Tutorial of How to Search for Reward Flights With Flying Blue November 2026 Promo Rewards

I know that booking reward flights can be intimidating so here’s another showcase on how to do this for Air France and KLM (they have a combined loyalty program called Flying Blue).

Here’s a breakdown on how you can benefit from Flying Blue monthly promo rewards (recap of November 2026’s FB Promo Rewards).

North America ↔ Europe / Economy from 18,750 Miles

The prevailing advice for booking reward flights is that you need to book as soon as reward space is released (which can be 11-12 months in advance depending on the airline) or close in (within 1 – 4 weeks of your flight date).

And while it is true that those strategies typically give you the most availability and offers some sweet spots (especially if you are booking business class flights), promotions like Flying Blue’s monthly promo rewards showcase that you can still find great redemptions booking 2-6 months out! And this is true even for a family of four flying during a busy time (spring break)!

Portland (PDX)↔ Amsterdam (AMS)

One of the biggest highlights for this month’s promos is discounted economy awards between Europe and many North American cities, starting from just 18,750 miles each way! 

We are going to look for a family of four (two adults and two children under 12) from Portland to Amsterdam during spring break

Lesson #1 – Be Flexible

One of the best ways to approach award searches / using miles and points is to be very flexible (or lol something I can’t give you too much advice on with travel, plan very far in advance). What does that mean?

Sometimes you have to be flexible on dates, when I first started looking at flights for this period, I ran searches for Saturday and Sunday but the Promo Rewards Fares just were not showing up until Monday.

Note that sometimes you have to be flexible on where you fly out of or into (also known as repositioning flights).

For example, flying to Europe? Often there are many more deals and reward availability (especially true for business class) from the East Coast so you may need to book the flight from Boston or New York. This would involve booking a separate ticket from home airport to BOS or NYC.

Very important note that is that best practice is to fly in the evening before or at minimum the first flight of the day IF there are many other flights in case of any weather or mechanical issues arising. Why do I stress this? Because those two flights were not booked together, the airlines are under no obligation to help you if you miss the flight out of BOS or NYC!

In this example, the family is based in Portland so we only had to make an adjustment with dates to save some SERIOUS miles.

Lesson #2 – Flexible Points are King

It’s natural to think of the legacy US airlines when trying to book flights but one of the first lessons that you need to understand is how broadening the search can reap high rewards.

If we went with many people’s default thinking, we would start our search by looking at Delta which has a direct flight from Portland to Amsterdam on Monday, March 29,2026 – the nonstop flight is on KLM and the flight with a layover in SLC is on Delta with both options costing 93,000 miles and $6 PER PERSON

And the TOTAL for our family would be 373,200 Miles and $22.40 for four economy tickets!

One of the reasons why flexible points are incredible is that you can fly on Delta but via an alliance partner’s loyalty program for less (this is a quirk that is true for many airlines!)

How much less? This is where things get interesting, as booking the same DELTA flight for four people via Flying Blue/KLM would only be 180,250 Miles + USD 554.00

And you could fly for even less points if you fly KLM (and it’s nonstop!)

How much less? This is where things get even more interesting, as there is a direct flight on KLM and for four people, you could pay as little as 65,624 miles and $547.60. This is because April Promo Reward flights have 25% savings from the typical 25K saver reward = 18,750 miles AND Flying Blue offers 25% off reward bookings for children (those between 2-11 years of age!) INCLUDING on Promo Reward = 14,062 miles!

Look at the Fares and choose wisely

In September 2026, Air France and KLM introduced Light, Standard, or Flex Fare tiers. Promo pricing often corresponds to Light tier rules (check baggage, lounge, and cancellation restrictions before booking)

• Light – This is the Fare Class that a Promo Rate falls into
  • The Fare that will cost the least amount of points with significant trade-offs
  • One of the most important distinctions with this fare is that it is non-refundable (remember that even if your plans are ironclad, that life can happen so really weigh if the points savings justify losing 18,750 or more points PER ticket if you can’t make this flight) as well as unchangeable
  • NO checked bag included in fare
  • Seat selection available only for a fee
• Standard
  • This was the promo/saver fare before September
  • Requires 25% more miles than a Light Fare (in this case for the adults it would be 22,500 and the two kids would be 16,875 Miles each)
  • Changeable (and pay possible fare difference) and refundable for a EUR 70 fee
  • One checked bags (32 kg) included in fare
  • Free standard seat selection at check in
• Flex
  • Requires 50% more miles than a Light Fare (in this case Promo fare)
  • No cancellation fee nor change fee (only pay possible fare difference)
  • Also includes free standard seat selection
• SkyPriority Benefits
  • You will be able to use your SkyPriority benefits if you hold SkyTeam elite status

How To Earn Flexible Points / Flying Blue Miles

And which reward flight should you choose? Let’s look at a couple of ways to help you decide.

Lesson #3 – How To Access Value / Compare Using Points/Miles VS Paying in Cash

In some ways, I detest what I am about to show you next…because I think that there is an unhealthy obsession with this metric. It is called CPP or cost per point ie a formula that gives you a value for your booking. CPP calculation: (Cash price – taxes and fees) x 100 and divide by award points. The higher the better (ie you’re getting more value for your points)

Let’s take a look at the cash prices for the two reward flights that we are looking at – comparing using more points and paying less cash for the Delta flights vs using less points and paying more cash for the Air France Booking

Light Fare – Cost Per Point

Using the cash price for Light Fare

• CPP for the KLM flight booked via Delta using Delta Skymiles, $3,386 (cash price) – $22.40 (taxes and fees) x 100 / 373,200 (award miles) = .9
• CPP for the KLM flight booked via Flying Blue, $3,386 (cash price) – $547.60 (taxes and fees) x 100 / 65,624 (award miles) = 4.33

Standard Fare – Cost Per Point

Using the cash price for Standard Fare

• CPP for the KLM flight booked via Delta $3,866.00 (cash price) – $547.60 (taxes and fees) x 100 / 373,200 (award miles) = 1.03
• CPP for the KLM flight booked via Flying Blue, $3,386 (cash price) – $547.60 (taxes and fees) x 100 / 78,750 (award miles) = 4.92

One of the serious limitations to CPP is looking at if you were paying cash, would this be the flight that you would have chosen? Possibly yes since in this case based on cash prices and stops (but often not when people are bragging about business class as that would NOT be a flight that they are paying for in cash)

For many, it might be that you would choose one of these other flights that have one connection but would be significantly less. And there are those that would have gone with the cheapest flights even with significantly longer travel times.

So here’s how I look at it:

I try to get at least 2 CPP for my bookings and look more if the reward flight meets my needs ~ why I set the bar there is that is better than what I would earn if I had a card that paid me in cash back.

But I don’t really stress too much about CPP because #1: I have to baby my knee so I fly business so typically only fly economy on flights less than 5 hours and #2 I look at all redemptions overall so some of them might be closer to a CPP of 1.5 and #3: I have a LOT of points and would rather use my miles/points for flights (and hotels) and use my cash for wanderlist experiences!

Really because at the end of the day, I say that if you are able to travel for better, cheaper and/or more often, then you are doing this right!

Lesson #5 – Do Not Hesitate

Lastly, if you find a reward flight that meets your needs – book it! There are always going to be more people than reward space available so you need to learn to make decisions quickly.