Success: Creating Flying Blue Family Account Will Extend Your Expiring Miles by Two Years

A few weeks ago, I wrote that  transferring flexible points will not extend the validity of Air France Flying Blue miles earned via co-branded Bank of America credit card That left us with only a few months to use up the stash or lose it. There was another solution: applying for credit card again. My husband did just that, but then shockingly it was canceled en-route

What to do? I have resigned myself to the fact that we would need to burn the miles ASAP on Delta-operated flights. Fortunately, my sister-in-law lives near Detroit (Delta hub) and we were planning to send the kids there next summer anyway. But I hate to be forced to use miles on company’s terms, so I decided  to do a bit more research first.

I remember reading something about Air France Flying Blue Family and wanted to see if it was a viable path to extend the validity of our miles. I certainly didn’t have much hope, but lo and behold, it worked.

How Flying Blue Family works

You can see all the details via this link The gist of it is that despite the name, it doesn’t appear that members of the “family” have to be related. There are  a few limitations, probably to make it harder to sell miles via this method. The new account has to be open for at least 24 hours before you can set up the Flying Blue Family arrangement. Also, you can’t actually transfer miles for seven days. Last but not least, you can’t dissolve the mileage pool  for six months.

It is a very handy arrangement, no doubt. If you and your spouse each have some orphaned Air France miles, this is your chance to pool them together and put them to good use. But to me the most useful benefit of all is the ability to extend expiring miles without flying activity. So, I signed up for Flying Blue account in my name. I actually used to have one, but it was canceled due to inactivity (it only had 300 miles in it).

Anyway, after 24 hours passed, I created Flying Blue Family via my profile and sent an invitation to my husband. Very important! You need to designate yourself as a leader if you want the miles transferred to your account. In our case, my husband is the one with expiring miles, so that’s what we did. Afterwards, we waited seven days until a link appeared to transfer the miles.

It worked flawlessly.

As you can see, I have two years to put these miles to good use. In all likelihood, we will burn them next year on nonstop Orlando-Paris flight for summer of 2027. I’m hoping to do a grand tour of Europe with my mom, husband and kids  and include a solar eclipse in Malaga. It’s an ambitious plan, as I also want to visit Paris, Venice and even do a detour to Switzerland. My mom hasn’t been to any of these places, and I want to show them to her before her health gets any worse. Anyway, I hope Air France miles can help me fulfill that dream.

An interesting twist 

I wanted to see if transferring Amex points may extend the validity for another two years. Turns out, that’s exactly how it works. I sent 1,000 points and the date was reset by a few days. I guess Flying Blue views my miles as earned from partner activity, which makes them easier to revive. Pretty cool.

 

 

So, the moral of the story is not to give up, but to look for unconventional solutions. You won’t always find them, but at least you’ll know you’ve tried your best. I also want to give credit to the original poster of this Flyertalk thread.  I doubt he will read my post, but his lone data point on setting up Flying Blue Family with the goal of extending validity of miles was invaluable.

I had to chuckle at the majority of responses, shaming the guy and insisting  he  takes a Delta flight just because. Apparently, despite the fact that rules clearly state that your miles will be extended for two years (Air France wording), you can’t trust them. They will cancel your account if you don’t actually fly! Don’t have any days off and don’t want to spend a bunch of money to fly somewhere for no reason? Do it anyway. No wonder normal folks think this hobby is nuts.

And not just one person, a bunch of them chimed in with “helpful” advice. After a while, the original poster probably felt he was the crazy one. Nope.