Get a 20% bonus when transferring Capital One miles to Air France-KLM Flying Blue
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
When it comes to exciting flexible points programs, Capital One is starting to give other credit card issuers a run for their money. After a series of solid transfer bonus promotions, including elevated transfers to Emirates and JetBlue, the issuer has announced another bonus, this time for Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue.
Starting today, Nov. 1, Capital One card holders will receive a 20% bonus on all miles transferred to Flying Blue until Nov. 30. The normal transfer rate is 2 Capital One miles to 1.5 Flying Blue miles, but with the promotion, you’ll see that bumped up to 2:1.8, or 1,000 Venture Miles to 900 Flying Blue miles.
Flying Blue may not be the most valuable mileage program around, especially considering its move last year to a semi-dynamic award chart. But there are still plenty of sweet spots to be had, and you can also use Flying Blue miles to book flights on SkyTeam carriers such as Delta and Korean.
One of my favorite parts of Flying Blue is that it opens up a lot of premium cabin availability on Air France's own aircraft — and rates from the US to Europe aren't too bad either, with business-class awards starting at just 53,000 Flying Blue miles one-way. With this transfer bonus, you'd need to transfer only 59,000 Capital One miles to Flying Blue to book one of these saver business awards to Europe. That's a great redemption for business class to Europe.
The main downside is that Flying Blue can charge somewhat hefty carrier surcharges for flights on its own metal, usually ranging around ~$250 for a one-way business-class flight, though it can creep higher as well.
Flying Blue has some other solid options in its award chart. You can fly from the US to Hawaii on Delta for just 17,500 miles one-way or 35,000 round-trip in coach. Flying to Israel can present great value too, with prices starting at 25,000 miles one-way in economy and 62,500 in business.
You can also stack this transfer bonus with Flying Blue’s monthly promo awards, which offer discounts of 25-50% off on select routes. You can see November's list here, which includes discounted business class awards from Chicago to Europe.
Because Air France doesn't publish an award chart, it's definitely worth checking the pricing of your preferred route through the Air France website and its miles estimator before you initiate a transfer. In our tests, transfers from Capital One to Air France went through instantly. So you should be able to book your award immediately after you move over your Capital One miles.
And if you don't have enough Capital One miles, you can also transfer from American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy to Flying Blue to top off your account.
Only four credit cards earn Capital One miles, but all of those miles-earning cards are eligible for this transfer bonus. So if you hold any of these cards, you’ll be able to transfer Capital One miles to Flying Blue with the 20% bonus:
- Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card
- Capital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card
- Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business
- Capital One® Spark® Miles Select for Business
Right now there's even an unbelievable 200,000-mile sign-up bonus on the Capital One Spark Miles business card. It comes with a high $50,000 spend requirement, but if your business has regular monthly expenses, you could easily make it to that threshold within the six month timeframe. And since the Spark Miles card earns 2 miles per dollar on all purchases, you'd end up with a whopping 300,000 miles between the bonus and your regular mileage earning when all is said and done.
The information for the Capital One Spark Miles Select card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Finally, for more on how to best maximize the Flying Blue program, check out these guides: