What Is Flying Blue Extra?

Air France KLM's Flying Blue has launched a paid subscription service called Flying Blue Extra, offering members two tiers of enhanced loyalty benefits for an annual fee.

The program comes in two bundles: Essential at €379 per year and Extended at €699 per year. Each tier layers additional perks on top of the standard Flying Blue membership, from bonus miles earning to reward ticket discounts.

Here's a full breakdown of what each tier includes, the fine print you need to be aware of, and whether Flying Blue Extra is actually worth considering.

Flying Blue Extra Essential (€379/Year)

The Essential tier is the entry-level subscription, priced at €379 per year (roughly C$575 CAD). It includes the following benefits:

• 5 extra miles per €10 spent on Air France and KLM flights (on top of standard earning)
• Exclusive Promo Rewards – access to a subscriber-only selection of monthly Promo Rewards
• 10% discount on the miles portion of Cash & Miles bookings
• Extended miles validity – all miles remain active throughout your subscription period
• 2 lounge access vouchers – valid at Air France and KLM lounges in Amsterdam, Paris, and Munich
• 10% discount on reward upgrades – applies to upgrades paid with miles before the check-in window opens, booked via airfrance.com or klm.com

Of these, the extended miles validity is a nice perk but increasingly less relevant given that Flying Blue recently simplified its miles expiry to a unified 24-month policy where any qualifying activity resets the clock. The lounge vouchers and exclusive Promo Rewards are the more tangible differentiators at this tier.

It's worth noting that the T&Cs state the Essential tier includes 2 lounge vouchers, even though the marketing pages only highlight this benefit for the Extended tier. The vouchers are valid at Air France and KLM lounges in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Paris (CDG), and Munich, and can be used for yourself or a travel companion on the same booking.

Flying Blue Extra Extended (€699/Year)

The Extended tier costs €699 per year (roughly C$1,065 CAD) and includes everything in Essential, plus several upgrades:

• 10 extra miles per €10 spent on Air France and KLM flights (double the Essential rate)
• 4 lounge access vouchers (up from 2 in Essential)
• 10% discount on reward tickets – applies to the first two reward ticket bookings during your subscription year
• 20% extra XP on all Air France and KLM flights, helping you reach Flying Blue elite status faster

The 20% XP boost stands out as the most interesting benefit here, particularly for frequent flyers who are chasing Silver, Gold, or Platinum status. If you're close to a tier threshold and primarily fly Air France or KLM, the extra XP could meaningfully accelerate your path to elite status.

The 10% reward ticket discount sounds appealing on paper, but the restrictions are significant. According to the terms and conditions, the discount:

• Only applies to standard one-way or round-trip bookings
• Is not valid on multi-city, stopover, open-jaw, or already discounted fares
• Is limited to the first two reward ticket bookings during your subscription year
• Is non-refundable and not applicable to rebookings

That means you cannot use the discount on Flying Blue stopover itineraries or Promo Rewards – two of the program's most popular redemption strategies. These restrictions severely limit the real-world utility of what initially appears to be the Extended tier's marquee benefit.

Key Terms to Know

A few additional details from the fine print are worth flagging:

• No automatic renewal – subscriptions last one year and do not auto-renew
• 14-day cancellation window – you can cancel within 14 days if you haven't used any benefits
• Benefits activate 24 hours after purchase and are tied to your Flying Blue account
• Only one bundle at a time – you cannot hold both Essential and Extended simultaneously
• Bonus miles and XP are only earned on flights with an Air France or KLM flight code, not on partner airlines
• Co-branded credit card holders may already receive the Essential bundle as a card benefit – worth checking your card's terms before subscribing separately

That last point is particularly important. Some Air France KLM co-branded credit cards already include the Essential bundle, which means paying €379 separately would be redundant if you already hold the right card.

Is Flying Blue Extra Worth It?

Honestly, it's a tough sell at these prices.

For the Essential tier at €379/year, you're getting a modest miles bonus, a couple of lounge vouchers at select locations, and access to exclusive Promo Rewards. The miles validity extension is nice but largely unnecessary under the new simplified expiry policy. Unless the subscriber-exclusive Promo Rewards turn out to be meaningfully better than the standard monthly offerings, it's hard to justify the annual cost.

For the Extended tier at €699/year, the 20% XP boost is useful for status seekers, and the reward ticket discount sounds attractive – until you read the fine print. The fact that the discount doesn't apply to stopovers, multi-city itineraries, or Promo Rewards eliminates most of the creative redemption strategies that make Flying Blue compelling in the first place.

The target audience for the Extended tier would logically be frequent Air France and KLM flyers who want to reach or maintain elite status faster. But many of those flyers would already hold Gold or higher status, which comes with complimentary lounge access – making the lounge vouchers redundant.

What This Means for Canadians

For Canadian Flying Blue collectors, the calculus is even less favourable. Most of us earn Flying Blue miles through Amex Membership Rewards transfers rather than through paid flights on Air France or KLM. Since the bonus miles earning (5 or 10 extra per €10) only applies to Air France and KLM-coded flights, Canadians who primarily transfer points in won't benefit from that perk at all.

The exclusive Promo Rewards access could be interesting if the subscriber-only selection includes strong business class routes from Canada, but we'll need to see several months of offerings before drawing conclusions there.

If you hold the Air France KLM World Elite Mastercard, the Essential bundle may already be included with your card – making a separate subscription unnecessary.

Conclusion

Flying Blue Extra is an interesting concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired at launch.

The Essential tier offers marginal benefits for €379/year that are hard to justify unless the exclusive Promo Rewards prove to be superior. The Extended tier at €699/year has more substance with the 20% XP boost and reward ticket discount, but the heavy restrictions on that discount undermine the value significantly.

For most Flying Blue members – and especially for Canadian collectors who earn miles primarily through credit card transfers – the current pricing simply doesn't deliver enough value to warrant the investment. It feels like Air France KLM is testing the waters with paid loyalty subscriptions, but the bundles need to be either cheaper or significantly more generous to gain real traction.

We'll be keeping an eye on how the exclusive Promo Rewards selection evolves and whether Flying Blue adjusts the terms over time. For now, most members are better off sticking with the standard program and focusing on strategies like Multiply Your Miles and partner redemptions to maximize their Flying Blue experience.