la_cigogne

Flying Blue seems to have updated its miles value within its dynamic pricing algo effective July 1st.

Now requiring stratospheric/unreasonable number of miles for business class tickets (we are talking about 800k for flights that used to be under <100k yesterday)

Sad I opened a BoFa Air france credit card last month.

This is the biggest points devaluation I have ever seen in my life.

Finkface

Wow, glad I got in under the wire. I just booked two J tickets for 55k each yesterday.

sehgalanuj

That definitely isn't great, but I suspect it has to do with zeroed out availability in most fare classes and only the highest ones being sold. If they're actively discouraging revenue sales, I can imagine that they'd do the same for FB redemptions too.

la_cigogne

How much are these flights now ?

BobTL

no it�s about the minimum amount of miles for a flight.
For example, a one way ticket ex-EUR to LAX used to cost 55.000 miles, now minimal 67.000 miles. That�s more than 20% extra.
So your miles devaluated 20% in one day.

lovetotravel

I am finding 138,500 at the lowest LAX-CDG for the last 10 days, even before July 1. And this is on or two days of the weel Most dayd approximate 250,000-500,000 one way.

BobTL

when you search for later dates, you will get the cheaper options like this on on 6 FEB 23:

Arpoador

On the other hand, a J award ex-EU to GIG used to cost 93k, its now down to 60-65k.

Xandrios

Ive spotted one more change. Intra-european awards in business have become MUCH lower priced. For example AMS-ATH used to be 49K at minimum (Which was a total ripoff, but well...). Its now bookable for 25K in business. Thats actually a very fair price and comparable to Star Alliance. Other routes seem to also apply. Pre-summer I booked the OPO route for 44K (which was the lowest for the whole year...), and it is now also at 25K.

Has the Flying Blue booking flexibility been removed as well since June 29th? Or was that only for paid tickets/vouchers? I'm going to book a bunch of business awards at this price. Great value per mile.

Edit: Covid measures for awards seem to still apply, meaning free refunds.

irishguy28

I'm currently researching a trip to DC for next year.

FB is currently offering business class returns for mileage amounts less than what the Mileage Checker says is required for a Premium Economy ticket.

Arpoador

Mileage Checker seems to be out of date. I am seeing the same on all my searches.

Xandrios

Something definitely changed, that's for sure. Some other things that I noticed:

- Booking class doesn't seem to matter. Some book into O, some in Z. Both cases is 25K miles within Europe. While on some other days Z requires more miles.
- Route doesn't seem to matter. AMS-CDG-ABC costs the same as AMS-ABC direct. Only taxes is somewhat higher due to the transfer at CDG.
- It seems to be specific routes. Maybe some kind of sale? AMS-ATH or AMS-OPO are at 25K, while AMS-OTP is still at 37K minimum.
- It works until end of the schedule (One year from now), though availability at the lower 25K seems much more limited.

At 25K per one-way flight in business class this is actually back to the '1 cent per mile' value that I'm typically aiming for. Previously these awards were about double the price in miles making intra-European awards almost always not a good value in business (Especially on direct flights from/to AMS). I've booked a bunch as, for me at least, this seems to finally be a way to spend a significant amount of miles with a reasonable value return - allowing to spend these on flights I'd otherwise purchase for cash.

Arpoador

I am not convinced this is a devaluation yet. The price has certainly increased on some routes, but on other routes the price has now decreased by 20-30% even 40-50%.

irishguy28

In the end, I opted for a KLM direct flight back from IAD for 56,500 miles in J. I used a similar number (57,750) from my surplus of Avios to book a one-way for the outbound on Aer Lingus in J meaning I arrive pre-cleared.

cubs87

Wow some US-Europe biz flights I have been keeping an eye on certainly just went from 55k to 65k....this is problematic!