Up to a 100% bonus when you buy Air France KLM Flying Blue Miles and how there can be value in buying them

Last week we had several posts covering the latest edition of Air France KLM's Flying Blue Promo Rewards. These are the discounted reward flight offers from those airlines and for the second month in a row they have featured cities in Canada. What we haven't seen yet though are business class offers out of Canada and the ones at 50% off. We mentioned in our previous discussions that one way to plan ahead for when AF KLM does have those 50% off business class flights is to keep an eye out for the program to offer a buy miles bonus. Well, one of those bonuses is here now.

You can earn up to a 100% bonus when you buy Flying Blue miles by September 1. The bonus is tiered and you'll only get the 100% when you buy 20,000 or more miles in one transaction. 

Offer details
Earn up to a 100% bonus when you buy Flying Blue Miles Click here for more details & to buy miles Until Sep 30, 21
Buy 2,000 – 8,000 miles receive a 50% bonus
Buy 10,000 – 18,000 miles receive a 70% bonus
Buy 20,000+ miles receive a 100% bonus

Now you may be asking why this is an offer of note. It is for several reasons, the first of course is to top off your account for an award if you happen to be shy a few thousand miles however the second is the big one. That second reason is when Air France KLM offer those 25 to 50% off business class Promo Rewards. For example the last time they had 50% off (pre-pandemic) you could fly round trip in business class between Montreal and Paris for 53,000 miles. If you have no Flying Blue Miles at all you need to purchase miles at the 28,000 level (they only sell them in 2,000 miles increments) for 770EUR. That's above the 20,000 mile requirement to get the 100% bonus which means you'd end up with 56,000 miles for 770EUR.  That works out to about C$1153. You would then redeem 53,000 of those 56,000 miles for the business class reward flight and on top of that you would need to pay close to $800 in fees and taxes. Add the two together and you would be looking at paying around $1,950 for a round trip business class ticket that would cost you in the neighbourhood of $3,000 to $4,000 or more. And that's why this can be an offer of note. 

If you are in a position where you are willing to pay just under $2,000 for flights that costs 50 to 100%+ more than that, it is something to consider. You also have to consider the fact that we don't know when we will see 50% off business class reward flights from Canada so you'd be purchasing the miles speculatively - something we aren't fans of and you have to remember Flying Blue miles are only valid for 2 years unless you fly with Air France, KLM or a partner airline (not sure if WestJet counts?) Ideally we love it when they have the buy miles bonus at the same time as the 50% off  Promo Rewards and that has happened on numerous occasions in the past and that is when you want to buy.