False Alarm: Flying Blue Didn’t Devalue Partner Awards, After All

Updated: December 27, 2024, 11:01am CST

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Air France-KLM Flying Blue Program Says ‘Oops!’
Final Thoughts

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Flying Blue’s Christmas devaluation of partner awards was not, after all, a devaluation, and Air France-KLM has since rushed to correct what it said was a big snafu.

Here’s what happened.

Air France-KLM Flying Blue Program Says ‘Oops!’

It turns out that the bad Christmas gift frequent flyers thought they had received from Air France-KLM wasn’t actually a thing. The higher prices for award seats on partner airlines seen over the holiday were, in fact, the result of a technical mistake, which the airline says it’s correcting.

On December 26, Flying Blue, the joint loyalty program of Air France and KLM, began showing much higher prices for some award flights on partner airlines. Those changes were affecting award tickets on Delta Air Lines, Aeromexico, Qantas, and others.

Flying Blue uses dynamic pricing, meaning it doesn’t publish an award chart showing fixed costs for award flights. Instead, those prices change according to demand and time of year, so tracking devaluations means checking prices over time.

In this case, awards for short-haul flights on partner airlines worldwide shot up overnight, by 100% in some cases, in both economy and premium classes.

Delta Air Lines Comfort Plus — Flying Blue can be used to book domestic flights on Delta. Image Credit: Stella Shon

Ben Lipsey, a senior vice president at Air France-KLM who runs the Flying Blue program, posted on frequent-flyer site FlyerTalk to explain what happened. It was, he said, a hasty correction to mistake fares:

Sorry guys, false alarm. We were made aware of some mistake fares on partners (notably 1500/4000 miles for shorthaul Y/J on DL). Being Christmas Day, we didn’t have the active resources in place to fix the root cause so we put in a temporary fix which applied a minimum price on partners. We will do our best to correct the airline partner pricing as soon as possible. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Today, December 27, we’ve seen some prices return to the levels prior to the changes. For example, a partner award on Qantas from Melbourne (MEL) to Sydney (SYD) that had gone from 5,000 to 10,000 miles in economy class and 15,000 to 20,000 in business is now back to the previous level.

Flying Blue award prices MEL-SYD with Qantas — Every flight on January 30 from Melbourne to Sydney was priced at the same level. Image Credit: Air France

Of course, the mistake fares at 1,500 or 4,000 miles in economy and first on Delta Air Lines that Lipsey mentioned in his post are also gone.

For example, searching for January flights via Air France’s website returned prices of 14,000 miles one-way in economy on Delta between Seattle (SEA) and Los Angeles (LAX). Flights from Chicago (ORD) and Atlanta (ATL) were priced at 9,000 each way for economy and 23,000 for first class.

While those are not bad redemptions in absolute terms, the prices were comparable to what Delta would charge in SkyMiles for the same routes and times.

Hot Tip:

Learn everything there is to know about Air France-KLM Flying Blue in our full program review.

Final Thoughts

There was no points-and-miles Grinch this Christmas. The loyalty program of Air France and KLM hasn’t devalued its partner awards. It was all a technical mistake at Flying Blue.

That said, it is still a good idea — over the holidays or at any other time — not to sit on your points and miles. Devaluations do happen, and while this one actually didn’t, it is certain that others will.