Traditionally, Air France-KLM Flying Blue has been one of the crucial helpful frequent flyer packages for crossing the Atlantic, each due to the engaging award pricing, plus the first rate quantity of award availability.
Nonetheless, it positive looks as if in current instances, enterprise class award availability throughout the Atlantic has dried up. A number of readers have reached out relating to this, so I made a decision to do a little bit of analysis.
Flying Blue’s practically non-existent enterprise class awards
Most not too long ago, a Flying Blue lifetime Platinum member reached out to me to level out the entire lack of saver enterprise class award availability via Flying Blue, saying that this has worn out this system for him by way of worth, and he now finds it to be completely ineffective. He requested me to look into this and report again, in order that’s precisely what I’m doing.
Let me say that normally, it’s onerous to take a “static” take a look at award availability, since clearly an necessary consideration is how briskly folks snag awards. So I’ll do the very best I can, however clearly I can’t communicate to inside numbers as to how many individuals have already booked awards on a selected flight, and many others.
I made a decision to drag up enterprise class award availability via Flying Blue from all gateways in america, looking out Paris (CDG) because the vacation spot. For what it’s price, Flying Blue begins releasing award availability 359 days out. So, what number of complete enterprise class award seats are there over that interval?
- There are zero award seats from Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW), Detroit (DTW), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), Minneapolis (MSP), New York (JFK), Orlando (MCO), Phoenix (PHX), and San Francisco (SFO)
- There may be someday with a enterprise class award seat from Atlanta (ATL)
- There may be someday with a enterprise class award seat from Houston (IAH)
- There may be someday with a enterprise class award seat from Newark (EWR)
- There may be someday with a enterprise class award seat from Seattle (SEA)
- There are two days with enterprise class award seats from Denver (DEN)
- There are three days with enterprise class award seats from Washington (IAD)
I’m no mathematician, however you don’t even have to have the ability to depend to 10 to determine what number of flights have saver award area via Flying Blue over the following yr. 😉 That’s clearly actually tough, and I feel it’s secure to say that saver enterprise class award availability is mainly non-existent.
Needless to say between Air France and KLM, the airways function practically 50 each day flights to america. So to do some very tough math, let’s assume the airline has 30 enterprise class seats per flight (that’s deliberately conservative), which means there are round 550,000 enterprise class seats throughout the Atlantic per yr. 9 of these seats can be found as awards, which comes out to 0.000016% of stock.
Now, Flying Blue has dynamic award pricing, so you’ll be able to nearly all the time redeem miles for a flight, it’s only a perform of what the fee is. In principle, saver degree enterprise class awards are purported to value 60,000 miles. The precise pricing obtainable is sort of all the time greater than twice that a lot, and infrequently far more than that. For instance, on the New York to Paris route, not a single day has a enterprise class award for underneath 139,500 miles.
So we’ll see how this evolves, however based mostly on how issues at the moment stand, I wouldn’t contemplate Flying Blue to be a helpful program for transatlantic enterprise class awards, as a result of availability has gotten actually unhealthy. In fact everybody ought to crunch the numbers for themselves and analysis availability for what they’re on the lookout for, however the present scenario isn’t good.
Look, nobody expects that there’s going to be saver degree enterprise class award availability on a majority of flights, because the economics don’t make sense. Nonetheless, saver availability has gone from being one thing you will discover with effort and suppleness, to mainly being like successful the lottery.
A pair issues with Flying Blue availability
Whereas Flying Blue’s saver degree award availability is worse than I’ve ever seen earlier than, there are a few issues I ought to level out.
To start with, Flying Blue makes use of married section pricing for awards. So whereas there are zero saver degree enterprise class awards from New York to Paris, you’ll see some quantity of saver award availability if persevering with onwards to another locations. For instance, in case you as an alternative set Madrid (MAD) because the vacation spot, you’ll immediately discover a complete of seven dates throughout the yr with award availability. That’s nonetheless actually unhealthy, however seven is greater than zero.
Moreover, award availability appears to be a bit higher in case you don’t contact america, even when flying to or from Paris. For instance, whereas I wouldn’t say availability is nice, there at the very least a median of a handful of days per thirty days the place you’ll discover saver award availability in different lengthy haul markets.
Needless to say Flying Blue not too long ago elevated award prices, with the promise of extra award availability. Possibly the argument may very well be made that availability improved in another markets, however it’s positively not the case for america.
Backside line
Saver degree enterprise class award availability with Air France-KLM appears to have reached a brand new low, at the very least throughout the Atlantic. Whereas this system was good about making saver degree award seats obtainable, that’s not the case proper now.
I hope that is momentary, and that award availability doesn’t keep this unhealthy completely. Till one thing modifications, I’d strategy Flying Blue with warning relating to transferring miles, assuming you’re based mostly in america.
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