gringo09

I only fly about once every 5 years. In the next year or so, I would like to fly to either Europe or Chile from Charlotte or Atlanta. I have approx 250k AMEX MR points. BA is currently offering a 40% transfer bonus so I'm strongly considering taking advantage of that. However, it seems that Delta offers more flexibility when it come to the route I want to fly. My question is this: Is it a better value to transfer MR points to Delta or British Airways if I want to fly to either Chile or Europe from the Southeastern US?? Please help. Thanks!

ethernal

Why not look at the routes in question and decide based on redemption options? Transfers to both BA and Delta are nearly instant so you can transfer points once you've found a flight you like.

In general, SkyMiles are not viewed as a very valuable Amex transfer option. But depending on the route it may still be a good value for you in some instances.

hi55us

You gotta calculate out the cents per point. For Y, I like to get 2 cents per point or more, which has been happening fairly frequently on domestic iternaries. For J, I would look for 3cpp or more, but not at an overall price of say 120k skymiles.

You can calculate cpp by getting the cash price, less any fuel surcharges, divided by the # of points. I think you'll find Avios have extremely high surcharges on most itineraries to Europe.

guv1976

Correct. But $0 surcharges when traveling within the Americas on AA/LA.

hotturnip

I'm not sure how useful the Avios miles would be in getting you to Chile. What's OneWorld's Latin-American partner? Have you checked any specific routings? I guess it would be AA through MIA. Good luck getting an award seat on AA.

To Europe, yes, huge surcharges on BA. On the other hand, probably easier to find low-mileage award seats. DL is very stingy with low-mileage Biz award seats to Europe. VERY stingy. They've been known to charge many 100s of 1000s of miles.

So, to answer your question, transferring MR points into Skymiles is a good value IF DL has the award ticket you want. Otherwise, you're correct--Avios is a better deal, particularly with the bonus promotion. I've used Avios with success in the past for domestic AA travel, but as AA's award capacity has dried up, that's become increasingly rare. Still, I went ahead and transferred a bunch of points during this current promo.

Beltway2A

You may want to familiarize yourself with OneWorld member LATAM, headquartered in Santiago, Chile. No other alliance has remotely as many routes or partners as OW to Chile, and much of South America.

OneWorld to Europe is another (sad) story entirely.

Kacee

It's impossible to answer this question in the abstract. Don't transfer without a specific redemption in mind. Your MR will transfer to both DL and BA instantly, so there's no reason at all to transfer until you are ready to book.

I've transferred MR to DL several times, for awards on KE and CI, and got very good value every time. But I would never do it unless I was considering a specific redemption that showed available on the DL website.

MarkP24

Probably the best policy for both Delta and BA. No reason to speculatively transfer.

luv2ctheworld

IMO, the short version is DL/Sky Team to Europe and AA/One World to South/Latin America.

The caveat is that Skymiles is of lower value on their own metal usually due to the high number of miles required on their own flights, while partner airlines have been of good value when available. I have found Skymiles to be great for Asia on KE, CZ, and CI (while similar routes on DL would be potentially 2x as much miles needed).

On AA/One World, they limit their saver awards as well, so partner awards like LAN is good to South America But to Europe you'll mainly be stuck flying AA/BA/IB, and they charge hefty fuel surcharges (I saw $600+ in fees for BA Club World once doing an award trip search). You could try to use Finnair to Europe but limited routing options.

As others have said it is best to know where and when you want to go first and commit to that before acquiring the miles. You'll have a much better idea of what will be available/useful.

guv1976

MR points can also be converted to Iberia Plus Avios. IB has some surcharges on redemptions on IB metal, but they are much more reasonable than what BA charges.

CALlegacy

hotturnip

To my knowledge, there hasn't been a DL transfer bonus in YEARS. I'd say the last one I remember was at least 5 years back.

Kacee

Even with transfer bonus, I would not transfer to BA without a specific redemption in mind. The program has increasingly few sweet spots. I've got 35k orphaned Avios from cancelled CX awards, and finding them very difficult to burn.

NoStressHere

BIG POINT HERE - the OP travels once very 5 years. What most folks do here is totally different.

So, I would suggest the OP use them sooner than later. The drop in value over multiple years can be serious.

Find flights that are AVAILABLE and then make your decision. All other input may be of marginal use. NOBODY can help until you know what the options are.

For example: a 40% bonus on flights that cost twice as much is not a good deal.

SamOF

The advice you're getting is generally good. BUT:

If you're sure you want to use your miles to go to Chile and you're at all flexible on dates, I might transfer speculatively to BA given the bonus. The Miami to Santiago flight on LAN is a very good deal using BA miles, and a fantastic deal when you consider the 40% bonus. Availability isn't amazing but it's good.

Then, once you're in Chile, BA miles are a great deal for domestic LAN flights, ranging from 4500-7500 for most segments.