Or at least not until you have a specific itinerary in mind, know confirmed space is available, and are ready to actually book your tickets!
In the past two days we’ve literally had over a dozen people contact our award booking service with some variation of “I just transferred all my Membership Rewards/Ultimate Rewards points to ____ and I think that was maybe a mistake?”
And while it’s not a mistake, it certainly makes things more complicated.
Be strategic about points transfers to secure the best airline products
Why accrue transferable points to begin with?
As I mentioned the other day, if you’re looking at travel to a particular destination there are often dozens of potential airline programs for you to redeem miles through. And the beauty of a transferable points currency (and why those points are so much more valuable to me) is because of that flexibility.
It’s awesome how interconnected airlines have become over the past 15 (or so) years. Prior to that there were no global airline alliances, and you could redeem your miles for travel on the carrier with which you were banking miles, and in some cases a handful of partners.
Nowadays if you have a transferable points currency you can redeem miles for just about any airline in the world.
The main flexible points currencies are American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou® points.
Being able to transfer points to different programs is valuable for a few reasons, in my opinion.
Transferable points currencies are valuable for hedging against devaluations
A transferable points currency is akin to investing your money vs. storing it under your mattress. Yes, the value of transferable points currencies can fluctuate. But that’s a good thing.
Sometimes they lose partners or their partner programs devalue, while other times they add more transfer partners or their partner programs open up new redemption opportunities. Most importantly though, if an airline-specific program makes major changes to their award chart you’re insulated a bit by having your points in a flexible currency that you can choose to transfer to another program instead.
Transferable points currencies often have overlapping transfer partners
This is a good thing, because it means you can combine points from multiple flexible points programs into one airline currency when you’re ready to redeem your miles.
Just look at all the potential transfer partners here:
American Express Membership Rewards Transfer Partners
American Express® Gold Card
The Platinum Card® from American Express
The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express
Airline Partners | Hotel Partners |
|---|---|
Aeromexico Club Premier | |
Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles | |
Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partners
Chase Sapphire Reserve®
Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
Airline Partners | Hotel Partners |
|---|---|
IHG One Rewards | |
United MileagePlus | |
Premier Citi ThankYou Transfer Partners
Airline Partners | Hotel Partners |
|---|---|
Aeromexico Club Premier | |
Transfers are typically fast
American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers are rather quick, and even instant in many cases. Citi transfers can potentially take a few weeks, depending on the program you’re transferring to, but I still wouldn’t make speculative transfers.
When you do transfer points, have a plan
Even if you are interested in a transfer partner that takes more time (say to Singapore KrisFlyer), you can still be strategic about your transfer:
- Find a route with award space that works for you
- Find a second, back-up option you’re comfortable with in case the first routing is gone by the time the points transfer
- Confirm your understanding of routing rules and fuel surcharges so you’re not surprised at the time of ticketing
- Hold the award, whenever possible
- Pay close attention, so you can book as soon as the miles have posted
Bottom line
Making speculative transfers is risky, and can cause you to miss out on opportunities to redeem your miles. One couple that contacted us this week would have been able to take advantage of perfect space in Singapore Airlines business class — except they’d already transferred all their Membership Rewards points to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.
Anyway, just something on my mind this week, so thought I’d share a reminder!
Don't forget Amex MR points are transferable to Emirates as well.
Remember that if you move Starwood points to United, you only get half the miles of moving to another airline.
Yawn....just another post in order to push more affiliate credit card links.
This is a great post. I was under the impression that hoarding miles in one account would be a good idea, but you gave me a better idea. Thanks Lucky.
Does this make Chase Ultimate Rewards points more valuable than AMEX SPG points because of the ease of transfer even though the earnings rates are not as good?
@ WhatWdJamesDo -- Yes and no. For instant transfers they definitely are, but at the end of the day you essentially earn 1.25 miles per Starpoint when transferring in the right increments, so Starpoints can be worth more. And they can also be useful for hotel redemptions.
This is a great post. I just almost experienced this issue. I called AmEx Membership Rewards to have them process a payment for me and push through the Rewards points immediately, so I could use them to book a FlyingBlue Promo that was ending that day. AmEx MR rep very nice, said she'd call me at 4:00 pm so I could have Flying Blue on other line and I'd know flight availability was there. (Rewards...
This is a great post. I just almost experienced this issue. I called AmEx Membership Rewards to have them process a payment for me and push through the Rewards points immediately, so I could use them to book a FlyingBlue Promo that was ending that day. AmEx MR rep very nice, said she'd call me at 4:00 pm so I could have Flying Blue on other line and I'd know flight availability was there. (Rewards rep didn't call back, but that wasn't the main problem; she misunderstood and pushed through points but not payment (I didn't know they could do that.). So I thought AmEx bill was paid ahead of time, but it wasn't, as I found out night before last, and they froze my card, although I've been a cardholder since 1976 and I had Membership Rewards pulling the tape of the call.)
But, Flying Blue discontinued promo early on last day, despite documented problems on their web site (cityname vs citycode pulled diff results). Wouldn't book it when I called, said I had to do so online, but I couldn't. Very poor customer service from Flying Blue (I sent them screenshots, they sent me form letter, I countered points in form letter, they sent me SAME form letter). KLM and Air France and Air France US Twitter accounts tried to help, told me that half of promo seats were taken, so half were still available! but they ended promo early. (And they weren't aware that Membership Rewards transfer can go through quickly.)
I was REALLY glad I hadn't transferred the Rewards points, because I'd have been out of luck. (By the way, AmEx customer service doesn't know Membership Rewards can process current payment.)
So, another lesson is, take advantage of Flying Blue Promo offer BEFORE last day. I've seen post that indicated same thing happened to him on last day. (It was still before end of day on French or Holland time, by the way.)
I did deal with one Membership Rewards rep who was fantastic, but couldn't really fix things. I wasted a day and a half on this and was worse off than when I had started.
Great post, wish I knew this when I started as it still haunts me that I transferred AMEX MR into Continental with Hawaii in mind and redeemed for merchandise (eek!) and then life got in the way and mergers happen, now I have those miles in United and have paid to keep them alive as I've never flown United from PHL. A very costly error on my part - lesson learned.
Basically, if you do -any- kind of manufactured spending with Chase, even the occasional gift card, you should think about not heeding this advice. Flyertalk is littered with threads where people have had their UR points frozen and seized by Chase. I transfer out all of my UR points every statement period.
Really helpful one here. Thanks. And great tip, @KevininRI. I'm going to do that this weekend.
It might be worth considering the risk of banks (especially Chase) shutting down your accounts and seizing all of your transferable miles in the process. Once they are transferred out out, they are safe. I like to periodically diminish the balance to likely destinations (e.g. UR -> United) to keep the balance large enough so I have options, but not so large that I'd be devastated if they disappeared.
While most transfers are instant, with AMEX at least, if you're even just thinking about transferring points to an airline frequent flyer program, you should "link" your Membership Rewards account with that program. The linking process itself can take a day or two sometimes, but once they're linked you should be able to make almost instant transfers.
You have to do more postings like this one. Many bloggers are quite reckless in their pursuit of referral fees by pushing people to credit card offers without explaining how to properly use the miles earned. I know it might hurt your award booking service to explain the ins and outs of the most efficient ways to use miles, but never doubt how lazy people are when it comes to looking for reward flights!