The Best SkyTeam Programs for Canadians

In the Miles & Points world, we often focus on Star Alliance and Oneworld airlines. With great loyalty programs to choose from, such as Aeroplan, British Airways Avios, and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, it’s quite easy to earn and redeem points for some of the best airlines in the world.

While this covers two of the three major airline alliances, it leaves out redemptions for SkyTeam-member airlines.

Indeed, there are a fair few SkyTeam programs with points that are either relatively easy to collect in Canada, or offer the occasional pockets of value even if they may be more difficult to collect.

Individually, they aren’t necessarily strong enough for you to treat them as a primary program for earning and redeeming points, but the details are at least worth familiarizing yourself with, so let’s go ahead and do just that.

1. Air France/KLM Flying Blue

Air France/KLM’s frequent flyer program is known as Flying Blue, and while there are a few reasons why you should have the program on your radar, the number one reason is because of Promo Rewards.

Redeeming points for flights between North America and Europe can be a difficult task. With so much competition for flights, and with travel demand at an all-time high, it’s not unusual to run into hurdles when trying to find an award seat across the Atlantic.

Luckily, Air France/KLM Flying Blue has been rising in prominence in recent years, and for good reason. 

To start, you can earn Flying Blue miles by the following methods:

Like Delta SkyMiles, Flying Blue is a dynamic award program, and the price point varies based on the underlying cash fare. Flying Blue also has the quirk of not being able to book mixed cabins – all of your flights need to be in the same class of service to count as a single itinerary.

By and large, the best reason to go out of your way to earn Flying Blue miles is to take advantage of the program’s Promo Rewards, which are special deals on certain routes and cabins that are refreshed every month. In the past, we’ve seen deals such as a one-way Toronto–Paris flight on Air France business class for 35,000 Flying Blue miles + about $300 (CAD) in taxes and fees, which is a pretty great deal for transatlantic business class.

We’ve also seen deals such as flights between Montreal and Europe for as few as 27,500 Flying Blue miles. It doesn’t get any cheaper than that for a lie-flat seat to Europe or…