Tutorial: How to book an award flight on Air France/KLM

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I saw some good award space for next summer using Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles. A few readers reached out to me and asked how to book these flights before the Capital One 20% transfer bonus ends on July 31.  For most people, especially newbies to the miles and points hobby,  Air France and KLM are not sites we use frequently, and they can be a bit quirky. If you’re someone who is new to booking with Air France/KLM, read on.

Things to know before booking award flights

• First things first: Don’t transfer your Capital One miles (or any other transferable currency) before you find the award flight.. Always make sure that the award you want to book is available at a price you are willing to pay. Just because you saw the award yesterday doesn’t mean you it will be there today.
• The KLM and Air France share Flying Blue loyalty (frequent flyer) miles. You should see the same award flight availability on both websites. In addition, KLM and Air France have other airline partners which you will see when searching for award flights on their websites (Delta, Virgin Atlantic and more).
• Air France and KLM, like most airlines nowadays, don’t have an award chart anymore. Award prices are dynamic and constantly changing. I’ve seen Business class seats to Europe for as low as 55,000 miles and as high as over 200,000 miles. Economy seats to Europe start at 17,000 miles and can be much higher. It’s important to search early (almost 12 months in advance) and often (I get online daily when I’m searching for a specific award).
• Kids ages 2-11 get a 25% discount on award bookings when traveling with an adult.
• Keep in mind that the biggest cost in flying to Europe is getting across the pond. Don’t be too concerned with finding an award flight to your exact destination. You can always hop on a cheap flight between cities in Europe.
• Both the Air France and KLM websites frequently give me errors. I know it’s not just me. Sometimes I’ll get a random error when signing in, or when I’m trying to complete a different award search. In my experience, the Chrome web browser works better than Safari. Also, clearing my cookies usually fixes the error.
• Despite the program’s quirks, there are some great redemptions to be had using Flying Blue miles!

Steps for booking an award flight on Air France/KLM (Desktop version)

Step 1: Create your own Flying Blue account. It’s free.

Step 2: Set up a Flying Blue Family Account with a maximum of two adults and six children. With a Family Account, you and your partner/spouse can combine points together to make one award booking.

Step 3: Sign in. Go to airfrance.us and click on the “Book with Miles” tab in the middle of the screen. Sign in to your Flying Blue account.

 

The site gives you a few different options to log in. The option that works best for me (without giving me an error) is the one to just enter my email.

 

The site will then prompt you to select your email for a one-time pin code. Press continue.

 

Go to your email, enter the pin code on the Air France website, and then you’re in.

 

Step 4: Search for award flight availability and cost. I always search for one-way awards, since you can always use another awards currency/airline or cash to fly back. If you leave the departure date blank, you can see the lowest price by month. I also keep the passenger count to 1 just so I can see everything out there. WARNING: Sometimes there are lower prices than what is shown on the monthly view. For this example, I’m searching for award space from DFW to Amsterdam.

 

From this calendar view, it looks like June 2024 has flights as low as 26,000 miles:

 

However, if I click on the June 28, 2024 date, I can see that there are flights that cost less than that. There is a flight with 3 seats left in Economy for just 19,500 miles + $84.30 in taxes per person:

 

Note that if you search for more than one award seat, the cost in miles and fees shown will be the total cost for all passengers, not just one passenger. See how the cost changes when I search for 2 people:

 

When you click on “View flight details”, a box will pop up that gives you information about each flight, flight number, times, connection time, flight amenities, meals, etc.

(This is just a partial screen shot–the actual pop-up box keeps going with more details).

On this screen, I like to look at the seat layout, which in this case is 3-3-3. I also like to look up the flight on Seatguru.com to see the width and pitch of the seats.

Note that on the results screen, you can also toggle back and forth to see the cost of other classes (Premium Economy, Business). You can also toggle to nearby dates to see availability, sort the results by price, duration or time, and filter results. In my experience, filtering/toggling and playing on this screen can results in errors. When this happens, I clear my cookies and start over.

 

Step 5: Transfer miles! After you’ve found the award space you want to book, go to the Capital One website (or other transfer partner) and transfer your miles to the Flying Blue program.

 

The transfer is almost instant. You may have to re-sign-in to your Flying Blue account to see your miles. If you have a Family Account, combine miles together.

Step 6: Book the flight! Perform the award search again. Input the number of passengers you want to book. Click on the arrow in the flight price box.

 

You will then see a screen that verifies the flight price as well as the cost of baggage, seat selection and cancellation price.

Click “Select”, and the site will prompt you to input passenger details (like passport and Global Entry numbers) and payment for the taxes.

Step 7: Make sure your flight gets ticketed. Check your email and make sure your flights were ticketed. Save your email with the confirmation code. You should be able to select your seats online.

And that’s it!

What questions do you have?