Good idea to transfer points to Flying Blue?
 

I have 200,000 Citi Thank You points that I need to transfer before they expire because I am cancelling the underlying credit card. I don't have any solid plans for international travel for the next few years. My family of four might go to Europe or Australia or Caribbean. I'm trying to figure out which transfer partner would give me the most flexibility and value. My thoughts are either Flying Blue or Kris Flyer. Generally, which program would give me more flexibility on how to use the points? I also have Chase UR points and AMEX MR points that I can use if needed. Aslo, right now, Citi transfers to Flying Blue come with a 30% transfer bonus so leaning towards them. Thoughts?

I'm thinking about doing the same with my leftover TYP from my Prestige. The only potential downside is that Flying Blue is becoming more market-rate (echoing what Delta has done) on award prices, which often means that the best flights on the best days are priced sky-high, and good redemptions are only available during award sales. Currently, this isn't the case, and I'm able to find decent availability on FB (depending on the route), but I think the writing is on the wall re: FB becoming more like Delta and largely devaluing their points.

I read online about using FB miles to fly to Caribbean, Hawaii, Europe, even Australia. I was afraid that availability like you pointed out would be an issue. Anybody think that Kris Flyer would be better value and reward tickets easier to come by?

You can look at the AF website and check the availability of business award flights before making your decision. I recently transferred my Amex award points to FB. I was able to get excellent value on biz seats to/from Europe. I am new to both Amex and AF/FB. The miles required was clearly market driven - it quadrupled on adjacent flights/days. Thankfully, I this worked in my favor: SFO-FLR (my actual destination) one way business class for $475 plus 39,800 miles. (I could have paid more miles and less dollars.)
Still working on the return. This is nothing compared to United's $300-ish plus 170,000 miles for one-way!
I found the website extremely use-friendly. I am used to United and they make me work harder to find the value award fares. And the product does not compare...
I am going to Europe so I chose AF over KF. But I dream of flying Singapore First some day!!!!
Good Luck

i dont know about Kris Flyer so i cant say anything , you should create a thread in the singapore airlines sub-forum , but if you choose Flying Blue be aware of some possible issues or problems you may face

FFP are money maker for airlines , however they dont really like the fact that , in the USA (and maybe canada also but i dont know) , people get credit cards like candies in halloween , spend money buying candies , getting ton of points from their credit card issuer , dont make a single flight with them and just redeem miles when they need to purchases awards flights (of course you need to pay taxes but this is not for the airline)

Often they detected something suspicious , hackers transfering miles and then purchasing tickets on behalf of their victims , so they are monitoring accounts and such activity (i dont know how much it will be but 200k points can give you a lot of miles with a good ration) ''may'' trigger an alert to them

Some people faced situations such as booking status pending for confirmation , which require to come to the closest Air France desk or office and if you dont have one in your home airport or state , you know what it mean

Also some mentioned accounts closure without warning from Flying Blue. Of course you cant get your miles back to citi , and good luck to get your FB account/miles back cause they are the sole property of the airline , as mentioned in the T&C

So transfer these miles but be ready for possible troubles

I transferred 70k TYP to KLM when my citi points were about to expire.
A warning that checking availability on the flying blue website doesn't work very well. I would get errors on the website and routes would disappear. The flight I booked GVA-AMS-LHR-DTW business / Delta One, (which was rebooked as GVA-CDG-DTW due to a canceled flight). I had to have reserved via the KLM Facebook chat and then call to pay for it. The phone agent refused to waive the telephone booking fee, even though it was booked online, and I was only calling to pay the carrier surcharge, which came out to be just under $400.

If I could do it over, I'd chose a different place to transfer my miles.

I'm going to avoid FB even with the 30% bonus on transfer because Kris Flyer seems more flexible, and I think I can get more value with flights to SE Asia and Australia. Also, the fuel surcharges and carrier charges for Europe seem crazy high. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

I think availability is good on routes Air France or KLM flies. Generally not as good on other Skyteam carriers (either the availability is not there or the points required makes it an inefficient use of them). That is my experience, anyway. We go to France every year and get great J seats at around 65K -70K each way, even under the new "dynamic" pricing (we book way in advance I should note). Plus, you can cancel/change tickets for $50, and the add-on fees, while not insignificant, pale in comparison to the extortionate fee structure at British Airways.

If you have ThankYouPoints, consider transferring them to LifeMiles. This is, in my view, the best current transfer partner of Citi although it's definitely not for everyone:

Upsides: LifeMiles has no close-in booking fees, doesn't pass along fuel surcharges, and has a cheaper award chart (especially for domestic US short-haul) than most airlines. Mixed cabin awards are allowed, and they discount the economy class legs.

Downsides: Availability is more limited than with other StarAlliance programs (to the point where entire airlines such as South African are unavailable), strict routing rules, and terrible customer service.

I don't think the downsides of LifeMiles are worse than the downsides of Flying Blue, which is a much less valuable program since the recent devaluation.