As we near the halfway point of May, the peak summer travel season is just around the corner. During a normal year, airfares rise for summer travel as kids are out of school and adults look forward to a long awaited vacation. This typically puts a strain on frequent flyer mileage redemptions as capacity is gobbled up.
2024 is an even busier year as Paris prepares to host the Summer Olympics. With Paris being a major hub for Air France as well as SkyTeam partner Delta, there are plenty of flights to get you to and from the games. There are also many, one stop, connecting itineraries through partner KLM’s Amsterdam hub. However, expect these flights to cost a pretty penny.
Flying Blue Opens Up Award Availability to Europe
If you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a Business Class ticket there’s good news! Flying Blue has opened up a ton of award availability in July and August with seats available starting at 50,000 miles one way in Business Class!
I played with a variety of dates and departure airports and found availability from most US destinations with wide open availability.
There is one consistent thing I’m finding when searching for these flights. The cheapest options are all on KLM metal. It appears KLM has opened up the vast majority of the cheapest awards on their flights this summer.
If you want to take advantage of these deals, start by looking at the airports KLM serves in the US.
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Boston
- Chicago
- Houston
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- Minneapolis/St. Paul
- Salt Lake City
- San Francisco
- Washington-Dulles
Air France and KLM Business Class
I have had the opportunity to fly KLM and Air France Business Class on multiple occasions and both make for an enjoyable experience. I’ve had highs and lows when flying with Air France while KLM offers a remarkably consistent, albeit somewhat boring product.
If you want a more in-depth look at Air France and KLM’s Business Class Offerings, check out my reviews of each:
- KLM Boeing 787-9 World Business Class
- Air France Boeing 777-200 Business Class
- Air France Boeing 777-300ER Business Class
Summary
Flying Blue award availability is currently wide open between the United States and Europe this summer. With a busy travel season anticipated, bolstered by the Summer Olympics in Paris, this is a great way to score a seat using points. Special thanks to @travelsofjustin for bringing this to my attention!
I would like to thank you for this. I was able to get a BUSINESS CLASS flight from ?USA to AMS for 50K and about $230. I was able to refund my originally booked ticket and now I’m going in biz class!
Glad to hear it! Enjoy the trip! I’m assuming you’re on KLM since you’re headed to AMS, I’m a big fan of their 787-9 Business Class.
Thanks for sharing, but sadly I am not really seeing any “deals” for RDU flights. I found one day in July with a one-way Economy fare priced at 20k miles, but other than that everything is VERY expensive.
Hey Sam, the deal seems to function best when flying a KLM operated flight. With only Air France flying to RDU it may be tougher to find a deal. There are plenty of flights from Washington-Dulles (IAD) to Paris via Amsterdam for 50,000 miles in Business Class if you want to take advantage of that and use a short positioning flight.
This seems to be dead now. I found 50k tickets this morning, for a pair of cities I looked at, and now they’re gone.
Do you know when they might open Sept 2024 for Biz class deals?
It seems like there were some September dates lumped in with this as well, though the flights at the 50k miles price seem to have sold out quickly. Likely only a few sparse dates remaining.