Flying Blue Status Match for British Airways Frequent Flyers

Flying Blue, the frequent flyer programme of Air France-KLM, has launched a status match programme for UK residents, making it an appealing option for dissatisfied British Airways frequent flyers.

Match your British Airways status

After British Airways announced it will rebrand its Executive Club as the British Airways Club and award status based on revenue spending rather than Tier Points earned per flight by distance and class, many of its frequent flyers have been left extremely dissatisfied.

With many frequent flyers fearing they can no longer achieve a meaningful status with British Airways and feeling that the airline no longer values their business and loyalty, many have started to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

A highly interesting option for dissatisfied British Airways frequent flyers is Flying Blue, the frequent flyer programme of Air France-KLM.

The Flying Blue status match

Although the Air France-KLM Flying Blue status match has been available for some time and is open to people from a couple of other countries with frequent flyer status from other airlines, there is now a dedicated status match page for UK-based British Airways members.

You can match British Airways Executive Club Bronze status to Flying Blue Silver, Executive Club Silver to Flying Blue Gold, and Executive Club Gold, Gold Guest List, or Premier status to Flying Blue Platinum.

The full list of airline statuses that can be matched to a Flying Blue status can be found here.

There is an application fee for the Air France-KLM Flying Blue status match, which is currently set at £99 to eligible British Airways frequent flyers living in the UK, regardless of the status they are matching too.

Note that during the status match application, you typically need to submit proof of residency in the United Kingdom, proof of your British Airways Executive Club status, and possibly a screenshot of recent flight activity credited to your account.

What are the benefits of Flying Blue status

Flying Blue Silver status doesn’t offer many benefits beyond free standard seat selection on Air France and KLM flights, along with a free checked bag.

Flying Blue Gold status also grants access to business lounges, with the option to bring one guest, and includes SkyPriority services, such as priority boarding and fast track at airport security.

Starting at 72 hour before departure of your Air France and KLM flight, you can also assign yourself any available seat on board the plane free of charge.

Compared to Gold status, the only real extra benefits of Flying Blue Platinum status are the ability to assign any seat for free already at the time of booking and access to the Platinum hotline, which provides high-quality service with no waiting time and knowledgeable customer service employees who can assist with complicated situations or cancellations.

Flying Blue Platinum status also grants you access to mileage awards on Air France La Première, the airline’s exclusive first-class cabin, which is otherwise only accessible by purchasing an expensive revenue ticket or upgrade.

Another benefit is the opportunity to achieve Lifetime Platinum status, which you earn by maintaining your Flying Blue Platinum status for 10 consecutive years.

Retaining status with Flying Blue

Flying Blue has a relatively simple structure, where you need to earn XP (experience points, similar to the TP or Tier Points used by British Airways) to retain status, and earn frequent flyer miles that can be redeemed for award tickets.

You earn XP for eligible flights with Air France, KLM, or a SkyTeam partner airline, with the number of points depending on the flight length and booking class.

For example, a one-way Air France flight from London to New York via Paris would earn you 5 XP for economy class or 15 XP for business class on the London to Paris leg, and 10 XP or 30 XP for the Paris to New York leg.

As you can see, booking multi-segment flights can be beneficial, as they make retaining status much easier than direct flights.

To retain Flying Blue Silver status, you need 100 XP in a year, retaining Gold requires 180 XP, and retaining Platinum 300 XP.

To upgrade a level, you need to reach the next threshold within a single year.

For example, if you’re a Flying Blue Silver member aiming for Gold status, you must earn 180 XP during your membership year.

Once you reach this level, your status will be upgraded to Gold and your year resets, and you will have 12 months to either retain Gold or aim for Platinum.

Flying Blue offers soft landings, meaning that if you fail to retain your status during your membership year, you’ll only drop one level, regardless of how many XP you’ve earned.

If you have Flying Blue Platinum status and don’t earn any XP at all in your membership year, you will drop one level to Gold status the following year, and will need to retain Gold, try to reach Platinum again, or drop back to Silver if you don’t manage this.

If you have Flying Blue Platinum status and earn 250 XP, you will also drop one level to Gold, as you haven’t met the 300 XP threshold for Platinum requalification.

However, in this instance, you will start your new year as a Gold member with 70 XP (250 XP minus the 180 XP required for Gold) on the counter, giving you a head start to either retain Gold or work your way back to Platinum.

The Flying Blue feature of carryover XP (up to a maximum surplus of 300 XP) is a great aspect of the programme, as it can help you retain status if you have a year with heavy flying followed by one with fewer flights.

One big caveat: It’s unclear whether there is a soft landing after the first year of your Air France-KLM Flying Blue status match, as reports are conflicting about whether this rule also applies to members who gained their elite status through a status match. I’ll update this article when I have more information!

Why Flying Blue can be a great match for British frequent flyers

There are a few reasons why it might be worthwhile for British Airways frequent flyers to ditch the Executive Club for good and switch to Air France-KLM Flying Blue as their primary frequent flyer programme.

Although it’s a disadvantage that many of your flights with KLM or Air France will require routing through Amsterdam or Paris, compared to the direct flights British Airways offers from the UK, the airlines provide the most convenient one-stop connections from Britain.

Both Amsterdam and Paris are just a short hop from the UK, so it’s not as if you’re making a huge detour.

If you live outside of London, there could actually be a real benefit, as especially KLM and its regional subsidiary KLM Cityhopper fly to many smaller UK airports.

At the moment, London Heathrow, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Newcastle are served by both Air France and KLM, while Aberdeen, Belfast, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Humberside, Inverness, Leeds-Bradford, Norwich, Southampton, and Teesside are served by KLM flights to Amsterdam, so the regional UK coverage of Air France and KLM is excellent.

Of course, it’s also important to remember that Virgin Atlantic is a full SkyTeam member, so you can use your Flying Blue status benefits with them, which is certainly something that should come in handy for any UK-based frequent flyer.

The SkyTeam network

Although the SkyTeam alliance arguably has more second-tier airlines than the oneworld alliance of British Airways, airlines such as Delta (compared to American in oneworld) shouldn’t make a significant difference in terms of quality.

Indeed, although SkyTeam may have some lesser-known airlines that might not match the quality of, say, Qatar Airways, it offers equal or significantly better connectivity benefits compared to oneworld in certain parts of the world, especially in Eastern Africa and the Middle East, where SkyTeam has a much stronger presence thanks to alliance members such as Kenya Airways, Saudia, and Middle East Airlines.

The same holds true for South America, where connectivity is strong not only with Air France and KLM, but also with Madrid-based Air Europa, or even with Aeroméxico and Aerolíneas Argentinas.

Even within Europe, the SkyTeam network offers better geographical coverage than oneworld, especially since Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) joined the alliance, although ITA Airways is set to leave SkyTeam for Star Alliance within the next year or so.

Whether SkyTeam’s route network is a better match for you than oneworld depends on the destinations you typically fly to, so it’s highly advisable to compare typical fares and routings with SkyTeam airlines to your current flights with British Airways and oneworld airlines.

What is the better airline: Air France, KLM, or BA?

If I compare British Airways directly with Air France or KLM in terms of in-flight product, I’d say both Air France and KLM offer a better economy class experience.

Air France business class clearly surpasses British Airways in quality, while KLM lags behind in its business class soft product (food and drinks) compared to BA, even though its hard product (seats and cabin) is better and more consistent.

If you are a frequent first class flyer, it highly depends on your situation whether SkyTeam will be an improvement over the oneworld alliance.

Air France La Premiere is perhaps the best first class product in the world and is certainly far ahead of British Airways First, but it is also much more expensive, and the costs really can be astronomical.

There are other SkyTeam airlines (Garuda, Korean Air, and Saudia) with a first class cabin on some of their routes, but the first class products of other oneworld carriers like Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, and Qatar Airways are clearly better and more readily available.

Overall, I’d estimate that the average first class flyer (or business class flyer aspiring to book first class travel with frequent flyer miles) is much better off with oneworld than with SkyTeam.

Business lounges

When it comes to business lounges, whether switching to Air France-KLM brings an improvement or not largely depends on whether you hold oneworld Emerald or Sapphire status.

One big advantage of British Airways and the oneworld alliance over SkyTeam is the availability of first-class lounges, which can be accessed with oneworld Sapphire status.

In SkyTeam, it doesn’t matter whether you hold Flying Blue Gold or Platinum status, as both provide access to the same business lounges.

Although there are some first class lounges (such as the excellent Air France La Premiere lounge), this cannot be accessed based on status and is only open to those actually flying first class.

If you hold British Airways Silver (oneworld Sapphire) status, you’ll likely find that the SkyTeam lounges are either on par with the British Airways Galleries lounges at London Heathrow, such as the KLM Crown Lounge at Amsterdam, or of better quality, like the Air France business lounges at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Then again, if you hold British Airways Gold (oneworld Emerald) status, the lounge experience with SkyTeam will either be on par or a downgrade compared to what you’re accustomed to, and for BA’s Gold Guest List members, it will actually be quite a significant downgrade.

Flying Blue’s future

I’ve been a Flying Blue Platinum member for many years, and although you can never tell what the future holds, I highly doubt that Air France and KLM will follow British Airways’ lead in making their entire frequent flyer programme revenue-based.

On 1st of April 2018, Flying Blue has undergone a massive transformation into its current structure, so it’s still relatively new.

Since then, part of the Flying Blue frequent flyer programme has become revenue-based, as the miles you earn for Air France and KLM flights no longer depend on flight distance and booking class, but rather on the amount you paid for your ticket (miles for flights with partner airlines are still credited according to distance and booking class).

However, the metric by which status is earned (XP) is not revenue-based, and I don’t see this changing anytime soon.

For many reasons, British Airways (and the United Kingdom) has always been more closely linked to the United States and developments across the pond, making it much more natural for BA to follow the American airlines in adopting a revenue-based structure for its frequent flyer programme.

This is different in continental Europe, where the trend is moving towards a mix of adopting aspects of the American miles and points system, such as Flying Blue launching its own credit cards in the US market and clearly seeking a share of that pie, while still focusing on the loyalty from its strong local markets in France and the Netherlands.

Indeed, the other major European frequent flyer programme, Lufthansa’s Miles&More, underwent a complete overhaul as recently as 1st January 2024, but still awards status based on the number of qualifying points you earn, which depend on the length and booking class of your flights.

Even though devaluations are always possible (and Flying Blue recently had a minor one of 5 to 10% on some mileage awards), I think it’s highly unlikely that other European frequent flyer programmes will follow British Airways Executive Club’s drastic move to go fully revenue-based.

Conclusion

Flying Blue, the frequent flyer programme of Air France and KLM, is offering a status match to dissatisfied British Airways customers.

You can now match your British Airways Executive Club status to the equivalent Air France-KLM Flying Blue status for a £99 application fee, gaining status across the SkyTeam alliance for a full year.

For British Airways frequent flyers concerned about losing status when the BA Executive Club goes revenue-based, this could be a fantastic opportunity to repay the lack of gratitude shown by the airline and switch to greener pastures, where loyalty is still appreciated.

If there is one other frequent flyer programme outside the UK that might appeal to the average British traveller, it is Air France-KLM Flying Blue, offering convenient 1-stop itineraries across Europe and the world, along with status benefits with fellow SkyTeam airline Virgin Atlantic.