Flying Blue's Subscribe to Miles program: Is it worth it?

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Not only does Flying Blue, the loyalty program for Air France and KLM, stand out for “sweet spot” award deals to Europe and excellent promo rewards, but it also has a unique option for topping off your account balance: the Subscribe to Miles program.

“Subscribe to Miles” lets you purchase a set amount of Flying Blue miles each month, at a deep discount compared to the standard “buy miles” rate.

Flying Blue miles may be valuable, but do they really justify adding another monthly subscription to your life? Let’s dig into when this program actually makes sense.

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The program has five monthly package tiers, from 2,000 to 17,000 miles.

Here’s a breakdown of their fees and the effective cost per mile:

• 2,000 miles at $34.20 per month (at a rate of 1.71 cents per mile)
• 5,000 miles at $79 per month (at a rate of 1.58 cents per mile)
• 10,000 miles at $146 per month (at a rate of 1.46 cents per mile)
• 17,000 miles at $227.80 per month (at a rate of 1.34 cents per mile)

Note: These prices were accurate at the time of publishing, but they went a few dollars over the past week, so they may fluctuate further.

Your miles don’t expire as long as your subscription is active. If you decide to cancel your subscription, though, you’ll have 24 months to use them before they expire.

Like virtually every other frequent flyer program, Flying Blue lets you purchase miles when you’re coming up short for an award booking. So why not just buy miles as needed instead of committing to a monthly subscription?

For one thing, the subscription pricing is significantly cheaper. Flying Blue is currently running a “Buy my Miles” promotion, but even with this discount the subscription price is cheaper. Buying 10,000 miles through the promo costs $198.25 with a 35% discount applied, which means each mile costs 1.98 cents, compared to 1.46 cents per mile through Subscribe to Miles.

That difference may not seem huge, but when the current promo ends on April 16, buying 10,000 miles will cost $305. So depending on how many miles you need, things can get expensive pretty quickly.

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Most award travel experts frown upon buying points and miles, especially if you’re purchasing them without a specific flight or hotel award night in mind. But buying miles (or, in this case, subscribing) can be useful when you have a specific trip in mind and just need a small boost to top it off.

Let’s say you’re looking to book a premium economy Flying Blue award from New York to Amsterdam, and you’re 10,000 miles short. In this situation, having the 10,000-mile subscription package could be an easy — and relatively cheap — way to make up the difference.

This is especially true if you didn’t want to wait for a transfer bonus or a sale on buying points. And you don’t have to subscribe forever; even if you just subscribe for a few months, you could score enough miles to secure the redemption you want, make the booking, then cancel the subscription.

The Subscribe to Miles program could also make sense to maximize Flying Blue’s monthly Promo Rewards. These discounted awards (often 25% to 50% off) can significantly reduce the number of miles needed for a flight. In turn, that boosts the value of every mile you buy at a discount through the subscription.

For example, a one-way business-class ticket that would normally cost 50,000 miles might drop to 25,000 miles with a Promo Reward. Instead of scrambling to transfer points or buy miles when a deal appears, you already have a balance ready to go since you’ve been accumulating rewards each month as a subscriber. That flexibility matters because Promo Reward availability can disappear quickly.

“Subscribe to Miles” is hard to justify beyond topping off your account for a specific redemption or pairing it with a promotion, because there are so many other ways to boost your Flying Blue balance through transferable points.

The loyalty program partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Miles, Citi ThankYou Rewards, Bilt Rewards, and Marriott Bonvoy. You can transfer points from all of these programs to Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio, except for Marriott, which has a 3:1 transfer ratio.

Ultimately, Flying Blue’s subscription option is a nice-to-have that can come in handy based on your travel plans. But if you don’t have any relevant travel on your radar, you don’t need to go out of your way to join just now.

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