One of the largest airlines operating out of the Middle East, Saudia is the national airline of Saudi Arabia and a member of SkyTeam Alliance. The airline operates flights to over 100 destinations around the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. And, through its SkyTeam Alliance network, you can book flights nearly anywhere in the world through Saudia.

Saudia also operates its own frequent flyer program, known as the AlFursan program, through which you can earn reward miles and then redeem those miles for award flights with Saudia and its SkyTeam Alliance airline partners. This program uses a series of fixed region-based award charts to price its own award flights as well as all partner-operated award flights, which means you can often find great value per mile when redeeming miles for flights.

Plus, the Saudia website makes it fairly easy to search for and book award flights. Nevertheless, we’re going to walk you through the process of booking award flights through the Saudia AlFursan program. We’ll also let you know how to enroll in the AlFursan program and how to quickly earn enough miles for an award flight.

Joining Saudia AlFursan

Before you can earn or redeem miles through Saudia AlFursan, you’ll need to be a member of the program. To enroll in Saudia AlFursan, visit the Saudia website and click the “Loyalty” tab at the top of the homepage. Then, click the “Join AlFursan” button under the “AlFursan program” column.

Saudia AlFursan website

On the next page, you’ll be able to read through all of the benefits and features of the AlFursan program. Then, to continue the enrollment process, scroll down and click the green “Join AlFursan” button.

AlFursan program

You’ll then have to enter some personal information about yourself including your name, passport number, date of birth, nationality, phone number and email address. You’ll also need to create a password that you’ll use to log into your AlFursan account in the future.

Once you’ve done all that, you can accept the terms and conditions and create your account by clicking the “Join Now” button at the bottom of the page. Once you do so, you’ll receive a unique AlFursan membership number that you can use to earn miles and log into your account in the future. We recommend writing this number down somewhere that you won’t forget it.

How to Earn Saudia AlFursan Miles

As a member of the AlFursan program, you’re eligible to earn reward miles in a variety of ways. The minimum price for an award flight through the Saudia AlFursan program is 4,500 miles (which is enough for a domestic one-way economy flight within Saudia Arabia on Saudia). So, before you make an award flight redemption through this frequent flyer program, you’ll need to have at least 4,500 miles in your account balance (and probably more).

Some methods of earning miles through the Saudia AlFursan program are far more effective than others. In the following sections, we’ll look at some of the most effective ways to earn Saudia miles so you can quickly save up enough for an award flight.

Flying with Saudia

Unfortunately, U.S.-based travelers can’t earn Saudia miles by transferring points from credit card rewards programs or by spending on Saudia co-branded credit cards. So, the most effective way to earn Saudia miles for U.S.-based travelers will be to credit paid flights to the Saudia AlFursan program. However, it should be noted that you may want to credit Saudia and other Star Alliance flights to a different Star Alliance frequent flyer program, such as Air France-KLM Flying Blue or Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

If you do choose to credit your Saudia flights to the AlFursan program, the amount of miles you’ll earn will depend on whether you’re flying domestic or international, the distance of your flight in miles, your fare type and your status in the AlFursan program.

The following chart can be used to calculate the number of miles you’ll earn on Saudi-operated domestic flights:

Cabin classFare typeMiles earnings (as a % of miles flown)
First class “Flex”F, P, A350%
Business class “Flex”J, D, C250%
Business class “Basic”I175%
Guest class “Flex”Y, B, E, M, K, H100%
Guest class “Basic” L, Q, T, N, V60%
Guest class “Saver”U35%

For example, if you were to take a 200-mile domestic Saudia flight in Business class “Basic” (fare type I), you would earn 350 Saudia miles (200 miles flown x 175% = 350 Saudia miles).

The following earning table applies to Saudia-operated international flights and it works the same way as the earning table for Saudia domestic flights above:

Cabin classFare typeMiles earnings (as a % of miles flown)
First Class “Flex”F250%
First Class “Semi-Flex”P, A200%
Business Class “Flex”J175%
Business Class “Semi-Flex”C, D150%
Business Class “Basic”I125%
Guest Class “Flex”Y, E, B, M100%
Guest Class “Semi-Flex”K, H, Q, L60%
Guest Class “Basic” T, N, V35%
Guest Class “Saver”U30%

It’s worth noting that elite status members in the AlFursan program earn bonus miles on Saudia-operated flights (both domestic and international). Silver status members earn 25% bonus miles and Gold members earn 50% bonus miles.

For example, if you took the 200-mile domestic flight from the example above (which would earn 350 miles without elite status), you would earn 525 miles if you had Gold elite status (350 Saudia miles + 50% bonus = 525 Saudia miles).

Flying with Partner Airlines

In addition to earning miles on Saudia-operated flights, AlFursan members can also earn miles on flights with certain partner airlines. Since Saudia is a member of SkyTeam Alliance, you can earn Saudia miles on any SkyTeam Alliance airline. Here is the current roster of SkyTeam Alliance airlines:

Saudia AlFursan members can also earn miles by taking paid flights on Etihad Airways. If you want to know how many miles you’ll earn on a SkyTeam flight, you’ll need to visit the SkyTeam Partners page on the Saudia website and then click on the partner that you want to fly with. You’ll then be able to view the earning table for the airline you selected. These tables work the same way as the earning table for Saudia-operated flights, which means that you can multiply the distance of your flight by the percentage associated with your fare type to get your miles earnings.

To calculate how many miles you could earn on Etihad Airways-operated flights, you can visit the Other Carrier page on the Saudia website and reference the earning chart.

Other Ways to Earn

There are several other ways to earn miles through the Saudia AlFursan program, including booking hotel stays, renting cars, transferring points from Marriott Bonvoy, buying merchandise through certain partners, buying insurance and more. Unfortunately, none of these other earning methods are particularly effective on their own.

Nonetheless, if you use the Saudia AlFursan program as your primary frequent flyer program, it’s worth looking into these other earning methods as they can help you pick up some extra miles here and there.

Book Award Flights Through Saudia AlFursan

How to Book Award Flights Through Saudia AlFursan

When you’ve earned enough Saudia miles to book an award flight, you can begin the process of making your booking by visiting the Saudia website and logging in to your account by clicking the “Log in” button near the top-right corner of the homepage and entering your account credentials. You’ll also be asked to enter a verification code that’ll be sent to the mobile phone number that’s associated with your account.

Once you’ve signed in, you can return to the Saudia website homepage and scroll down to where you see the flight booking tool box. On the right side of this box, there’s a toggle button that says “Book with Miles,” which you’ll need to turn on in order to search for award flights instead of cash flights.

After you’ve done that, the process of booking an award flight is fairly similar to booking a cash flight. Enter your departure airport, arrival airport, flight type (round-trip, one-way or multi-city), travel dates, number of passengers and preferred cabin class. When selecting your travel days, you can also click the “See flexible dates +/- 3 days” box below the calendar if you want to see award rates for dates before and after your selected travel dates.

When your search information is correct, click the “Search flights” button to conduct your search. You’ll then be shown a series of flight results that match your search query, including flights operated by Saudia or any applicable partner airline. You can filter these flight results by number of stops (which is great if you’re only willing to take nonstop flights). You can also sort these flight results by price, flight duration, departure time, arrival time, number of stops and flight number.

Once you see an award flight that suits your needs, you can add that award flight to your itinerary by clicking on the mileage required. When you do that, a new window will appear displaying the available fare types as well as what’s included in each fare type, such as baggage allowance, seat selection and upgrade availability. You can then click the “Select” button beneath the fare type that you’d like to book. Repeat this process for your return flight if you’re flying round-trip.

On the next page, you’ll need to enter some personal information for any travelers on your itinerary, including name, date of birth, passport number (if flying internationally), email address and phone number. You’ll also be able to select your seats on your flight, which may require an extra charge depending on the fare type you’re booked in.

Finally, you’ll need to enter a payment method to cover any applicable taxes and fees for your award flight itinerary. When you’ve done this, you can confirm your award flight booking and you’ll receive a confirmation number, which you’ll need to check in for your flight. You should also receive a confirmation email containing this number. We recommend writing down your confirmation number somewhere so that you won’t forget it.

Award tickets issued through Saudia AlFursan are eligible for refunds. However, there is a refund fee of 100 Saudi Riyal (about $27) for adults and 10 Saudi Riyal (about $3) for children for domestic award flight itineraries and a refund fee of 250 Saudi Riyal (about $67) for adults and 25 Saudi Riyal (about $7) for children for international award flight itineraries. So, you’ll want to make sure that you can actually make your flight before completing your booking.

The Bottom Line

All in all, the Saudia AlFursan program is a pretty good frequent flyer program, especially if you fly on Saudia often and you want to work towards earning elite status. Saudia is a member of SkyTeam Alliance, which means that you can earn and redeem AlFursan miles with any SkyTeam Alliance airline. Plus, all award flights on Saudia and its airline partners are priced according to fixed region-based award charts, which means you can often find award flight redemptions that offer outsized value.

Unfortunately, one major drawback of this program is that there are no Saudia co-branded credit cards available to U.S. consumers, nor can you transfer points from major U.S. credit card rewards programs (such as American Express Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards) to the Saudia AlFursan program. This means that the best way to earn Saudia miles for most U.S. travelers will be to credit SkyTeam flights to the AlFursan program (and they’ll most likely want to credit those flights to a different SkyTeam program).

Nonetheless, if you do use the AlFursan program, you can follow the instructions in this article on how to book award flights. The Saudia website is pretty easy to navigate, but you can always refer to this article if you get stuck.