Originally Posted by
Preacher7
Not true. There is an oft-overlooked conversion program that is better in Canada than the US: SPG. MR transfer rates are better in Canada. And earning rates are 20% better, because of the lower dollar. Plus referral rates are better. I've been pushing SPG as a very viable MR transfer partner for a while now. From SPG, you can transfer to many US and Global airlines. Admittedly, UA is not an SPG transfer part you'd want to use. But you could transfer to SQ and book UA flights w/o YQ that way. I did that last week for my son and future wife for their honeymoon to Hawaii. Worked like a charm!
Additionally, many of you followed my advice, I suspect, and took advantage of the now-defunct points.com transfer of Aeros indirectly to AA. Your AA accounts are well padded now with 160K+ AA miles if you maxed out 2014 and 2015 limits like each member of our churn team in Canada did.
SPG is on par with MR as far as I am concerned, because they're all going to the same place for me (BA Avios). SPG does have their 25% bonus PLUS I got an extra 10% transfer bonus from BA on a recent transfer on top of that, which was great! But, because I can earn more with my spending with the Amex Gold (2x on grocery, gas and drug - which is the majority of my spending), this is still my card of choice, with the SPG as my 'alternate' churn.
Like many out there, I'd have an even harder time figuring out what to do with AA points than I do with my Aeroplan points! We're likely going to Europe with them, but it takes a lot of planning to avoid flights with YQ!