NEW Deal: Fly El Al Business Class Cheaper Than Premium Economy With Flying Blue Points! – View from the Wing

NEW Deal: Fly El Al Business Class Cheaper Than Premium Economy With Flying Blue Points!

by Gary Leff on July 22, 2024

Dan’s Deals flags a new opportunity to redeem Air France KLM Flying Blue points for travel on El Al.

And since all of the major transferable currencies – Chase, American Express, Citi, Capital One and Bilt – transfer to Air France KLM, most of you have access to these points. Pricing is much lower than you’ll find through El Al directly, or through Delta.

There are no fuel surcharges for these redemptions. Cancel/redeposit runs 70 euros. And isn’t it weird that premium economy prices more expensively than business class? Get on that deal while it lasts.

Here are one-way award prices:

• New York JFK, Newark: 45,500 points for coach, 83,000 for premium economy, and 79,500 for business class
• Boston: 44,000 points for coach, 80,500 for premium economy, 77,500 for business
• Miami: 52,500 for coach, 97,500 for premium economy, 92,000 for business
• Fort Lauderdale: 52,500 for coach, 97,500 for premium economy, 92,000 for business
• Los Angeles: 61,000 for coach, 110,000 for premium economy, 106,500 for business

Dan also flags pricing for other routes, for instance London – Tel Aviv runs 40,000 points in business class which is great (Amsterdam and Paris are 37,000; Madrid 39,500; Lisbon 45,000). This is the new best way, generally, to redeem points to and from Israel much of the time. While El Al business class award availability has never been the best, you won’t really find better non-stop options through United or Delta. It does look like American will finally resume its Tel Aviv service in a few months.

Of course most of the time if you want to book premium cabin seats to Israel you’re looking at Europe connections on Star Alliance carriers. However this is clearly the new best way to book El Al Israel flights.

To best find availability, use the ‘trick’ to get Flying Blue’s award calendar to come up. Search a one-way award and choose the very last date that they allow you to search; the last day of the month a year from now. That date is too far into the future to search and will pull up the monthly availability calendar that you can scroll through.

To be sure, ANA Mileage Club offers redemptions for fewer miles – but you need to book roundtrip to take advantage of this and finding El Al non-stop award space both ways is tough. Furthermore they’re only an American Express transfer partner among the big card programs, and their points expire if unused and can’t be extended. For most this will be how you book El Al.

More From View from the Wing