Flying Blue’s New Rewards Map & Award Pricing - December 7, 2022 at 10:25AM

There are quite a few changes at Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue loyalty program, and they’re both good and bad news. For example, we’ve seen stopovers introduced on awards, though we’ve also seen further restrictions on first class awards. Here’s the latest program change, which leaves me more confused than anything else.

Flying Blue introduces new rewards map page

The Flying Blue frequent flyer program has introduced a new dedicated rewards map page. As it’s described, this is intended to help members instantly discover where their mileage balance can take them.

Flying Blue rewards map feature

Members have a couple of options for using this tool:

They can enter the number of miles they have, and then see all the places they could go with those miles
They can enter their origin, destination, and class of service, and see what starting award pricing looks like in a particular market

Flying Blue rewards map feature

On the surface this seems like a pretty cool new tool, which provides a good visualization of where your miles can take you. The catch is that this map only shows the lowest possible pricing, and Flying Blue has dynamic award pricing, meaning that award redemption rates may often be higher.

So this won’t actually show you what’s available on a particular day, but rather just the lowest cost you can expect to pay for a certain type of award.

Flying Blue adjusts some award pricing

This is where the changes get a bit more confusing. Since 2018, Flying Blue has had dynamic award pricing, meaning that the number of miles required for an award ticket varied based on a variety of factors.

Flying Blue claims that to help members benefit from the program, entry level mileage prices have been “adjusted to more accurately reflect the actual value of the ticket and to accommodate a more transparent setup.”

Here’s how Flying Blue explains why this change is being made:

Because of the need for a more transparent pricing setup for our members, we decided to restructure our entire entry (starting from) Miles pricing. With the previous entry pricing setup, there was no link between the Miles price and the actual value of the ticket. As a result, the value of Miles also differed heavily per itinerary. With our new entry Miles pricing the value of the ticket is better reflected in the Miles price, with a clear pricing range per geographical area and per cabin.

Flying Blue specifically mentions that we’ll see more attractive entry level pricing for premium economy awards overall, and for business class on intra-Europe flights. Meanwhile business class on long haul flights will have varying pricing changes (for example, Los Angeles is increasing in price, while Dubai is decreasing in price).

I’m not sure I totally follow the logic here? The claim is that the program has been dynamic, but also that it somehow hasn’t been dynamic enough (to reflect the cost of a ticket in cash), so that will be changing. Yet looking at the new award pricing, I’m also not noticing major changes.

Oddly Flying Blue has essentially reintroduced the concept of an award chart that shows the minimum number of miles required (these prices are one-way).

Flying Blue award chart

But then there’s a supplementary award chart that shows that in many cases the lowest price between certain city pairs is above that minimum, which kind of eliminates the whole point of having an award chart, no?

Flying Blue award chart

Meanwhile Flying Blue has adjusted its award zones, which has involved some places being moved to different regions.

Flying Blue award travel zones

Frankly I’m not noticing huge award pricing changes initially, though I’m also not sure what I’m missing. “Hey, we’ve had dynamic award pricing since 2018, but we’re also going to become more dynamic to reflect the cost of tickets, but we’re also going to publish this award chart now,” doesn’t exactly paint the clearest message of what’s changing. And that’s coming from someone who follows loyalty programs for a living.

I’m not sure the explanations do much to help either. For example, how exactly is one supposed to interpret this?

Updated entry pricing (meaning no significant change in value for Miles) for Economy cabin overall, and Business cabin on the Long Haul scope with varying price changes.

So there’s updated pricing and… no significant change to the value of miles?

Bottom line

Flying Blue has rolled out a new rewards map feature, whereby Flying Blue members can easily see the starting award prices for all kinds of awards. You can either search by city pair, or just enter how many miles you have, and see where they can take you.

At the same time, Flying Blue has also adjusted some award pricing, though the differences aren’t necessarily that apparent to me, at least initially. Flying Blue says it wants to be more transparent, and also says that award tickets should more closely reflect the cash value of a ticket, but I also don’t see that reflected in the new pricing scheme.

For now I’m just going to label these changes as… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

What do you make of these Flying Blue changes?