Flying Blue 50% promo awards, bookable until 31st May 2014.

Flying Blue's new monthly list of 25-50% discounted redemption tickets are available to book now until 31st May 2014. Last time round there were no business class discounts on offer, but for May there are Economy, Premium Economy and Business class routes on offer.

Most of the offers are once again underwhelming, but there is one particular route that caught my eye. Europe – Washington DC.

I value Flying Blue miles in the region of 0.6-0.7 Eurocents per mile, so for 62 500 miles you are looking at €375 plus another €500+ in tax making this journey around €875+… ‘fairly good' in my eyes. As an initial screening, ideally after promotions and taxes you should aim to hit under €1000 for Transatlantic business class fares so it passes that test.  Beyond that, especially if you live in the European zone, it becomes a lot harder, though in the past couple of years we have seen many promotions or normal rates easily capable of going under €800, such as Air Berlin and Aer Lingus' transatlantic redemptions.

Of course you may only want to use Washington DC as transit point, in which case you need to add on more charges for the extra segments.

The “Europe ” zone for Flying Blue is fairly large, encompassing three subdivisions. You could potentially maximise the value of this award and start in the Middle East and North Africa destinations which I have marked in bold.

Europe 1: Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Europe 2: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden

Europe 3: Albania, Algeria, Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Canary Islands, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Western Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine.

Please see the promotion page for a full list of destinations.