Flying Blue Promo Rewards, buy Virgin points with 70% bonus

Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic’s latest points sale is back, with the following tiered bonuses available until 4 October:

• 5,000–39,000 points: 20%
• 40,000–79,000 points: 40%
• 80,000–124,000 points: 60%
• 125,000–200,000 points: 70%

The pricing has been pretty much the same for the last few points sales. The main issue is that you need to buy a fairly large number of points to unlock the maximum bonus. There’s also a £15 fee per transaction. With the 70% bonus, the cost works out at around 0.89p per point.

New accounts need to have some activity before they can purchase points, which can be done through a credit card transaction or by transferring points from Marriott. The best use of Virgin Points is generally short-haul redemptions on SkyTeam partners.

Air France-KLM

Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue has a monthly promotion called Promo Rewards, offering discounts of up to 25% on selected award flights. This round, you need to book during September, with travel allowed up to 27 February.

The main ones worth looking at are long-haul routes where either the origin or destination is Paris or another European city (for one-way awards):

• Beijing – Business Class: 63,750 miles
• Shanghai – Premium Economy: 37,500 miles
• Bangkok / Ho Chi Minh City / Hanoi – Business Class: 63,750 miles
• Boston / Toronto – Premium Economy: 30,000 miles
• Mexico – Business Class: 45,000 miles
• São Paulo / Buenos Aires – Business Class: 63,750 miles

Flying Blue uses a dynamic pricing system, and the prices above apply to the standard award inventory. Once that inventory is gone, prices can jump quite a bit. If you have SeatSpy, you can also use its filters to quickly see which dates have award availability.

As you’d expect from a European programme, Flying Blue award tickets come with fairly hefty surcharges. They’re still a little more reasonable than some competitors such as British Airways and Lufthansa, though.

One particularly nice thing about this promotion is that it applies to all European cities. For example, Beijing to London in Business Class:

Paris to Boston in Premium Economy:

Santiago to Paris in Business Class:

One important reminder: Flying Blue’s award rules are changing on 8 September. The cheapest award tier will lose a bunch of its benefits and will no longer be refundable or changeable.

So if you’re interested, I’d get your tickets booked in the next couple of days. Lounge access and seat selection are still included, and changes or cancellations only require a €70 fee.