Updated with interactive versions of the award map.
The problem with [AirFrance] FlyingBlue’s replacement of an award chart with a Miles “calculator”, is that you don’t know which flights are the cheapest, until you think to search for the route… Then you find out the price.
So I set out to make an award chart of my own for FlyingBlue, which has required more grouping and generalization than I predicted. I’ll be posting the new Award Chart, and my findings soon.
However, while I was simultaneously working on the Maps of Least and Most Touristy Countries, I realized that I could also use maps to display award prices.
Thus, this post has a map for economy and business class award prices for each country (that was searchable with the calculator).
How It Works
The three cities from which I chose to display all miles prices are New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
They mostly represent three divisions for price differences: East, mid-west, and West. In general, when I search for miles prices from Seattle, it tends to be the exact same price as LA, so I use LAX as the example for the west coast.
Similarly, when I search flights in Denver, Chicago, or Houston, they tend to be the same price as Dallas, so I used DFW to represent the mid-west.
And while I use JFK to represent the east, I’ve found that there are sometimes differences in prices with Atlanta and Miami… especially when looking at flights to Latin America.
Missing Countries
1) I didn’t do US and Canada because the prices vary greatly by city.
Plus, I’ll still be posting the award chart and other related info.
2) YMMV. Some countries do not show up on the calculator, but do show up in search results when you go to make an actual booking.
3) I do not include First Class prices, because they are so absurdly high, it’s not worth showing.
Maps
Award Prices from USA East
JFK Economy:
JFK Business:
Award Prices from USA Mid:
DFW Economy:
DFW Business:
Award Prices from USA West:
LAX Economy:
LAX Business:
Conclusion
This may be less detailed than an actual award chart, but given that the grouping of countries and the difference in price for each city, this is the best way I can think of for displaying prices.
Because, while I plan on posting the award chart, “Africa” can mean different things depending on where you fly out of.
So hopefully this will be a good supplement.
Best Deals
Over all, I think there are some great prices!
Especially from NYC/East Coast, I think these are the best Europe prices. Basically all of Europe is teal, and 20,000 to 21,000 miles in economy.
And as you can see, that includes many countries in Northern Africa. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, Armenia… Often for 21,000 to 25,000 miles!
Even better, sometimes routes are 50% with Promo Award sales.
Also great for business class. For example, all the routes are 53,000 miles in business class.
Another great deal is much of Africa in economy. Flights to South Africa, and much of the continent for 34,000 miles.
But! More to come on the new Flying Blue award chart later.
Thanks for the easy to see groupings! I’m trying to understand the methodology a bit. Why is Australia only in the picture from the west coast, and South America nearly a void from DFW? Couldn’t one connect easily in Mexico City for Aeromexico’s route map going south, for example? I take it the “calculator” is maybe not a very robust tool?
Well, both that the calculator sucks, and there’s basically no award availability to Australia when I search.
The rule of thumb I use is that the prices (at their best) are similar to a neighbor. So if Chile doesn’t show up, it’s probably the same as Argentina. And if LAX-SYD exists, JFK-SYD likely CAN be found.
But in general, countries that are SkyTeam destinations can be found with enough searches on the actual booking search engine. However, the problem is often that the prices are crazy and again, availability is generally really bad if it doesn’t show up in the calculator. But you can always try a search.
Do they consider Siberia part of “Europe” now?
Well, I couldn’t find one city that showed up to Siberia on the award calculator. So I don’t know. But the only city I tested was Moscow… However, the map tool I used doesn’t allow me to break up the country.
So, I don’t know.
Nicely done.
Thanks!
MEL-YVR by China southern Busiess is 144K
Given that Air France is part of SkyTeam, and Delta is the biggest SkyTeam carrier in the US, wouldn’t it have made sense to use Delta hubs as the origins? ATL, DTW/MSP, SEA?
I can’t really argue against using JFK and LAX given the importance of those airports to any carriers, but just a suggestion if you plan to do more of these maps.
Don’t see how that would matter at all.
If my test was availability dependent that would be relevant, as it would make searching easier… However, I was using calculator.
Further more, more people live in DFW than DTW or MSP. So even if it wasn’t just representing a region (which it is), 10x more people live in Dallas than Detroit. But that’s not relevant because the goal was to do pick a city that represents each of the three US regions that can be generalized in FB pricing.
Dumb question, but I’ll ask anyway: Since pretty much all of Europe is 20-24k from JFK, and Air France/KLM don’t fly nonstop to anywhere but their home countries, is it correct to presume that you can connect through Paris or Amsterdam to get these places, and the prices are not just some hypothetical that don’t hold up in real life?
Yes, the price could include a connection, and most search results route through AMS or CDG to fly on KLM or AirFrance.
Many searches show the lowest price available on Delta (or whatever partner) or AirFrance. But it’s always a YMMV, as availability and prices change a lot of FlyingBlue. For example one search, can have 5 different flight options with 5 different economy prices: 1 flight with the low 23k option, the next at 24k, 25k, 26k, and 29k, as an example.
I am having a lot of trouble getting flights from Seattle to price out at LAX levels. It appears that majority of my searches are a higher price than posted here, instead of in a minority.
I have looked at SEA to CDG, AMS, RAK, ATH and ROM. None have priced at 30-35k it seems.
Why I miss the old days, where ANC-VIE was 25k.
Understand that this is an issue with all airline rewards program – they advertise one price, but you actually find another.
In this case, the “saver” price (as other airlines call it) is in 20k – 30k, but you aren’t actually finding those.
All the prices above are from the FlyingBlue calculator which is showing the lowest (“saver”) prices.
For example, the calculator shows SEA-AMS as 23,500 miles (which is actually lower than LAX-AMS), and the calculator shows flights to ATH from both SEA and LAX as 29,000 miles, and flights to RAK 21,500 miles from both SEA and LAX.
Thus, the prices in advertisement are the same as LAX, but it doesn’t mean that there will be availability from either city.
thank you for your work!
does any of you have a educated guess why they made it so complicated?
watching the maps, i do not think that these prices are “machine generated”, meaning there is no logic behind the prices.
can’t figure out the sense of this pricing…
Also, if you are SEA based, check out prices from YVR. Sometimes the prices can be enough lower to be worth the trip to start from Vancouver. Does it make sense? No. But that’s what flying blue has chosen to do.
Are these prices OW or RT?
One way