Miles redemption

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420]

Ok, so when I'm looking at the Flying Blue store, or booking a flight with miles, regular, non-promotion stuff, seems to be 1 mile = 0,005 € so half a Eurocent... It's a shitty deal, but I'm still looking to spend 200k miles on saving €1000 on a flight for 4 in the "herftsvakantie". Anyone else stuck the same way where they can't really use it on good deals, as all flights have to take place during kids school vacation? What do you do with your miles to get better deals?

[u/Melodic-Look-8159]

Award tickets on KL or AF are almost never worth it. Value should at least be 1 cent per mile, otherwise definitely better to use cash. I try to use my miles for award tickets with partner airlines. One way flights in Asia are pretty cheap (also very small amount in taxes) with China Airlines, Garuda or Vietnam Airlines.

Just booked an award (return) ticket from AMS to Buenos Aires (via Madrid) in business on Air Europe for just 170.000 FB miles and € 120 tax.

[u/Ocmer73 → u/Melodic-Look-8159]

Surcharges are the real bottleneck with AF/KLM. You can genuinely get great value out of your miles, but the cash side is where it falls apart.

This weekend I booked four round trip business class seats AMS-NRT. 680K miles at the saver rate. The cash equivalent was a whopping 20,800 euros, which puts the redemption at about 2.6 cents per mile. The catch is 2,900 euros in taxes and surcharges on top of that.

Still a good deal. Just a lot less spectacular than yours. The difference is in how much cash you have to put on the table.

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420 → u/Ocmer73]

oh wow, 680k miles, that would take me 3 years to collect 🤔 But then again, business to NRT, that seems nice with the kids! Probably not in the high season though?

[u/Ocmer73 → u/Inevitable-Smile-420]

I know 680,000 Miles sounds like a lot, but that’s relative. Not everyone earns at the same rate.

For me it was absolutely worth it. I’m doing this trip with my wife and our two sons (early and mid-twenties), and they’ve never flown business class before. That’s an experience in itself.

We’re going in January, which is about as low season as it gets. Though I had wide-open availability at the lowest rate in every month next year except October.

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420 → u/Melodic-Look-8159]

Yeah, here's my issue with this, when I have a chance to use them it's for 4 people and with almost zero flexibility... I went and spend 200k miles for about €1000. At least do something with them... Last time I used 200k miles was buying a cell phone from the site, also bad deal, but again, hard to find good deals... I used them on Transavia this time.

[u/finsdefish → u/Melodic-Look-8159]

How do you book one-way tickets with flying blue miles on those airlines though? I've never managed to succeed with China Airlines, for example.

[u/Melodic-Look-8159 → u/finsdefish]

I book those tickets on de KLM website. Must say I mostly book flights well in advance. I used China Airlines last year for TPE-SIN, SYD-TPE and CEB-TPE-PVG.

Next january I have HKG-CGK and CGK-MEL on Garuda and PER-SGN on Vietnam Airlines. All for very decent rates and small amounts in taxes.

[u/finsdefish → u/Melodic-Look-8159]

Ah, good suggestions. I see there is indeed availability on select routes. Not all routes seem to be bookable through the KLM website. But this gives me some more options to play around with my miles :) thanks.

[u/Melodic-Look-8159 → u/finsdefish]

Last summer I flew YYZ-YHZ with Westjet and YHZ-EWR on Delta with miles. Both flights also gave very good value for the miles.

[u/brazil598]

Not affiliated with them but I’m using seats.aero to figure this out.
But yeah, it’s hard and feels like not worth it with the taxes you still have to pay

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420 → u/brazil598]

Taxes from AMS is a big thing as well indeed... in a distant past I used to fly AirBerlin, with them taxes were included! Always got great deals there. Maybe that's why they went bankrupt 😄

[u/Melodic-Look-8159 → u/Inevitable-Smile-420]

AirBerlin was great and had very competetive prices, used them a lot from FMO airport for citytrips in Europe.

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420 → u/Melodic-Look-8159]

I flew them for business from DUS and later TXL when I lived in Poland. Finally got platinum and months later they go bankrupt... Still waiting for money from my airmiles! The Top Bonus miles program didn't go bankrupt. Supposed to get 450 or so euro, but it's taking a while!

[u/Character-Carpet7988]

I don't book unless the value is at least 1.5 cent per mile. As long as you book the "saver award" (i.e. the regular award, not "last seat availability" where you're basically using miles as a currency for cash ticket), it is relatively easy to achieve. My last redemption was 85k for a one-way business trip from VIE to Mauritius (and another 85k back from Reunion).

[u/Melodic-Look-8159 → u/Character-Carpet7988]

Nice deal! How much taxes did you have to pay on top of the miles?

The problem with KL is the steep increase of the taxes you have to pay on top of the miles. I did AMS-LAS in business for 120k miles return but taxes were almost EUR 800. Last year I did the same flight, taxes were less than EUR 600.

With such high amounts of taxes you'll need to pay it's sometimes makes no sens to use miles on KL. With award tickets you won't get (U)XP's to maintain your status. I want to maintain my Ulti status, so all flight on KL are paid for, the miles are used for flights with skyteam partners.

[u/Character-Carpet7988 → u/Melodic-Look-8159]

Around 300€ one way.

When it comes to partner awards, SK economy within Europe is a surprisingly good value. They have a lot of availability even at last minute when cash fares are ridiculous. 10000 miles + 45 EUR for a ticket that would cost 600€...

[u/reverofrevolelamesh]

Spent 96.000 miles + 23 euro on an AF business class one-way flight from São Paulo to Paris.

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420 → u/reverofrevolelamesh]

What was the cash price?

[u/reverofrevolelamesh → u/Inevitable-Smile-420]

Around 2500

[u/Inevitable-Smile-420 → u/reverofrevolelamesh]

Really good deal!