COVID-19 and Flying Blue: the rollover is finally preserved

Last Monday, the Air France KLM group and its Flying Blue program announced a new measure for their loyal customers, which will delight Top Tier members: the miles rollover will be preserved, contrary to what was announced during the last round of measures.

Well, if you didn’t understand the whole title and want to know what it’s all about, we’ll explain it to you.

Rollover? What is it?

Ok. We often criticize Air France but it must be said that Flying Blue is surely one of the best airline loyalty programs in Europe. Even their latest reform that simplifies status earning and aligns mileage earning with the fare base price of tickets purchased is fair and has been generous to existing Flying Blue members.

One of the strong points of the Flying Blue program is the XP rollover (Editor’s note: experience points, which are a condition for obtaining status).

The principle is simple: if you are a Platinum member, the number of XP needed to renew your status is 300. If you fly more than the 300 XP, then the extra XP is kept for the next year as an “advance” on the next year’s qualification.

Each year, the XP counter is only deducted from the amount necessary for the requalification, the rest of the XP remaining “in the bank”.

So both Bertrand and I had enough XP for our Lifetime Platinum qualification long before we reached 10 consecutive years. We could have stopped flying with Air France KLM and qualified as Lifetime Platinum by letting time pass. This is the strategy that Bertrand is currently pursuing.

This rollover is of course available to Platinum members, but also to Silver and Gold members, when members accumulate more XP than necessary to requalify (but less than the number needed to qualify for the higher status).

Only Ultimate members are not eligible to rollover, as UXP’s are not rollable.

An untenable situation

When Air France-KLM announced the measures for its post-crisis COVID-19 frequent flyer program, things were clear: maintaining statuses would still involve a deduction of miles, for members who met the qualification criteria.

An unfair situation: those who flew a lot in 2019 and early 2020 would not have obtained any advantage since their XP of requalification would have been deducted normally, while those who had not flown much or at all would have had their status maintained until 2022! Ugly.

Flying Blue: the Air France KLM frequent flyer program for travelers | AFKLM BizTravel — Securing your Platinum card, the holy grail for frequent travelers in France

The group has therefore re-established a normal situation: no deduction in case of requalification! So this time it is a real blank year, the requalification will be “free” whatever the number of XP in the bank.

Details and simulations are available on the Flying Blue website.

Bottom line

I was very enthusiastic about Air France’s management of the crisis. Flying Blue and the treatment of loyal customers was still the black spot. Point now fixed!