Do you earn Flying Blue miles on SkyTeam partner flights?

Earning miles on SkyTeam partner flights

Yes, you earn Flying Blue miles on flights with all SkyTeam partners - as long as you add your Flying Blue number to the booking. This is one of the great advantages of the program: you earn on a broad network of airlines.

The main SkyTeam partners

SkyTeam has 19 airlines. The partners you are most likely to encounter:

• KLM and Air France - the home base of Flying Blue
• Delta Air Lines - for flights to North America
• Korean Air - excellent for Asia routes
• China Eastern - for China destinations
• Vietnam Airlines - popular for Southeast Asia
• Kenya Airways - for Africa (partner of KLM)
• Aeromexico - for Mexico and Central America
• ITA Airways - for Italy

How many miles do you earn?

The number of miles depends on two factors:

• The route: longer flights earn more miles
• Your booking class: the fare letter code on your ticket (not just Economy/Business, but the specific subclass)

In general: the more expensive your ticket, the higher your earning percentage. An expensive Economy ticket can earn more miles than a cheap Premium Economy ticket. With discount Economy fares (the cheapest booking classes) you earn the least, sometimes only 25% of the base miles.

Specifically for Korean Air and Delta

Korean Air: excellent partner. On full Economy fares you earn 100% of the flight miles. Korean Air flights to Seoul (ICN) from Amsterdam yield around 5,500 base miles per one-way.

Delta: also good, but note that Delta uses many different booking classes. On the cheapest Basic Economy fares you earn less. A return Amsterdam-New York yields around 3,600 base miles per direction.

Practical tips

• Add your FB number at booking - do this immediately, not afterwards
• Forgot? You can retroactively claim miles up to 6 months after the flight via flyingblue.com
• Check the earning table on flyingblue.com under "Earn miles" for exact percentages per partner and booking class
• XP counts too - on most SkyTeam partner flights you also earn XP toward your status level

Tip: besides flights you can also earn miles with a Flying Blue American Express. The Gold Card earns 1 mile per euro on daily spending, the Platinum 1.5 miles per euro. So you also earn outside of your flights.