Air France-KLM Flying Blue Promo Awards (50% Discount) Are Out For January

Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue program releases a list of promotional destinations every couple of months that are redeemable for half the usual number of miles. They just announced the latest list of destinations that are bookable from December 30, 2012 (earlier for Flying Blue elites) that you can access here.

Thing to note is that you can book these also as one way. These are not only for originating from Europe as all the destinations are valid for both directions. Awards allow the origin/destination in Europe to be in zones 1, 2, and 3, basically meaning that these awards are valid from/to anywhere in Europe.

Note that zone 3 includes countries in North Africa + Israel:

Europe 1
Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg

Europe 2
Austria, Balearic Islands ,Finland, Denmark, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain , Sweden

Europe 3
Albania, Algeria, Belarus, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Canary Islands, Croatia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Libya, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Morocco, Poland, Romania, West Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine.

Thing to remember is that Flying Blue charges rather hefty taxes and fees for award tickets. The fees are mainly fuel surcharges (YQ) that they collect. As a result, it rarely makes sense to redeem for an economy class ticket. Also, there are no changes or cancelations of any kind allowed on promo tickets. You either use it or lose it.

You can sign up for the Flying Blue account and have a look at the availability. I would suggest first trying to find availability for the long haul flights and work the connecting fights, if needed, separately.

Conclusion

These promo awards can make lot of sense if you have Flying Blue miles in your account and are looking for one way or business class award. The fuel surcharges are rather high on the long-haul awards.

Here are the terms and conditions of these promo awards:

Reservations must be made exclusively on www.airfrance.com or www.klm.com (except for bookings for children, infants and minors, who are not authorised to book an award on the website).
In the event that a technical problem occurs when reserving the promotional fare or if the reservation cannot be finalised, the Flying Blue member must log on to the site and repeat the procedure.
This award ticket may be used on connecting flights within Europe and on connecting flights from Europe to long-haul flights and vice-versa.
These promotional Promo Award^@ may not be modified, cancelled or refunded.
Promo Award^@ are available for one-way tickets and round trips.
Discounts (SkyTeam scale applicable) apply to the award ticket price only (SkyTeam scale is valid). Applicable taxes and fees are paid by the Flying Blue member.
Flex Award are not included in the Promo Award^@ offer.
Business Elite and Economy Elite bookings are available exclusively to Flying Blue Elite members (Platinum, Gold and Silver). These Elite travel classes provide extra award seats on routes to the United States, the Carribean and Indian Ocean, Africa and Asia.