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✈️ KLM/Air France Promo Rewards (including Canada!!)
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By this point, most of you know about KLM and Air France's monthly Promo Rewards. For those of you who don't, here's a quick refresher.
KLM/Air France Promo Rewards are deals that are published every month by KLM and Air France that offer huge discounts on specific routes with these airlines. One month might include routes like Chicago to Paris, while the next month, it could be Amsterdam to Düsseldorf. They are constantly changing and are only good for the month in which they are published.
But this month is especially exciting because the list of cities includes major hubs in the U.S., Canada, and even Mexico.
To make things even more exciting, some of these cities also include discounts on business-class awards.
Here are a few of the Promo Rewards for this month:
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Here is how these promo rewards work:
- You must book your flights by the end of the month (December 31st)
- Travel can take place through May 31st, 2023
- You must book your trips via either KLM or Air France, depending on the city (see the screenshot above)
- Discount will automatically be applied to search results
Obviously, the most exciting deal this month is from Montreal. It's been a little while since deals like this have been offered for Canadian cities, so this is an excellent opportunity for us Northerners to book Winter and Spring travel.
Personally, I need to be in Paris in mid-May to connect on a flight that was booked separately. After running a quick search, I found an amazing deal from Toronto to Paris for only 15,000 Flying Blue miles, which is pretty sweet.
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Alternatively, I could book another trip to Europe to cities like Lisbon from Montreal for only 27,500 miles in Business Class.
For reference, an economy flight from North America to Europe can easily run you around 30,000 miles on a good day. So the fact that you can book a long-haul, trans-Atlantic flight for less than that is bonkers.
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Earning Flying Blue miles is about as easy as things can get. You can transfer points from every major bank, including American Express, Citi, Chase, Capital One, Bilt, and even hotel programs like Marriott Bonvoy.
Our Top Cards page includes several cards that could earn you enough miles for a few round-trip flights to Europe, so check it out if you want to rack up some miles before the end of the month.
For you foreigners, there are still ways to earn Flying Blue miles. In Canada, there is a KLM/Air France cobranded credit card. You can also transfer Canadian Amex points to Flying Blue, although at a suboptimal ratio. There are also a few European cobranded credit cards that could earn you miles, so be sure to run a quick Google search to see if you can take advantage of this deal.
As I mentioned, this promo also includes a few U.S. cities as well as Mexico City. If you live in North America and want to travel to Europe in the next six months, now is the perfect time to snag some flights for far less than what you'd typically have to pay.
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🏨 Accor ALL double points promo
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I don't think we've discussed Accor hotels in this newsletter before. One of the reasons is that they rarely have any newsworthy deals to share.
But also, I don't totally understand the name. The program is called Accor All, where "All" stands for Accor Live Limitless.
So the whole name of the program is Accor Accor Live Limitless, which I think is funny.
Anyway, Accor All is currently offering double points on all hotel stays in Europe through February 28th, 2023.
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And to answer your question before you ask it, yes... They did misspell the word "with" in the promo banner above... 🤦♂️
Anyway, here are the details of the promo:
- You must register for the offer
- You must book your stays before January 6th, 2023
- Stays can take place before February 28th, 2023
- The offer can be used up to three times during the promo period
Overall, this is definitely a great offer. Double points on hotel stays is rarely a bad deal. Given the ubiquity of Accor hotels in many European countries, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a place to stay to take advantage of this offer.
I'll be in Bosnia & Herzegovina in February and found this gorgeous winter forest resort outside of Sarajevo for less than $100 a night.
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So even in more off-the-beaten-path cities and countries, it seems like they have some lovely properties and really competitive prices.
If you can find good hotels at low prices and earn double points, that's the travel hacking trifecta right there.
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🤦♂️ Lufthansa leaves passengers stranded in Angola
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What if you were on a flight heading back home and suddenly the airline says to you, "hey, you've won a free all-expenses paid trip, congrats!"
That's pretty sweet, right?
Well, that's how Lufthansa is trying to spin a recent incident that left hundreds of passengers stranded in the Angolan capital of Luanda.
Lufthansa was flying a routine flight from Cape Town to Munich this past weekend when they experienced some significant issues with one of the engines. To play things safe, the plane diverted to Luanda, which the plane was only 10 miles away from at the time of the engine incident.
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This is no big deal; things like this happen all the time. Just last month, a United Airlines flight had to divert to the Arctic Canadian city of Iqaluit due to engine issues.
They had a replacement plane and crew there to pick up passengers in about 4 hours.
Lufthansa, on the other hand, is planning to leave some passengers in Angola for as long as nine days.
Instead of flying a replacement plane down, they are rebooking passengers on other airlines, some of which aren't scheduled for over a week.
If I were in this situation, I'd be pretty stoked. A free week of hotels in a new country, free flights home, and compensation from the airline because of the delay in getting home? It's awesome. But I'm not a normal person. I'm a big weird weirdo.
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Most people aren't comfortable traveling around a massive African city unexpectedly, especially families with young kids and people traveling alone.
Plus, more than one week of delays in getting home is pretty ridiculous for anyone who has any plans or needs to, I don't know, go to work, maybe? I have a feeling Lufthansa is going to have to shell out some serious cash money for this stunt.
Anyway, some people are probably completely fine with the situation, while I'm sure others are upset. Overall, it's not a good look for Lufthansa to play things this way.
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That's all for today, y'all. I'm pretty excited about all the great travel deals happening right now - it seems things haven't slowed down after the Black Friday bonanza.
Do you prefer flight deals like KLM/Air France or Hotel deals like Accor? Would you be upset or excited to get an unexpected free one-week trip to Angola? Let me know by replying to this email or reaching out on social media.
See you tomorrow,
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