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Transfer Membership Rewards points to which airline or hotel program? (2015 - 2021)

Old Jan 17, 2015, 11:52 am
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Last edit by: mia
Q. Where can I find a list of the airline and hotel transfer partners?

Partner airline and hotel programs, transfer ratios, and rules vary by the country where your American Express card is issued:

Australia: Airlines & Hotels

Canada: Airlines & Hotels

Germany: Airlines & Hotels

International Dollar & Euro Cards: Airlines, Hotels

New Zealand: Airlines & Hotels

UK: Airlines, Hotels

USA: Airlines & Hotels Transfer ratios explained below.


Q. What are the transfer ratios to USA airline and hotel partners?

For most frequent customer programs, 1,000 Membership Rewards points will equal 1,000 miles, points or credits and must be transferred in 1,000-point increments unless otherwise noted.

In the USA version of Membership Rewards the exceptions are:
El AL Israel Airlines: 1,000 points = 20 Matmid points
Hilton: 1,000 points = 2,000 Honors points (as of 1/11/2018)
JetBlue Airways: 250 points = 200 JetBlue TrueBlue points
(The Canadian transfer ratios are listed directly on the Canadian site.)


Q: After I transfer, when will my miles expire at that airline/hotel program? Is there anything I can do to avoid expiration there?

The Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire wiki lists all of the Amex USA airline/hotel transfer partners and their respective expiration policies.


Q. How long does it typically take to compete a transfer?

MR USA airline and hotel partner transfer times.


Q. How can I use Membership Rewards points to travel on American Airlines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines or other carriers which are not transfer partners?

Membership Rewards (USA) points can be transferred to three or more frequent flyer programs in each of the international alliances. Any program can arrange award travel on flights operated by all members of the same alliance. Points cannot be transferred from one frequent flyer program to another, instead you redeem for a partner award. The number of miles required is determined by the program through which you redeem, not by the airline operating the flights. Programs in the same alliance will require different amounts of miles, and different co-payments, for the same flights. Do not transfer until you understand the full cost of the flights you need. Do not transfer until you have confirmed availability for your specific dates and route.

To travel on American Airlines or any other OneWorld carrier redeem through:
  • Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific)
  • British Airways
  • Iberia Airlines
  • Qantas Airways

American also has partnership outside OneWorld with:
  • Etihad


To travel on Delta Air Lines or any other SkyTeam carrier redeem through:
  • Delta Air Lines (DL permits one-way awards as of 01 JAN 2015, however trips originating in Europe carry additional surcharges; Delta also imposes surcharges on trips using some partner airlines such as China Eastern or China Southern, but notably not on trips involving its European partners (as long as the trip originates outside Europe) or Virgin Australia.)
  • AeroMexico
  • Alitalia
  • FlyingBlue (Air France, KLM, Air Europa, Kenya Airways, Aircalin and Tarom.)

To travel on United Airlines or any other Star Alliance carrier redeem through:
  • Aeroplan (Air Canada) No fuel surcharge on flights operated by UA and many other airlines. Read current list HERE. See also transatlantic strategy discussion HERE. Read about changes to redemption charts in December 2015 HERE.
  • All Nippon Airways. Read about ANA fuel surcharges HERE. Read about changes to partner redemption charts in April 2015 HERE.
  • Avianca Airlines
  • Singapore Airlines. Read HERE
    Read about Singapore Airlines' reciprocal mile conversion arrangement with Virgin Australia HERE.

To travel on Alaska Airlines redeem through:


Q. Rather than transferring now, can I preserve my Membership Rewards USA points balance without paying any annual fee?

Apply for an American Express Everyday card, and link it to the same Membership Rewards account. You may then close the other cards.
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Transfer Membership Rewards points to which airline or hotel program? (2015 - 2021)

Old Jan 10, 2015, 4:37 pm
  #16  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, MLife Gold, Marriott Gold, HHonors Gold, Caesars Diamond, Amex Plat
Posts: 5,891
Originally Posted by colerc
Try Korean, using Delta miles from MR and/or KE miles from UR if necessary. I see tons of dates where JFK-ICN-CGK has 5x business class seats available using the new Delta award calendar. Do a 5-week flexible dates search using one-way searches to find availability on specific dates (look for 70K options, which is the price of a one-way US-Asia using Delta miles), and then once you find dates that work put them together in a roundtrip search. DPS has fewer options than CGK but there are still a few. The connection in ICN is annoyingly long (10 hours), but given how few other options you are likely to have for this trip, I'd say go for it.

Note that other KE routes from the US are going to be much harder to find 5x seats; it's the tons of business class seats on the A380 from JFK that makes the awards so easy to find on that route. ICN-LAX and ICN-ATL also have a decent amount of 5x days available but I don't see very many for ORD, though if you book far enough in advance you can find space to include a Delta domestic leg to your departing KE port at no additional cost.

You may also be able to find space on Garuda Indonesia's flights from ICN to CGK or DPS, though you would have to call for that, it doesn't display on Delta's website, so I have no idea if they would be likely to have 5 seats on the same flight, but I suspect they might.

You would need 140K * 5 or 700K roundtrip to book 5 tickets using Delta miles. Looks like you have that between Delta and MR.
Excellent advice. I will pop over to KE to see what I can find. I did find PLENTY on DL search engine, so felt more hopeful. I can do two one ways to create open jaw, but I wish I could do a stopover (DL no longer allows them) so I wouldn't have to fork out more for "interior" flights.

I'd actually like the A380 JFK route b/c that's such a fun airplane. We flew in AF's 380 from CDG-JNB last year. Incredible! One thing that's frustrating is that on ANA and various others, if there's no business space for a 2 flight segment, then it only offers economy. I'd be happy to do econ to JFK, then biz on out, but the search engines are difficult. ANA won't let me portion out within US b/c it reads the domestic stops as stopovers.

I do have enough for the 700k if I combine MR and DL. Would prefer to do 85k x5 on ANA and use points for interior flights, but I'll have to call in to ANA to see what they can come up with. 425k sounds so much better! And I can do a PVG stopover.

Thanks for the advice!
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Old Jan 10, 2015, 5:21 pm
  #17  
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Join Date: Aug 2005
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Originally Posted by Stgermainparis
Excellent advice. I will pop over to KE to see what I can find. I did find PLENTY on DL search engine, so felt more hopeful. I can do two one ways to create open jaw, but I wish I could do a stopover (DL no longer allows them) so I wouldn't have to fork out more for "interior" flights.

I'd actually like the A380 JFK route b/c that's such a fun airplane. We flew in AF's 380 from CDG-JNB last year. Incredible! One thing that's frustrating is that on ANA and various others, if there's no business space for a 2 flight segment, then it only offers economy. I'd be happy to do econ to JFK, then biz on out, but the search engines are difficult. ANA won't let me portion out within US b/c it reads the domestic stops as stopovers.

I do have enough for the 700k if I combine MR and DL. Would prefer to do 85k x5 on ANA and use points for interior flights, but I'll have to call in to ANA to see what they can come up with. 425k sounds so much better! And I can do a PVG stopover.

Thanks for the advice!
Given the difficulty of 5x longhaul business class, I'd say this is a "beggars can't be choosers" situation, unfortunately.

One thing to keep in mind, Delta does now allow one-way awards, so if you can find something else good in one direction, you could pair it with a Delta award on KE in the other direction. Note that Delta charges fuel surcharges on KE on awards originating outside the US, but not on awards originating in the US, so if you were going to do a DL award only in one direction, it would be best to do it on the outbound. Similarly if you were going to do a multi-hop award using DL miles, best to book it as a single multi-city award originating in the US, not as multiple one-ways. (On other Asian partners like China Southern and China Eastern, and probably also Garuda Indonesia and Vietnam though I'm not sure on those, Delta charges fuel surcharges regardless of origination point. So if your middle segment is into or out of PVG on China Eastern, it won't matter whether you book it independently or not.)

Depending how many stops you're considering, it may not be *too* painful to do a multi-city Delta award. I believe it should just be 20K miles for a one-way business class Asia-Asia award, so US-Asia-Second Asia-US in business class should be doable all for 160K. Not great, but again, not so many choices out there for 5x.

One other place where 5x business class seats are routinely available is VS, on JFK-LHR in particular. Delta's award engine isn't likely to present you with a JFK-LHR-PVG routing, but you could search segment-by-segment, and if you find something then you could book it with ANA miles if that proves to be cheaper miles-wise. Though, unlike DL, ANA charges fuel surcharges on VS, which tend to be very high ($1000 US-London alone), and you would probably end up with an awkward overnight layover somewhere along the way using VS.

BTW, KE's A380 is much better than AF's. Much better business class seats (fully flat instead of angled flat), much more spacious/open cabin, and awesome lounge area at the back of the upper deck. If you liked the AF A380 you'll love KE's.
bgriff is offline  
Old Jan 10, 2015, 8:41 pm
  #18  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, MLife Gold, Marriott Gold, HHonors Gold, Caesars Diamond, Amex Plat
Posts: 5,891
Originally Posted by colerc
Given the difficulty of 5x longhaul business class, I'd say this is a "beggars can't be choosers" situation, unfortunately.

One thing to keep in mind, Delta does now allow one-way awards, so if you can find something else good in one direction, you could pair it with a Delta award on KE in the other direction. Note that Delta charges fuel surcharges on KE on awards originating outside the US, but not on awards originating in the US, so if you were going to do a DL award only in one direction, it would be best to do it on the outbound. Similarly if you were going to do a multi-hop award using DL miles, best to book it as a single multi-city award originating in the US, not as multiple one-ways. (On other Asian partners like China Southern and China Eastern, and probably also Garuda Indonesia and Vietnam though I'm not sure on those, Delta charges fuel surcharges regardless of origination point. So if your middle segment is into or out of PVG on China Eastern, it won't matter whether you book it independently or not.)

Depending how many stops you're considering, it may not be *too* painful to do a multi-city Delta award. I believe it should just be 20K miles for a one-way business class Asia-Asia award, so US-Asia-Second Asia-US in business class should be doable all for 160K. Not great, but again, not so many choices out there for 5x.

One other place where 5x business class seats are routinely available is VS, on JFK-LHR in particular. Delta's award engine isn't likely to present you with a JFK-LHR-PVG routing, but you could search segment-by-segment, and if you find something then you could book it with ANA miles if that proves to be cheaper miles-wise. Though, unlike DL, ANA charges fuel surcharges on VS, which tend to be very high ($1000 US-London alone), and you would probably end up with an awkward overnight layover somewhere along the way using VS.

BTW, KE's A380 is much better than AF's. Much better business class seats (fully flat instead of angled flat), much more spacious/open cabin, and awesome lounge area at the back of the upper deck. If you liked the AF A380 you'll love KE's.
Wow. Thank you. I've looked at the DL now in both directions as one ways and as open jaw RTs and they come out with nominal fees (taxes around $80 for each ticket...didn't see fuel charges or anything higher than $80 even on the one ways as inbound). I think, given the low fees and the ease of booking 5x without any positioning flights, this is going to be my best bet. We didn't particularly need to do a stopover in Europe, but if I get a 14 hour layover in AMS or CDG or INC for that matter (and I'm seeing a few of these: 6 AM-10 PM layover), then why not take a spin around the city while we wait for our next flight. My boys would love to see AMS, esp (been to CDG). So that might be worth it right there. I'm SO SO bummed DL did away with stopovers b/c I would've liked to do our inbound/outbound that way with stopovers in Asia (which is why I liked the ANA routing).

The internal flights from NRT to CGK or SIN are running 20k econ and 40k biz on DL. I may just do econ for those b/c they are during the day and so not as great a need for biz, particularly with the kids. Or put the 2 teenagers in econ to save some points. Anyway, I'm feeling much more optimistic about our chances of nailing down flights that aren't nuts and that don't cost a fortune.

I did know that about the AF 380 (no lie flat) but I was so enthralled by the aircraft that I didn't care. It was awesome.
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Old Jan 11, 2015, 8:44 pm
  #19  
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 11
Hey, I have about 225,000 amex reward points. Any advice on what i should do with them would be greatly appreciated! In the past i just rolled them over to my aeroplan account but kind of over aeroplan. Should I just redeem them for statement travel credits at $10 for every 1000 points? Again, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
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Old Jan 12, 2015, 3:20 am
  #20  
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Originally Posted by lawschw
Hey, I have about 225,000 amex reward points. Any advice on what i should do with them would be greatly appreciated! In the past i just rolled them over to my aeroplan account but kind of over aeroplan. Should I just redeem them for statement travel credits at $10 for every 1000 points? Again, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
First Class Suite Saver Award on Singapore Air
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Old Jan 12, 2015, 9:00 am
  #21  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, MLife Gold, Marriott Gold, HHonors Gold, Caesars Diamond, Amex Plat
Posts: 5,891
Originally Posted by lawschw
Hey, I have about 225,000 amex reward points. Any advice on what i should do with them would be greatly appreciated! In the past i just rolled them over to my aeroplan account but kind of over aeroplan. Should I just redeem them for statement travel credits at $10 for every 1000 points? Again, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Good grief don't redeem them for statement credit! You get so little value out of them. Honestly, just let them sit there until you want to take a trip or there is a transfer bonus. Right now there's a British Airways transfer bonus for avios. Look into that if you really want them out of your MR account. But I'd just sit on it for now. With 15k more points, you could get 4x RT tix to Europe in econ on Delta.
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Old Jan 12, 2015, 9:10 am
  #22  
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 11
Originally Posted by Stgermainparis
Good grief don't redeem them for statement credit! You get so little value out of them. Honestly, just let them sit there until you want to take a trip or there is a transfer bonus. Right now there's a British Airways transfer bonus for avios. Look into that if you really want them out of your MR account. But I'd just sit on it for now. With 15k more points, you could get 4x RT tix to Europe in econ on Delta.
Yeah I hear what you are saying, but aren't there usually deals to be found in economy on a regular basis for $550-600 return to Europe?
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Old Jan 12, 2015, 12:22 pm
  #23  
mia
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Originally Posted by lawschw
Hey, I have about 225,000 amex reward points. Any advice on what i should do with them would be greatly appreciated! In the past i just rolled them over to my aeroplan account...
In which country is your American Express card issued? If in Canada, the BA promotion does not apply and Singapore Airlines is not a transfer partner.
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Old Jan 12, 2015, 2:04 pm
  #24  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
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Posts: 5,891
Originally Posted by lawschw
Yeah I hear what you are saying, but aren't there usually deals to be found in economy on a regular basis for $550-600 return to Europe?
That depends on departure city and date of travel. Wait until there is somewhere you want to go. Today I've been exploring Galapagos trip. You've got to be creative.
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Old Jan 12, 2015, 5:38 pm
  #25  
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 11
Originally Posted by mia
In which country is your American Express card issued? If in Canada, the BA promotion does not apply and Singapore Airlines is not a transfer partner.
It was issued in Canada
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Old Jan 13, 2015, 6:26 am
  #26  
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Originally Posted by lawschw
Hey, I have about 225,000 amex reward points. Any advice on what i should do with them would be greatly appreciated! In the past i just rolled them over to my aeroplan account but kind of over aeroplan. Should I just redeem them for statement travel credits at $10 for every 1000 points? Again, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
IMO, one of the best deals for Canadians is to exchange them into BA points and use them for short-haul rewards on AA. You don't say where you're located, but as an example, one-way Toronto to NYC or Chicago is 4,500 miles plus $57 in economy, 9,000 miles + $57 in business class.

You might also look at long-haul redemptions. BA has similar fees to Aeroplan, but they have a First class cabin which is much nicer than Air Canada's business class.
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Old Jan 13, 2015, 9:52 am
  #27  
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: YVR
Programs: Aeroplan, British Airways, Alaska
Posts: 249
Originally Posted by Tax Dude
IMO, one of the best deals for Canadians is to exchange them into BA points and use them for short-haul rewards on AA. You don't say where you're located, but as an example, one-way Toronto to NYC or Chicago is 4,500 miles plus $57 in economy, 9,000 miles + $57 in business class.

You might also look at long-haul redemptions. BA has similar fees to Aeroplan, but they have a First class cabin which is much nicer than Air Canada's business class.
Agreed. And if you are on the west coast there are some good short haul economy redemptions. YVR to SEA,PDX and LAX. Also to Hawaii is 12,500 each way. YVR to JFK in business or first on Cathay is also a great redemption.

Ever since I figured out the avios I haven't transferred any member rewards to Aeroscam.
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Old Jan 13, 2015, 3:04 pm
  #28  
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 33
I base in Boston and am thinking about which airline or program I should transfer my MT points into.

There are about 800k points in my Amex account.
In the beginning, I want to transfer to BA and take advantage of 40% more bonus because avios can be reedemed for CX tickets.

My friend said why not I transfer to US airways which only costs 120,000 miles for a round trip ticket in first class on CX.
But US Airway is not a transfer program partner with Amex.
I know I can transfer to Asia Miles but it costs 145,000 miles in business class on CX.

The choices of departuring from Boston are less than New York.

Is there any suggestion?

Last edited by terresawang; Jan 13, 2015 at 8:07 pm
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Old Jan 13, 2015, 3:14 pm
  #29  
mia
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Originally Posted by terresawang
... because avios can be reedemed for CX tickets....
What are your destinations?
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Old Jan 13, 2015, 8:06 pm
  #30  
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 33
Originally Posted by mia
What are your destinations?
Sorry I forget to mention the destination. It's Taipei.

Why I'm considering to fly with Cathay Pacific is because I just need to transfer one time in HK. Flying with Delta need to transfer twice.
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