What Is the Value of Air France/KLM Flying Blue Miles?

KLM and Air France share a rewards program called Flying Blue. You can earn miles through this program by flying on these airlines or their partners, or transferring from other programs such as American Express Membership Rewards points. But how much are these miles actually worth?

Based on our analysis, the value of Air France-KLM Flying Blue miles is 1.4 cents each. This is a baseline value from real-world data on hundreds of economy routes, not a maximized value. In other words, you should aim for award redemptions that offer 1.4 cents or more in value from your Flying Blue miles.

What does this value mean?

Our estimated value of 1.4 cents per Flying Blue mile provides a lower-end value you can use to determine the relative value of your own redemptions. It is based on comparing main cabin fares using both cash and miles, across several dates and destinations.

In other words, this is the value you can expect to get from your Flying Blue miles without seeking particularly high-value redemptions. This means you can get more value by looking for sweet spots and using more advanced award techniques. It also means you can end up getting lower value than this if you’re not careful and book the first award ticket you find.

» Learn more: Should I book award travel this year?

Calculator: Convert Flying Blue miles to a dollar value

With the calculator below, you can figure out how much your Flying Blue miles are worth based on our value. This is useful when deciding whether to use miles or cash to pay for a specific flight.

» Learn more: The beginner's guide to points and miles

How does the value of Flying Blue miles change when booking business class?

In our primary analysis, we only looked at main cabin fares using cash or miles. But we also collected data on business class rewards. Like with many other programs, Flying Blue miles are "worth" much more when used for these premium cabin redemptions, though this value is largely due to the high cash prices of these fares.

When booking business class awards on KLM/Air France, aim for a value of 1.8 cents per mile.

How flexible are Flying Blue miles?

Air France and KLM are part of the SkyTeam alliance, and Flying Blue features a whopping 35 partner airlines. One of these partners is Delta, which can be especially impactful for U.S. based flyers.

Since Delta's award pricing is highly dynamic, you can sometimes score a better deal when flying Delta using Flying Blue miles rather than Delta Skymiles.

How did we determine our Flying Blue miles value?

We collected hundreds of data points comparing the cash value to award, or mile, value for the same routes and dates. That is, we compared the cost of a given ticket, in either cash or miles, across many tickets. This method differs from others in that it looks at actual redemptions rather than hypothetical, maximized redemptions. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a real-world indication of how much these miles are worth, on average.

Wondering what you can do with those miles? Check out our points collector's guide to Air France-KLM, and learn which credit card is best for international award travel.