Award ticket with free stopover
Hi all,
I've been doing some research on booking an award ticket with miles including a free stopover. The incentive was to try to fly "cheap" in biz during high season - in this case July. We wanted to fly to Indonesia from Amsterdam. It's nearly impossible to book AMS to CGK or DPS for the saver fare of 85.000 miles per pax unless you book a week or a few days before the flight. In this case I wanted to secure the flight for next year.
I found out that if I fly from another KLM operated airport in Europe in let's say March from AGP to CGK or DPS, the fare will be 85.000 miles per pax. I then checked award availability in O on ExpertFlyer, but I soon found out that Flying Blue doesn't share its award fares in O, only revenue. My only option was to call Flying Blue themselves. While most didn't know the free stopover rule existed, they were all eager to learn. I told them I wanted to book AGP - CGK in March 2026 which was 85.000 miles (170.000 total for 2) and then the stopover in AMS to continue on the 7th of July 2026. After some back and forth of info, the agent was able to book me AGP - AMS in March and AMS - CGK in July for the same total price of 170.000 miles for 2 into J and Z with only a little bit extra tax. This also means we will have to buy a one-way ticket to AGP in March for an extra mini holiday in Malaga. I'd say this is a succes!
A day after the booking, I still wanted to know if it would work the same for the AGP - AMS - DPS (SIN transfer) flight. All segments had Z availability, except for the AMS - DPS segment with SIN transfer. If you were to split these - so a stopover in SIN as well - it should count as AMS - SIN and SIN - DPS which then shows full availability in Z. This time I had another agent who was trying to do the same thing, but didn't succeed because he told me there was no award availability, not even to Z despite it being available on ExpertFlyer and Seats.aero. I will get a call back from Flying Blue today so I might have more info later today, but I'm uncertain whether this agent was handling it the correct way. Would Z count as a saver fare or is it O only? If anyone could correct me on this or has more info, please share.