Air France/KLM Flying Blue Will Add Free Stopovers

This week, it was revealed that free stopovers will soon be available on certain Air France/KLM Flying Blue reward flights.

Few loyalty programs offer such a benefit, and in the recent past, more programs have taken this feature away rather than add it.

The ability to add a stopover at no cost can be quite beneficial. Indeed, Flying Blue is becoming a more attractive program with each new innovation, of which there have been many lately.

Free Stopovers Coming to Air France/KLM Flying Blue Redemptions

During a recent webinar, Air France/KLM Flying Blue announced that members will soon be able to add a stopover of up to one year at no cost on award bookings. 

With this development, Flying Blue will join the ranks of other major loyalty programs that offer stopovers on reward bookings, including Air Canada Aeroplan, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.

Currently, passengers are only able to have layovers of up to 24 hours on a single award ticket. Any time longer than that would require a completely new ticket.

The stopover perk will only be available on flights with Air France or KLM (or a combination of the two), but the stopover policy may eventually be extended to other partner airlines. This means that you can add a free stopover between Air France flights, KLM flights, an Air France and a KLM flight, or a KLM and an Air France flight.

This means that the natural stopover points will be Paris and Amsterdam, the two hub cities for the airlines. However, stopovers will also be possible on the airlines’s “fifth freedom” routes.

For example, if you’re planning a trip to Europe, you’ll soon be able to fly from Washington to Amsterdam, stay for up to a year, and then continue onward to another destination in Europe, such as Prague, at no additional cost. In economy class, this could cost as few as 12,750 Flying Blue miles, which is an incredible deal.

With Air France, you could fly from New York to Paris, stopover for a while, and then continue onward to Budapest for as few as 15,000 Flying Blue miles in economy.

Similarly, you can break up two long-haul flights with a stopover in Europe. For example, you could fly from Edmonton to Amsterdam, stopover for a few days or a few months, and then head onwards to Nairobi at no additional cost.

The stopover…