Advertisers are not responsible for the content of this site, including any editorials or reviews that may appear on this site. For complete and current information about any information on any advertiser product, please visit their website. We receive compensation from some financial institutions listed on this site. Although we are compensated for each approved financial product through our website’s affiliate links, our research and content are based on an objective analysis. †Terms and conditions apply.
Flying Blue, the loyalty program for Air France–KLM, has now launched Flying Blue Extra, a subscription feature that lets members earn miles faster and enjoy discounts, exclusive promotions, and more.
While on the surface this sounds like a great idea, the subscription’s high annual fee makes it’s important to take a closer look.
In this article, we explore the details of what’s on offer through Flying Blue Extra to see if it’s worth your time and money.
The Flying Blue Extra subscription service has two levels to choose from:
To sign up, you can simply log in to your Flying Blue account, navigate to the Flying Blue Extra page, click “Add Plan,” and follow the prompts.
Both subscription packages are valid for 12 months from the time you enroll, and the associated benefits should be available within 24 hours of signing up.
Notably, the subscriptions also offer a 14-day window after making the purchase during which you’re allowed to request a refund if you’ve changed your mind.
Flying Blue Extra’s two subscription levels offer the following benefits:
As you can see, the difference between the two levels are:
Given the cost of each level, Flying Blue thinks these extra benefits are worth at least €320/year since this is the price difference between the Extended tier and the Essential tier.
Now that we understand the basics of what’s being offered by the two Flying Blue Extra subscription tiers and how much each costs, let’s dig into whether or not this is a worthwhile addition to your Flying Blue membership.
With Flying Blue Extra, you can earn 0.5-1 extra mile for every Euro you spend on an Air France- or KLM-operated flight.
For example, if you were to book a one-way economy flight from between New York City (JFK) and Paris (CDG) at a cost of €244, you’d earn an extra 122–244 miles as a subscription-holder.
We value Flying Blue miles at 1.3¢ each, so the extra miles earned in the above example add around $1.59–3.17 in value to your purchase.
Alternatively, if you chose to pay for a business class fare on the same flight (at a cost of €2,992), you would earn an extra 1,496–2,992 miles, worth about $19.45–38.90.
As you can see, it would take a lot of eligible spending for this benefit to help you recoup much of the cost of the yearly Flying Blue Extra subscription.
It’s also worth noting how these extra miles fit in the context of the regular number of miles you earn as a Flying Blue member, based on your elite status level:
Additionally, if you book your flight using a Flying Blue co-branded credit card like the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard®, you can earn up to an additional 3 miles per $1 on these flights.
While the 2 or 4 lounge passes being offered with the Flying Blue Extra subscriptions sound good, they’re actually only valuable for Flying Blue members who have either no elite status or are Silver elite members.
This is because once you’re a Gold, Platinum, and Ultimate elite member, you already get unlimited lounge access as part of your benefits package.
Additionally, the lounge access with Flying Blue Extra is limited to airports in Paris, Amsterdam, and Munich, while Gold elite members and higher get access to these options and beyond thanks partnered agreements with other airlines and with SkyTeam Alliance.
All that said, if you are a Silver- or Explorer-level member, the 4 lounge passes could be worth upwards of €400 (4x the cost of the most expensive lounges), which goes a long way to offset the cost of the yearly subscription.
If you could then find at least €300 worth of savings and value in the discounts, extra earning potential, and exclusive promotions then you could theoretically get your money’s worth from the Extended subscription.
However, if you’re a Gold elite member or higher, the lounge access vouchers don’t have any value, making it quite a bit more difficult to justify the subscription cost.
Another interesting benefit that you get with the Flying Blue Extra subscription is access to exclusive monthly Promo Rewards.
These have the potential to be quite valuable as they can really knock down the number of miles you need to redeem for a flight, which helps you get more value from the miles you do spend.
As an example, if you were able to snag two business class seats on the Europe–San Francisco route seen in the image below, you would be saving 30,000 miles worth approximately $390.
However, since the Promo Rewards options are limited and change every month, it’s difficult to count on the value of this benefit as you may never find a flight you want to take.
On initial assessment, the 10% discounts on reward upgrades and reward tickets offered as part of Flying Blue Extra sound pretty straightforward; however, the reward ticket discount is actually quite limited.
In fact, the 10% discount on reward tickets are limited to only two flights per subscription year, and the discount is only valid for one-way and round-trip flights on Air France and KLM (so no multi-city or open-jaw itineraries and no partner airlines). You also can’t use this on top of a discounted fare, so you can’t stack it on a Promo Rewards flight.
Additionally, you don’t get to choose when you use the discount. According to the terms and conditions, the discount is given automatically on the first two eligible flights you book, limiting your ability to use the discount strategically.
Given all this, the value of this benefit is difficult to calculate. If you time it poorly, you may only save a small number of miles; however, if you were to time your subscription before a large Flying Blue rewards redemption that meets the requirements listed, you could stand to save thousands of miles and extract good value.
The final subscription benefit of 20% more XP to help you earn elite status also sounds pretty good, but like with the other benefits, you still need to spend a lot out of pocket to get value out of this.
To earn Flying Blue Elite status you need the following number of XP:
And, as you can see from the XP chart below, you need to enjoy a few paid flights to earn enough XP for elite status.
Based on these requirements, we’re once again seeing a benefit that, while helpful, offers an ambiguous return on investment and requires a large financial commitment before you start to see much value.
The Flying Blue Extra subscription service offers members the chance to earn more miles, gain status faster, and access discounts.
While it’s technically possible to get your money’s worth out of the yearly subscription, Flying Blue Extra seems to only be truly beneficial to a tiny number of people as the value you can get depends heavily on if you’re a Flying Blue elite member, your travel plans during the year, and whether you can find a Promo Rewards flight that appeals to you.
Given that the subscription’s value is fairly ambiguous and seems reliant on you being strategic in your travel spending and earning, the price tag for this annual service is difficult to justify.
That said, if you spend a lot with Air France and/or KLM, have some big Flying Blue redemptions planned for the coming year, or are chasing elite status, it may be worth doing the math to see if Flying Blue Extra can save you some money and miles.
You can change your preferences or opt out at any time by clicking on one of the hyperlinks available at the bottom of each newsletter.
If you are already a subscriber and would like to unsubscribe, you can click on the link at the bottom of any of our e-mails.
