Bits: good Air France KLM deals to Dubai, Amex to Eurostar transfers still down

News in brief:

Air France and KLM offering excellent Abu Dhabi / Dubai fares

There is an excellent deal running from many European cities to Dubai at the moment, via the SkyTeam alliance.

From the UK, you can depart from any UK airport with Air France or KLM flights, and change in either Paris or Amsterdam.

If you are willing to depart outside the UK, you save even more.

Here some examples based on a seven night stay (appears to be the minimum required) – you can book for the rest of 2024:

• From London Heathrow – £1,343 to Dubai return
• From Budapest – £1,050 to Dubai return
• From Dublin – £1,069 to Abu Dhabi return

Here is an example from London in October at £1,343:

These are ‘Business Light’ fares which do NOT come with lounge access or free seat selection unless you have SkyTeam / Virgin Atlantic status.

These tickets book into ‘O’ class which does not earn miles or status points in Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. You would probably end up crediting them to Air France KLM’s Flying Blue programme (4 miles per €1 but excluding taxes) or Delta Air Lines (100% of miles flown) from where you could – if you wished – top them up with American Express Membership Rewards points and redeem for Virgin Atlantic flights.

As you would be paying in Sterling, irrespective of where you start, your best card to pay with would be American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. This gives double points – two per £1 – on all airline spend, and the points convert at 1:1 into many airline programmes including Avios and Virgin Flying Club.

You can book for either airline via the KLM website here.

Eurostar transfers from American Express still suspended

I spoke to Eurostar yesterday about the continued problems with converting American Express Membership Rewards points into Club Eurostar points.

When Club Eurostar was relaunched last Autumn, following the merger of Eurostar and Thalys, it moved to a new IT platform. This caused problems with all of Eurostar’s transfer partners – Hertz, Accor Live Limitless (see here for details of that partnership) and American Express.

I think Hertz and Accor are now fixed, but American Express Membership Rewards transfers are still down. The latest timeframe is that it will take another 2-3 weeks to get a fix in place.