Book Economy Flights to Europe With Just 12,000 Membership Rewards

American Express Membership Rewards points are one of our favorite transfer currencies. Membership Rewards are easy to earn with a variety of personal and business cards, and there’s a great variety of airline transfer partners. And to sweeten the deal, American Express often runs transfer bonuses to select airlines.

Right now, Amex is running a promotion that includes transfer bonuses between 15% and 30% to nine frequent-flyer programs. If your next summer’s travel plans include Europe, now might be the best time to book your European vacation.

If you had no plans for Europe, we’re pretty confident that after reading this post and seeing how affordable it is to take the whole family across the Atlantic, you’d want to book your European sojourn ASAP.

Membership Rewards Transfer Bonuses

We see these transfer bonuses come around every few months, but usually, it applies only to a couple of transfer partners. You can transfer Membership Rewards to nine airline programs with a bonus through Sept. 30 and three hotel partners with a bonus through Oct. 31.

Transfer Membership Rewards to Air France-KLM Flying Blue

One of the best programs to use for an affordable trip to Europe is Flying Blue, the combined loyalty program of Air France and KLM. There’s no award chart, but you can use the handy Miles Price Estimator to find out the minimum number of miles for your itinerary.

Keep in mind that the actual redemption rate might be higher than what the estimator shows, but it’s still a good tool to help you find out what to expect from this program. It is what it is – an estimator that shows you the lowest number of miles needed for a given route, but it doesn’t guarantee that the pricing will be available on all travel dates.

Before transferring any flexible points, such as Membership Rewards, to an airline program, make sure you first find available award space.

When you’ve found the award space and are ready to book, just navigate to the Rewards & Benefits tab in your Amex account.

Transfers to Flying Blue are usually instant, in spite of the warning that it can take up to 48 hours

How to Book Flying Blue Award Tickets

You’ll need to create an account with Air France or KLM to search for available award space. After you’ve logged in, navigate to Book with Miles and enter your origin and destination. You can search one way or round trip.

The site could be buggy. If there’s no award on the first date you entered, you might not be able to change the date without closing the current tab, opening another browser tab and logging in again. One way to get around it is to leave the departure date blank.

If you leave the departure date blank, you’ll see a monthly calendar on the next page. You can easily navigate forward month by month and find the lowest award rates.

The Air France app doesn’t have the same bugs and works really well, so consider using the app instead of the website.

Here, I clicked on June 6, 2023, and found three flights from New York (JFK) to Paris (CDG) that can be booked for just 15,000 miles. This incredible rate is available for at least four passengers.

You’ll need to transfer just 12,000 Membership Rewards points to get 15,000 Flying Blue miles.

If you’re traveling with kids, then you’ll pay even less. There’s a 25% discount on award rates for kids between 2 and 11 years old.

When we searched for two adults and two kids under 11, we found several itineraries that could be booked for just 52,500 miles per direction in economy for all four passengers. Many programs charge 30,000 miles for a one-way economy award ticket to Europe, so this is an incredible deal.

With the current transfer bonus, you’ll need to transfer just 42,000 Membership Rewards points to Flying Blue and take the whole family on a European vacation.

Don’t wait to book. These rates won’t last long, especially for multiple passengers. Keep in mind that there might be a fee to change or cancel your award.

You can search for similarly priced awards from other U.S. cities to other countries in Europe. But even if you can find only four seats on Paris-bound flights, don’t think of this as just going to Paris. Although Paris is lovely in June, you can be in a number of neighboring countries in a matter of hours thanks to Europe’s excellent train networks. Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Netherlands come to mind—all great places for a family vacation.

We’ve found a similarly wide-open calendar for flights from Chicago (ORD) to Amsterdam (AMS) in economy. You’ll need to transfer 14,000 Membership Rewards points to Flying Blue to book the cheapest award for 17,000 miles.

Card to Help You Earn American Express Membership Rewards

American Express offers several cards that come with general welcome bonuses, excellent bonus earning categories and great travel protection benefits.

One of our favorite cards is The Platinum Card® from American Express. The card has excellent travel protection benefits, and the points earned with the welcome bonus alone could be enough to book four one-way award tickets to Europe in economy as described above.

For a small business owner, The Business Platinum Card® from American Express might be a better fit. The card comes with a few credits that help offset the annual fee of $695 (see rates & fees) and a generous welcome bonus.

One of the best cards for everyday spending is the Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express. The card has $0 annual fee (see rates & fees) and earns 2X points on all purchases, up to $50,000 a year, and 1X after that.

Final Thoughts

While American Express transfer bonuses come around pretty regularly, we’ve never seen 12 bonuses run at the same time.

If you have been thinking about going to Europe next summer, now is a great time to book. We have a rare combination of the 25% transfer bonus from American Express to Air France-KLM Flying Blue and the wide-open award space calendar for next summer’s travel.

You can book a one-way economy-class award from the U.S. to France with just 12,000 Membership Rewards points. Thanks to Flying Blue generous kids’ tickets discount, your children can fly to Europe for just 9,000 Membership Rewards points.

We might not see another transfer bonus for a while, and the wide-open summer award space for multiple passengers on multiple dates won’t last.