-11 get a 25% discount on award tickets. This means that a family of four can fly to Europe for as low as 87,500 miles.

Here’s the breakdown for a family of four to fly from Los Angeles to Paris on Air France.

You don’t have to do anything to apply the discount. It will show up automatically when you go to book a child ticket as long as there’s an adult traveling with them.

Monthly promo rewards

Another great Flying Blue perk is their monthly Promo Rewards. These are discounted award tickets on specific routes. They have short-haul and long-haul flight routes that go on sale each month. The prices are good during the month you book and for travel dates up to five months out. For example, if you book during April, you can pick a travel date anytime until September 30th.

You can find all of this month’s routes here.

Examples:

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Wrapping Up

Flying Blue is a great option for booking award travel, especially for families. With easy ways to earn points, plenty of award availability, monthly Promo Rewards, and the 25% kids discount, it’s hard to beat. If you’re flexible and know how to search, Flying Blue can unlock some amazing trips for fewer points than you might expect.