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For an outdated review of how to use BA points, see the below.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.

woah, you're right...forgot to check some of the most common interUS flights.

MPLS -> NYC

15000 Avios + $ 5.00

RT, now that's a steal. 10k cheaper, even knocks $5 off the tax which used to be $10...usually a $250-$500 flight too.

wow, MSP -> MIAMI 10k points, MIAMI -> SJO (costa rica) 7500k points

this just got really useful :)

The only comparable rates involve holding an airline's credit cards: US gives a 5K discount on flights booked with their Barclay's card, making domestic redemptions 20K, and for certain of their cardholders, Citi/AA has a quarterly list of cities where awards go for 17.5K.

One of my disagreements with folks who dismiss plans with terms such as "Adios" and "SkyPesos" is that, although BA and DL certainly have made some redemptions much more difficult and expensive, other choices could now be very good. It does take a little research and creativity (for instance, routing can become very important using Avios for domestic flights because of the distance and segment factors), but such dismissive terms don't encourage that kind of work.

Aspirational travel is a nice idea, but most folks who want to travel wouldn't mind using a stash of these miles to save themselves hundreds or possibly thousands on domestic airfares. It's hard for me to call those types of redemptions, "worthless."

Not just domestics, I mean 10k points for a oneway ticket MSP->Miami is awesome, and then another 7500 to SJO costa rica...with a $40~ tax, that's insane!

I bet I could get a few more South America flights for something similar.

I wish there was a low tax/surcharge to Europe though, still insanely high (1100~ RT in taxes from NYC to LON)

+1

The "Adios" conversion weakened longhaul partner award redemptions with BA miles, but also increased their value for other redemptions--such as TATL upgrads, BA metal awards, and shorthaul partner awards.

What is TATL?

Trans-Atlantic

example fairs for TATL?

That's one of the disadvantages of the Avios program, but it was true about BA before they made the change. BA's FF program had lost some of its value when fuel surcharges became a significant factor. You'll pay $600 or more in surcharges to Europe and that figure will crack a thousand for flights deep into Africa and Asia.

BA works much better as an upgrade program to business or first-class travel. Taking advantage of a sale in November, I bought a World Traveller Plus ticket IAD to LHR for a little under $1000. Then with 22,500 BA miles/Avios (the program changed after I did an upgrade for the trip to LHR, lowering the redemption cost from 12.5K to 10K when I was able to book an upgrade for the flight home), I upgraded this flight to their business class product. Since I paid for a ticket in WT+, I earned miles for flying at an enhanced rate as well, meaning I spent about $1100 and 10K of my miles to get a seat that would have probably cost around $2000.

For me, that's a worthwhile discount for a product I want. Others may not place that high a value on it. One more situation where Avios may have value for economy flights to Europe: where you end up needing a flight on short notice. $600 or so in surcharges isn't cheap but might save you money if you need to fly to Europe on a couple of weeks notice since the fuel surcharges do not go up for that redemption.

Did you read the post TPG wrote after the change / devaluation (linked to above)? He points to some good short / medium haul, last minute redemptions.

which post is that exactly?

The one I linked to.

As you should have discovered by now, there are members that would be very happy to help you, but you have to help us!

The question is what do you want to do? If the answer is gift cards, most of us will "not approve" as you will lose enormous, repeat enormous, value accomplishing this. Think like 200,000 miles being worth $400 whereas I could easily get a value of $7,000 +++ using them for Business Class travel. Yes, there are fees, but again, what do you want to do?

If the fees that BA charges for redemptions is the issue (and I don't quite understand that since they charged the same large fees prior to them becoming Avios), then as others have said, you can use them for domestic travel with decent value and much lower fees. But again, what do you want to do?

Your profile does not indicate where you live and you didn't indicate what you really want to accomplish. If you're not sure, that's fine - give it some thought and come back. But knowing where you live and where you want to go (for example, I live in South Dakota and want to go to NYC, Los Angeles and Hawaii) will make it very easy for us to give you some meaningful answers.

Oh, and by the way, most people here would SALIVATE over 200,000 Avios miles!;)