Now through May 15th, Chase is offering 25% bonus Flying Blue miles when transferring Ultimate Reward points to your Flying Blue account. In a previous post, I recommended earning points through Chase’s Ultimate Rewards program when you first start the Game of Miles. If you had been following my recommendations since the launch of this blog, you may already be able to take advantage of this promotion before it ends to score some excellent award redemptions to top destinations in Europe.
In this post, I’ll cover some redemptions that can be booked right now for the amount of points that can be earned through six months of casual earning. For less than 100,000 Ultimate Reward points plus fees, you could fly round-trip in business class to Paris or Amsterdam. Alternatively, a family of four could fly round-trip in economy for about the same amount of points.
If you don’t currently have enough Ultimate Rewards to take advantage of this promotion, don’t worry. Remember that you want to be earning these miles through normal, everyday spend, so don’t feel the need to rush through a credit card spend requirement to earn a sign up bonus. These types of promotions occur multiple times throughout the year from various banks and airlines. Build your balance of transferrable points naturally, and you’ll be able to take advantage of a similar promotion in the future. AMEX was offering a similar promotion last November which I used to book a round trip to Germany for later this year in KLM business class.
Flying Blue is the loyalty program of both KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Air France. You can sign up for Flying Blue for free through either airline’s website. Any points transferred from Chase to Flying Blue will show up in your Flying Blue account when logged in to either Air France’s or KLM’s website. This means you can make a single transfer from Chase and be able to book award flights directly from either airline.
I recommend signing up for a Flying Blue account if you don’t have one. That way you can follow along this post and gain experience searching for award travel by performing the same searches that I am. You can also experiment searching availability for different dates, destinations, and departing airports.
Searching for award availability on either Air France’s or KLM’s websites is the same. From either home page, click the Book with Miles tab which will prompt you to log in. After clicking Log In, you can create your account or log in if you already have one.
These tips apply to searching for award flights with any airline.
Search one-way and book each leg separately instead of trying to book round trip. Some search engines, such as Air France’s, might not show any award availability if searched as a round trip flight even though it shows availability when searching each leg individually. Searching one-way also allows you to choose different combinations of airlines, award programs, and destinations giving you the most options in finding a great deal.
You will almost always find better availability when searching as far in advance as possible. Air France currently lets you book flights as far out as March 2024, and that is where I performed these searches. There is wide open availability early next year to multiple destinations in Europe originating from multiple destinations in the US. This promotion is going on until the middle of May, so you could wait until May before booking when availability for April and early May 2024 opens up.
If you can’t find a redemption from your home airport, check departures from other cities in the US that you want to travel to. If you don’t mind spending a few days in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, or other locations, you can use that as a launching point for your trip to Europe.
You can do the same thing by switching up your destinations and make it a truly epic adventure! Let’s say you want to go to Paris but can’t find any good award availability from your hometown. Consider taking a trip to Vegas for a few days where you found a great award flight direct to Amsterdam. Spend a few days in Amsterdam and book a short paid flight to Paris. Maybe there are still no good award flights back home, but there is a great redemption to New York City, a place you have never been to and would like to visit. Book your award flight to JFK and spend a few days there before returning home.
You will often be able to find award flights directly to and from your target destinations if you search far enough in advance. But being flexible will give you the most options. This kind of flexibility will also allow you to book more destinations without having to do it a year in advance.
There is wide open availability from New York to Paris (and many other origin and destination combos) in February and March of next year. This specific search is for March 3rd to March 16th, 2024, but there are many dates available in February and March for the same mileage cost.
Doing a one-way search from JFK to CDG on March 3rd, 2024 in business class and sorting by the lowest price brought up a direct flight for 55,000 Flying Blue miles plus EUR 189.29 ($205.77) in fees. A return flight from CDG to JFK on March 16th could be found for 55,000 miles plus EUR 348.46 ($378.79).
That totals 110,000 Flying Blue miles plus about $585 in fees for round-trip business class from New York City to Paris. That alone isn’t a bad deal as you can typically earn that amount of transferrable miles from two credit card sign-up bonuses.
But with the 25% transfer bonus, you only have to transfer 88,000 Ultimate Rewards points. I recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred, The Freedom Flex, and The Freedom Unlimited as your first three cards when starting the Game of Miles. Clearing these sign-up offers will earn you a minimum of 105,250 Ultimate Reward points within six months of casual earning (more on that here).
The cash price of this same trip is over $7,400, and that’s for the non-refundable option. When you book with points, you have the option for a refund up until the flight for only EUR 50. If you want the same option for a refund when paying cash, you are now looking at paying over $8,000 for the same trip.
You do not need to be in this game for a long time before you can start making some great redemptions.
While some of you may find the $600 in fees still too steep, keep in mind that this is still cheaper than what you’d pay for a non-refundable direct flight to and from Paris in basic economy.
If you are willing to fly in economy, you can book the same round-trip for just 30,000 Flying Blue miles plus about $230 in fees. With the 25% bonus, you’ll only need to transfer 24,000 Ultimate Reward points. This means you could fly a family of four in economy round-trip to Paris on direct flights for less than 100,000 Ultimate Reward points and less than $1,000 in fees. Obviously, business class is the far better value (along with being a much better experience), but you will still save close to $2,000 using points to book economy.
These points can be earned in less than six months of casual points earning. You do not need to be in this game for a long time before you can start making some great redemptions.
Here are some other redemptions you can make with the same promotion. Keep in mind that these flights are in February or March 2024, but if you’re flexible with your travel plans, you’ll have a better chance of finding award availability throughout the year. All of these are round trip costs.
Don’t transfer points to Flying Blue until you are ready to book the flight. Once Ultimate Reward points are transferred, they can’t be returned back to your Chase account. You don’t want to have your points sitting in your Flying Blue account if they decide at some point to devalue the program. Remember that you will need either the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve credit card in order to transfer Ultimate Rewards to airline partners. If you have UR points across multiple cards, they can easily be transferred to the Sapphire card.
Once you are ready to book the flight, transferring the points is an easy process. From the web, click on any of your Chase Sapphire card, and then click on “More” followed by “Card benefits”. If using the mobile app, a link for Explore Ultimate Rewards will be at the bottom of the page after clicking on the card. From the UR homepage, click on the hamburger menu button and choose Transfer to Travel Partners. From there, you will see the bonus offers displayed. After clicking on the Flying Blue offer, you’ll be guided through the process of linking your Flying Blue account and can then transfer your points. Points transferred to Flying Blue should appear in your Flying Blue account instantly.
It doesn’t take a long time in the game before you can start booking these kinds of trips. With only six months of casual earning through credit card sign-up bonuses and normal, everyday spending, you can accumulate enough points to start booking some amazing trips to top destinations around the world.
Focus on building a balance of transferrable points with Chase, Capital One, American Express, and Citi. Having a balance of transferrable points in your accounts will enable you to take advantage of opportunities like the current 25% bonus from Chase to Flying Blue.
If you found the information here helpful and decide to apply for any of the cards mentioned, please consider signing up through my referral links (if available) on the home page.
