Take today’s 40% off promotion as an example: buy 24,000 miles or more and get 40% off

Cost comparison

  • Priced in US dollars, 24,000 miles cost $439.2
  • Change the little globe in the top-right corner to a eurozone country and price in euros, and 24,000 miles cost €360

Today’s euro–US dollar rate is 1.09, so 360 × 1.09 / 439.2 ≈ 89.3%

This little trick can save us about another 10%

📚 Recap

Bought in US dollars, the unpromoted cost is 3.05 cpp USD; bought in euros, the unpromoted cost is 2.5 cpp EUR.

The breakeven is 1.22, so you only need to look at the euro–US dollar rate:

  • If it is above 1.22, buying in US dollars is cheaper
  • If it is below 1.22, buying in euros is cheaper

How to switch to euro billing

Go to the Flying Blue website 🔗, make sure the globe in the top-right corner is set to France and the site is in English, then click save settings

Keep scrolling down on this page and you will find a Buy Miles entry. After you go in, make sure the URL shows the country code

https://www.flyingblue.com/en/mileshub/buy?country=FR

Further reading

  • You will be paying in both US dollars and euros, so you need a card with no foreign-transaction fee and no currency-conversion fee. US cards have plenty of options; if you are limited to Canadian cards, see this post

🇨🇦 Canadian credit cards with no FX conversion fee and no foreign-transaction fee

  • Flying Blue miles explained, and other notes

China Airlines CI releases a large number of business-class award seats both ways on YVR–TPE (released again on Dec. 31)