(Video tutorial) How I saved $4,250 on business class flight to Italy
- mike
- May 20
- 5 min read
Updated: May 22
Last summer, my fiancée and I learned that we would be expecting our first child, and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate than to be on a beach somewhere in Europe. Knowing that I had a little over 100,000 American Express points, I knew I had to rely on transfer partners, as booking airfare with less than two months' lead time is very expensive (as you will see). Luckily, Air France | KLM's FlyingBlue program was offering a promo where business class flights to various parts of Italy and France were only 50k miles + $242 in fees per person. A summer trip to a beach in Italy or France? I couldn't go wrong! In this post, I'll show you how I got there*.
Why I chose Flying Blue
Air France | KLM is one of my go-to programs when flying to Europe, because all of the major credit card programs (AMEX, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, Citi) are transferable into FlyingBlue miles. In other words, if I have 50,000 points with American Express (AMEX), 10,000 with Chase, and 20,000 with Capital One, I can still convert them all for a total of 80,000 FlyingBlue miles. Since I am based out of the NY/NJ metro area, JFK is typically one of my airport options, and Air France | KLM operates a lot of daily flights from there.
Air France and KLM are two separate airlines that share a loyalty program in FlyingBlue. This is particularly valuable because they each list all available flights between both airlines, giving you more flight options. Furthermore, each of the airlines' websites is an identical booking interface, making this tutorial not only applicable to Air France but also to KLM. Air France is France's flagship airline, which is based in Paris, whereas KLM is the Netherlands's flagship airline, which is based in Amsterdam.
One caveat that I have to mention is that when booking flights to Europe that originate in the US, if your flight is operated by Air France, your flight will have a connection in Paris if your destination is other than Paris. The same applies to KLM flights that originate in the US, except your connection will be in Amsterdam. Otherwise, you will have to book with airlines that fly directly to your European destination, which narrows your options and could make it more expensive for you.
How to search for FlyingBlue availability
In the video below, I detail how to use Air France's & KLM's booking sites to locate some amazing redemption deals to Naples, Italy. Unfortunately, I was unable to screen record the process at the time of booking, but I kept the receipts. The example below follows the same process I followed when I booked my flight.
Before you begin, make sure you have an active FlyingBlue account. If you do not have one, you can create a free FlyingBlue account using this link. Then, proceed to follow the process below.
How I transferred my points from AMEX to FlyingBlue
Now that you know how many points it will take to transfer into FlyingBlue miles, it;s time to transfer your points. Below is an example of the process I followed when converting my points to FlyingBlue.
Before you begin, make sure you have an active FlyingBlue account. If you do not have one, you can create a free FlyingBlue account using this link. Then, proceed to follow the process below.
How can you tell if you made a good redemption?
Not every miles redemption is a mathematically good one. You should first determine your hurdle rate*, then calculate the value you are receiving by redeeming those points and miles versus paying full price for that same redemption.
* A hurdle rate, when it comes to points and miles, is the minimum value you aim to achieve when redeeming them. For instance, if your hurdle rate for AMEX points is set at 2 cents per point, redeeming 50,000 points for a value of at least $1,000 is seen as an excellent or "good" redemption. Conversely, obtaining less than $1,000 in value would be regarded as a poor or "bad" redemption. Your personal valuation of AMEX points determines your hurdle rate.
In the above example of the flight to Naples, you simply would follow the same process as in the video example, except you would choose "Book a flight", and not "Book with Miles". Since we already know the date of the flight we are comparing (May 24), the date field can be updated to compare the exact flight in question.
This will then lead you to the same flight listings you saw when searching for award redemptions, except you will now see cash values instead of miles values. For the 5 pm flight from Newark to Paris to Naples, the full price shows as $8,746.10 (wow, that's a lot of $$$).
From here, you would subtract the $252.70 in fees from the $8,746.10 since you would be paying that money regardless of which booking method you choose. That means that you would essentially be offsetting $8,493.40 with 64,000 miles. You then divide 8,493.40 by the 50,000 miles and end up getting an INSANE redemption rate of 13.3 cents per point. So was this a good redemption? My hurdle rate for AMEX points is about 1.7 cents, so this easily qualifies as a "good" redemption. In fact, this might be one of the most valuable redemptions I've ever seen!
Transfer Bonuses
Banks will sometimes run transfer bonus promos, where you will get an additional x% of miles when transferring card points to miles. At the time of this post, Chase is currently offering a 25% miles bonus when transferring Ultimate Rewards points to FlyingBlue. This means that for this same flight, I would only have to transfer 51,200 Chase points to get the 64,000 points I need for that flight to Naples. That means that the value of my Chase points would increase from 13.3 cents per point to 16.6 cents per point. Always check your bank's transfer portals for promos!
Key Points
It's easy to see why I love transferring my points to FlyingBlue.
The site is easy to navigate
I can get a broad view of what days have the cheapest rates
With two airlines sharing a program, there are many more flight options, though you may have to connect in Amsterdam or Paris
Transfer bonuses come pretty often throughout the year
If you plan to fly to Europe this summer, I highly encourage you to try this booking method since summer in Europe is at its peak. Was it worth it? Check out some of the photos below and I'll let you be the judge.
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