Air France-KLM Flying Blue has a reputation for having a difficult-to-use award-booking platform. Fortunately, the European loyalty program has made recent progress by squashing its pesky award search glitch and adding complimentary stopovers to its one-way award tickets (when you book over the phone).
Now, you can access the Flying Blue award calendars using a simple trick on Air France’s or KLM’s website. Geobreezetravel first reported this tip on Instagram.
How to access Flying Blue award calendars
ZACH GRIFF/THE POINTS GUY
Award calendars are extremely helpful for flexible travelers, as they display the various award prices for the entire month. This can help you identify which days have the lowest award rates and, subsequently, when you might choose to travel.
Let’s look at a one-way business-class flight from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS) in the fall on Air France’s or KLM’s website.
After logging in to your Flying Blue account, select “Book with Miles.” Enter your search criteria, but keep the departure date field empty.
KLM.NL
By leaving the departure date empty, you’ll see a calendar view on the next page with the lowest award prices for the next 11 months.
KLM.NL
I toggled over to Nov. 7, which offers one-way business-class flights for 65,000 miles.
KLM.NL
Sure enough, there are two business-class flight options for 65,000 miles — a KLM nonstop to Amsterdam and an Air France flight connecting through Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG).
By booking the Air France flight with a connection in Paris, you could consider taking a few days in Paris to use the free stopover before continuing to Amsterdam. That effectively gets you two flights for the price of one.
Related: Chaos at Amsterdam mars an otherwise fantastic business-class flight on KLM’s Dreamliner
Bottom line
By leaving the departure date blank on the Air France and KLM websites, you can see an award calendar view for the next 11 months, which can be invaluable for your planning.
Remember, you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One miles, Citi ThankYou, Chase Ultimate Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy points to Flying Blue. This makes Flying Blue miles some of the easiest miles to earn in the U.S.