Flying Blue Devalues Miles on Christmas, Makes Partner Flights More Expensive

Update: Flying Blue has provided an update, saying there was no devaluation but simply a tech problem. You can read the full update here.

Ho, ho, ho. What worse Christmas gift could you get than a devaluation of your Flying Blue miles?

That’s right, the joint loyalty program of Air France and KLM made your miles worth less yesterday while you were sipping egg nog and learning the meaning of “some assembly required” on your new gifts. Now, the price you’ll pay for some partner award tickets using your miles will cost more.

Here’s what we’re seeing.

Flying Blue’s Partner Award Devaluation

Flying Blue is a joint program of Air France and KLM. It doesn’t publish an award chart showing the cost of flights on a partner airline, so tracking devaluations can be difficult.

However, this thread on FlyerTalk has multiple data points on price changes for award tickets on Delta Air Lines, Aeromexico, Qantas, and more. Here’s a look at some of the flights that are now more expensive:

As this is a developing situation, the list of affected awards will continue to grow, but a pattern is emerging: Many awards that previously cost less than 10,000 miles per person in economy or 20,000 in business have gone up to those thresholds — possibly establishing a new baseline for the cheapest award costs. While a new standardization may mean we’ll find awards that got cheaper, so far, it’s bad news. Some of these flights are now twice as expensive as they were just 24 hours ago.

What Should You Do?

If you booked any Flying Blue award tickets in the past few months, it’s worth investigating whether the price has since changed. If the number of miles you need is now less, it could be worth rebooking — assuming the €70 (~$73) fee is worth it.

Each devaluation also reinforces 2 of our most fundamental pieces of advice:

1. Points and miles are a bad long-term investment, and
2. Transferrable points are the most valuable rewards to earn

Points and miles are devalued often, unfortunately. Holding onto them for a long time isn’t a good idea. Instead, you should focus on redeeming them.

For the second point, we recommend earning transferrable or “flexible” points, as these give you the most options when it’s time to book a trip. They also help protect against devaluations. How so? Because a devaluation in a single program (in this case, Flying Blue) doesn’t affect the other programs you could still send your points to — meaning those others might become your best option, depending on what you want to book.

Final Thoughts

Short-haul flights on partner airlines were hardest hit by this Flying Blue devaluation, and the timing is rather ugly. While people were celebrating a holiday with their families, the cost to book award tickets got more expensive.