To earn frequent flyer elite status within the Flying Blue program you will need to earn Experience Points. There experience points can only be earned by flying on KLM, Air France and their SkyTeam partners (e.g. Delta Airlines ,Garuda Indonesia.
In this post I will give you some information about where to earn XP , how many you will earn on your flight and also how to optimize the amount of XP earned on one itinerary.
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On which airlines can I earn Flying Blue Experience Points
To determine whether you will earn XP points on your flights the flight number is super important. General rule of thumb is that when the flight number starts with the letters “KL” or “AF”, you will earn XP points on your flights.
- The flight number starts with “AF” or “KL” and the flight is operated by Air France or KLM.
- The flight number start with “AF” or “KL” and the flight is operated by one of the SkyTeam airlines (e.g. AeroFlot).
- The flight number is marketed by a SkyTeam airline and operated by that of another SkyTeam member airline, e.g. : DL 504 on AeroFlot airplane, the flight is sold by Delta and you fly in an AeroFlot airplane.
How many Experience Points will my flights get me?
The amount of XP you will earn for (a series of) flight(s) is based on two criteria. Firstly the booking class of your ticket is important. A seat booked in business class will earn more XP than a seat booked in economy class.
The second criteria is the distance of your flight. A flight from South America to Europe will earn more XP than a flight within Europe. Flying Blue has created four distance XP earning buckets for this. The exception on distance based earning is when your flight is domestic. A flight from New York to Boston wil earn you the same amount of XP as a transcontinental flight from New York to Los Angeles.
In the matrix below you can find the amount of XP you will earn for a flight. First find your booking class on the left and then check the distance of your flight in the top row.
E.G. : The distance flown on a direct KLM flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles is 5.578 miles, which matches a Long 3 segment. Therefore your flight will earn you 36 XP in business class.
XP Calculator
On the Flying Blue website you will find a calculator which will help you determine the distance bucket for your flight. If you’re not on a direct flight you will have to repeat the process for each segment of your itinerary.
We created our own XP Calculator which you can you for free to find total earning for a complete itinerary. You just enter the itinerary in the search box, press calculate and the tool shows you the amount of XP earned for the itinerary.
Optimize your ticket to earn more XP
As written above you will earn XP for every flight you make. If for example we would like to fly from Amsterdam to Madrid on the direct KLM flight, we will earn 15 XP each way. When we option to transit in Paris, which will increase your flight time by some hours, you will earn 30 xp each way!
Often a ticket which contains a transit is cheaper than the direct flight. Therefore I try to optimize my tickets by adding as many transits as the fare rules would permit. There fare rules you can find in tools like Expert Flyer.
Every now and then there are opportunities to add a great amount of transits to your itinerary. A few years ago there was an option (error fare), which gave you the opportunity to fly from Norway to Tel Aviv. The error on this fare was that it was possible to route through many European cities. It was even possible to transit in the eastern part of Russia.
Final thoughts on Flying Blue Experience Points
For travellers which are used to earn level miles which are directly related to the distance flown, XP might be strange of first sight.
When you get used to the method used to determine the amount of XP earned on a flight, it will become easy very quickly.