Through August 31, 2022, Capital One is offering new transfer bonuses to both British Airways Executive Club and Air France KLM Flying Blue.
Great Offers For Both Programs
I find Air France KLM Flying Blue to be very useful.
- All of the major points transferable currencies work with Air France KLM Flying Blue To Air France this is a way to get a piece of the lucrative U.S. credit card market, when card isn’t nearly as profitable in Europe due to capped interchange.
- Air France KLM Flying Blue is the most useful program in SkyTeam for U.S. members. Their award availability, especially for their own members, can be quite good and Air France and KLM fly to numerous U.S. destinations and beyond. Pricing is generally reasonable.
- There are frequent points transfer bonuses from various currencies for moving points to Flying Blue.
They also run monthly promo awards that can reduce the cost of redemption even further. However I would not move points speculatively. They don’t have an award chart and can change points pricing at any time. Besides, the option value of having points in a transferable account is high – you never know where you might need the points later.
It is, at a minimum, a good idea to open a Flying Blue account now even if you’re not going to use it for awhile. Brand new accounts, with points transferred in and redeemed immediately, have been known to cause fraud alerts (especially for online redemption, less so for booking over the phone). Having an aged account can be helpful when it comes time to do a booking.
I find less use for the British Airways program generally, though I like short distance awards especially in Europe, intra-Asia and Australia. The reason I find myself using their program less than others is because – unlike SkyTeam – there are valuable programs within oneworld I can use. For instance I’ll get better value on many redemptions using miles in an American AAdvantage or Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan account.
Still, the ability to move BA’s points into an active Iberia account is useful for redemption son Iberia which can be head for as little as 34,000 miles one-way in transatlantic business class, and BA has recently reduced the cost of Qatar Airways redemptions now that BA and Qatar Avios can be transferred back and forth as well.
Great Offer Even If You Won’t Use It
Ultimately I’m thrilled to see these offers even though I’m not going to take advantage of them now. I often don’t know when I’ll need it, and I check each of my transferable points accounts for a bonus before choosing which one to transfer from. I’ve recently redeemed Flying Blue points for a Paris – Chicago flight, and just last week redeemed something intra-Europe (since, while Virgin Atlantic was cheaper for the same award, the Virgin site kept erroring and a telephone agent was not helpful).
It’s also good to see Capital One continuing to offer transfer bonuses. That’s a credit to the value of their miles.
