reward points exchange programs?
 

Do any exist, that are pretty decent? I have like 200k avios (used to be british airways) points i'd like to exchange for ultimaterewards or something.

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Airlines created miles or points programs to encourage loyalty. The programs would be irrelevant if they permitted transfers to their competitors.

British Airways Avios points cannot be transferred to any other program.

Many airlines allow transfers, with restrictions, through points.com. This does not mean that miles or points can be transferred between every combination of programs mentioned on their website. When transfers are permitted it is typical to lose 80% of the value.

https://www.points.com/

wow, so if I was to transfer 200k, i'd lose 180k~, ooft.

What do you want from your miles / points? You could ask the folks in the BA forum for help. You can also use BA points to redeem for AA and other OneWorld partners.

Where/how can I redeem for AA/OneWorld?

I was thinking of ultimate rewards would be better, get some tangible stuff, or gift cards.

Airline miles are best used for airline redemptions. There just aren't many other options for exchange. The Ultimate Rewards program is great if you want to get started with them too.

For an outdated review of how to use BA points, see the below. The basics are the same but the good values for long-distance redemptions are gone, since all Avios point redemptions are based on distance traveled.

http://thepointsguy.com/2011/11/maxi...ransfer-bonus/


http://thepointsguy.com/2011/11/brit...an-i-expected/

There is a plethora of information out there to help you with point/mile redemptions... that's what this whole forum community is about. There are also travel blogs like "The Points Guy", "Frugal Travel Guy", "Loyalty Traveler", "View From The Wing", the list goes on... you'll have to put in some time to research these.

Alternatively, and definitely not to be abused, you can arrange travel for a "friend". What that "friend" does to return the favor is up to you guys. *hint*

I actually read that a few weeks ago, pretty informative. Pretty useless now though, avios is a bit difference cost wise in points.

Redeeming miles for airline flights are more tangible than gift cards, by a long stretch.

Avios points are devalued vs. legacy BA EC points, but they still have some value.

Yeah, I was sad when they converted them to avios. The fees/taxes are still really high, it's cheaper to just use them for domestic flights.

And, depending on the route, can be very valuable for that purpose. Best values come from nonstops to AA hubs. For instance, it takes 25K AA miles for me to fly from my home airport, ORF, to JFK. Money cost without using miles, about $225. I only need 9K Avios to make a booking through BA. In other words, for a little more than the miles I need to fly on AA, I can fly myself and my two sisters on the same plane using Avios.

What is only 9k?

He only needs 9000 Avios points vs. 25,000 on American Airlines for a round-trip ticket. It's distance-based-- for example, I can also fly to New York (JFK) from Pittsburgh on 9000 Avios points roundtrip. In this way, the Executive Club -> Avios switch benefited a lot of people.

Edit: My plan to burn my Avios points (balance currently sits at around 110,000) is to buy 2 RT Y tickets to Dublin on Aer Lingus via JFK. By my estimate, it should come to 98k or plus about $250 per ticket in fees. I just wish I could have gotten in on the lucrative South America trips people were taking with BA points.

Where's your home airport and do you have any upcoming travel plans? I'm sure the experts here could figure out a good way to burn your points. :)

That is interesting, I never seen fares below 25k points, how do I search these? Just normally?

Find SAAver fares (the 25k round trip ones) on AA.com then use the award calculator to see how many points are required for each segment of the flight. For example, if I wanted to go to BOS from PIT, since there's no direct AA flight, I'd have to calculate the cost of PIT-JFK and JFK-BOS. That one would be 18k RT for me.

Then you'd call up BA to book these segment by segment.