Ftusa

The post below is from a thread discussing transferring Amex MR to SPG then to US Airways miles.

Can anyone confirm whether there is a tax or fee charged for converting MR points to BA miles?

Thanks

sbjnyc

Doesn't look like there is any fee. The 0.0006/mile tax is only for US airlines.

Ftusa

Sorry, I'm still a bit confused.

Amex to SPG charges no fees or tax, correct?
SPG to US Airways, I think also charges no fees or tax?

mia

Correct, every company establishes their own policy. American Express only applies the excise tax recovery fee on transfers to USA based airlines. Diners Club collects it on all airline transfers. Starwood does not collect this fee on any transfer.

bitachu

sweet just did a 17k MR transfer..will get me enough to fly to west coast on aa or as

gv111

I have a AMEX MR CC issued in U.S. If I transfer MR from my AMEX account to a BA account based outside U.S., will it get 50% bonus during this promotion. Pls let me know if anybody has a recent experience. Thanks.

roki

Hey guys,

I don't currently have any BA points/CC relationships, but I've read that BA has excellent short distance award tickets, including LAX (my home airport) to Hawaii (25K RT + very low fees, which seems to be the best redemption rate around). Hawaii is on my to-do list, but likely not for 1 to 2 years. I'm sitting on ~80K MR points right now, and I'm wondering if it would be wise to transfer 35K (35Kx1.5 = ~52K) to have that balance available for that trip, or if it's so far off that it's not worth it to shuffle points this early?

I'm also hoping BA comes out with another good CC signup offer, at which point I'd jump on that as well. I may end up transfering my TY points over there too, if that rumor pans out on 4/1.

Thanks,

-roki

Yosef

You have to transfer in 1K increments, so thats really another 1K MR.

yojimbo

Roki,

If you know you will be going to Hawaii in the next year or so, i recommend that you take advantage of the 50% MR to Avios bonus.

Of course it is possible that a better deal will come along, but I believe the 50% bonus is quite attractive.......there have been 30% and 40% offers in the past few years.

gv111

Any input will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

mia

In principle you should not be able to transfer from a USA Membership Rewards account to a BAEC account domiciled in any other country. In practice has been reported to work, but not for everyone. If it works you will almost certainly receive the bonus. I would make a 1,000 point transfer to test. This seems safer than making a large transfer based on a report from someone else only to discover that your account is treated differently.

roki

Thanks for the reply, jimbo. I kind of doubt I'll make it there in the next 12 months, but I could see it towards the end of summer 2013. I didn't really have any intended use in mind for my MR points, I kind of threw the AMEX onto my last AoR because I noticed I had a 75K signup offer. Never had an AMEX before this. I like having options available, though, and most people agree the most valuable place to have MR/Chase points is in their respective programs, until you have specific plans for them. It seems wise, though, to take advantage of the 50% promo to get that ~50K BA balance. Plus, that would still leave another ~45K MR points to transfer as needed. Either way, I'm going to wait to see if the Citi TYP rumor turns out to be true (I work for Citi, and have heard nothing about that), because if so, I'll forget this idea and just move my absurd number of TYP into BA haha

Vapno

I was excited to see this. I have to close my card in May (Columbia MBA promo) and was disappointed about missing bonuses in the past year. Considering I fly mostly domestic transcons, the recent devaluation was 40%. That means 10% more value transferring now to BA than Delta. However, transferring to BA is very limiting. I cannot book AA flights with more than one connection on the BA site. (I'm assuming it can be done by phone, right?) And of course Skypesos are more useful for international (lacking the insane and untakeable taxes and fees). Also, I was blown away last month by how much availability Delta had WAS-Cali/LAS. I guess I can hold off until the first week of May for a Skypesos bonus.

GEXPO

Does anyone know if I can transfer MR points from one account to two BAEC accounts?

mia

If your Membership Rewards account is issued in the USA simply go to membershiprewards.com and "link" both BAEC accounts to it. You must use the correct names for each BAEC account. If both links are verified you will be able to make the transfers. (Do not call American Express. Do not Call BA. Officially you can only transfer to the accounts of those who are cardholders on the same American Express account, but in practice the system does not check.)

Additional discussion here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...f-account.html