Without the transparency of award charts, prices rise overnight or destinations magically move to different regions, all without notice. That’s what happened to Israel, a long-term Flying Blue sweet spot, over the weekend.
Flying Blue Devaluation: Israel Sweet Spot Gone – An Important Reminder About “Loyalty” + Points
Airline loyalty programs without award charts dispute the term “devaluation,” essentially arguing that with no published pricing there can be no devaluations. But we know better than that: we know that that even without charts prices are still set at a certain level or within a certain range.
Flying Blue is the loyalty program for Air France and KLM. In the case of Israel, it has been placed in the Europe region for years, while most loyalty programs place it in the Middle East region. That means tickets to Israel priced in the same range as tickets to London, Paris, or Rome. Even though Flying Blue removed award charts, it has kept the regional pricing structure it maintained when award charts were still published.
Practically, that means the lowest economy class fares you’ll see between the USA and Israel have jumped from as low as 25K points to 34K in “saver” economy and “saver” business class has jumped from 53K to 85K, a 60% jump. Fees are also about $20 higher; about $250 one-way in business class.
This latest devaluation is a reminder to:
- Keep your points in flexible currencies, including:
- American Express Membership Rewards
- Capital One
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- Citi ThankYou
- Earn and burn: treat your points as a depreciating asset, not a nest egg
- Don’t drag your feet on booking planned travel: paying 60% more today than yesterday is not fun
CONCLUSION
I wasn’t expecting this, though I was expecting Flying Blue to raise prices on the entire European region. I suppose the Israel devaluation is better than a broader devaluation. But it is nevertheless an important reminder that loyalty programs don’t have your back, are increasingly non-transparent, and you should be very cautious in stockpiling points in non-flexible currency like Flying Blue.
This Israel redemption was one of my popular at Award Expert and I am truly sad to see it go.
(H/T: Dan’s Deals)
Really? a devaluation? It was incorrectly placed in Europe (Israel is in Asia), and it has been corrected…
“Corrected” is your interpretation, not mine. Objectively, though, this is a devaluation.
It’s a correction if it is now the same amount as other countries in the area, like Jordan or Lebanon.
If this were a situation where Israel was placed in Europe, and a few weeks or months later it was moved to Asia, I might agree with you. But AF has offered this price to Israel for years. Sorry, but I’m not going to accept the “it’s a correction” semantics when AF has offered the price for that long. For whatever reason, they deliberately decided to offer a discount on redemptions to Israel, which they’ve now chosen to terminate. That’s AF’s prerogative, but it absolutely is a price increase (call it “devaluation” if you will).
Agreed. This was not a mistake. This was a choice for a decade.
Thanks Matthew. One thing I struggle with when accumulating miles and points is the trade off between spending now (earn and burn) and saving for those really valuable redemptions (that may take me 2 years to accumulate for).
Re: “Earn and burn: treat your points as a depreciating asset, not a nest egg; cash is also a depreciating asset, do you similarly recommend earn and burn and no nest egg for cash?
No, but I don’t recommend sitting on cash. Instead, you invest it in stocks, real estate, or other investment vehicles.
You yourself called it a sweet spot that is longer there.
So unless you personally took advantage of this so many times such that FB miles are less valuable now for you, calling every change a “devaluation” ends up minimizing the ones that truly affect us all.
I don’t understand your gripe. Yes, it was a sweet spot. Yes, it is a devaluation. I don’t like any devaluations, but no-notice devaluations drive me absolutely crazy.
On the plus side, Flying Blue is currently offering a 30% transfer bonus on Amex points, So that 85,000 Flying Blue points is “only” 65,000 Amex points w/ the bonus. Still hurts to have a no-notice devaluation, but the bonus takes a bit of the sting out of it.
By and large, since the devaluation to revenue based, I consider Flying Blue to be a dumpster fire of a program.
Surely the question about whether this is a devaluation can be answered by checking whether redemptions between Israel and the rest of Asia are priced at European or Middle Eastern rates. I rarely fly Skyteam nowadays, and only maintain a FB account because of their double-dipping arrangement with Accor, so I have no idea about the going rates for either zone.
Redemptions between Seoul and Israel now start at 27k in economy (routing via Europe). Nearby Beirut is 32k while Dubai is 33k, so there doesn’t appear to be a consistent Middle East pricing level, at least not from Asia.
For those based in Asia such as myself, this change actually opens up a new sweet spot of sorts.
One man’s gains is another man’s loss!
Painful. Had a flight to Israel planned with the family (4 of us) that was cancelled due to Covid. So now I have 250K FB points (originally transferred from UR) parked, waiting for a chance to be used. Except now they’re worth maybe 3 tickets. Cest La Vie.