A quick guide to transferable points programs

In our opinion, transferable points programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards are the most valuable points (or “miles”) to accumulate. These points can often be used to book discounted travel and, even better, can be strategically transferred to airline and hotel programs when valuable awards are available.

Each of the programs discussed here allow you to transfer points to multiple airline and hotel programs at a fair exchange rate (usually 1 to 1). This “transfer-ability” then gives you the ability to book valuable travel awards opportunistically.

Suppose you’re finally ready to book that dream trip to Asia and you find (*gasp*) that Delta has the best award availability, but you don’t have a big stash of Delta miles. That’s not a problem if you do have a big stash of Amex Membership Rewards points since Amex points transfer 1 to 1 to Delta SkyMiles. Even better, you may be able to book the same flights for significantly fewer miles by booking through one of Delta’s partners, like Air France or Virgin Atlantic, whose miles are available through multiple transferable points programs.

It can be difficult to wrap your head around these transferable points programs, given the plethora of rewards programs and award charts that are involved; not to mention the varying rules for point transfers, pooling and expiration.

This post is a brief, big picture, “toe-dipping” guide to the primary transferable points currencies that exist today.

Earning transferable points

Transferable points are primarily earned through credit cards. Points can be earned with credit card welcome offers, credit card spend, through promotions such as “refer a friend” and via shopping with various merchants.

Please see our complete guides to each program for full details about how to earn points.

Complete guides to transferable points programs

If you want to dive deeper into any of the individual programs discussed in this post, check out the guides below:

• Amex Membership Rewards Complete Guide
• Bilt Rewards Complete Guide
• Capital One “Miles” Complete Guide
• Chase Ultimate Rewards Complete Guide
• Citi ThankYou Rewards Complete Guide
• Wells Fargo Rewards (coming soon)

Transfer ratios of each points program

• Amex Membership Rewards: Points transfer to most partners 1 to 1. The exceptions are Aeromexico (1:1.6), Hilton Honors (1:2) and JetBlue (1:0.8). Amex offers more frequent transfer bonuses than any other transferable program, averaging ~20 per year.
• Bilt Rewards: Points transfer to most partners 1 to 1, the one exception being Marriott Bonvoy, where you can get a 5,000 point bonus by making a 20,000 points transfer. Bilt offers around 5-6 transfer bonuses per year, often at excellent value.
• Capital One “Miles”: Points transfer to most partners is at a 1 to 1 ratio, with two exceptions: EVA Air (1:0.75) and Accor Live Limitless (2:1). Capital One averages around 7-8 transfer bonuses per year that improve the transfer ratio.
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: Points transfer to all airline and hotel partners at a 1 to 1 ratio. Chase averages 8-10 transfer bonuses per year, although Hyatt is never one of them.
• Citi ThankYou Rewards: Points transfer to most partners at a 1 to 1 ratio. Exceptions include: Accor Live Limitless (2:1), Choice Privileges (1:2) and Leader’s Club (5:1). Citi regularly offers transfer bonuses, averaging ~10/year.
• Wells Fargo Rewards: Points transfer to most partners at a 1 to 1 ratio, except for Choice Privileges (1:2). So far, Wells has never offered a transfer bonus to any of its partners.

Transfer bonuses

Transferable points programs often run promotions where they’ll offer more airline miles or hotel points than usual when transferring your points. For example, it’s common to see 25% transfer bonuses to Flying Blue (the loyalty program shared by Air France & KLM). When a 25% transfer bonus promotion is available, it means that you’ll get an extra 25% Flying Blue miles when you transfer your points. For example, if you transfer 100,000 Amex Membership Rewards points during a 25% transfer bonus to Flying Blue, you’ll receive 125,000 Flying Blue miles.

You can find current and past transfer bonuses here: Current point transfer bonuses.

Transfer partners for each points program

While there is a lot of overlap between them, each transferable points program has its own unique set of transfer partners.

A full list of all transfer options can be found in the Frequent Miler Transfer Partner Master List.

American Express Membership Rewards Transfer Partners

Bilt Rewards Transfer Partners

Capital One Miles Transfer Partners

Chase Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partners

Citi ThankYou Rewards Transfer Partners

Wells Fargo Rewards Transfer Partners

How to redeem points for paid travel at better than 1 cent per point value

• Amex Membership Rewards: Business Platinum cardholders get ~1.5 cents per point value for eligible flights: “Get 35% of your points back when you redeem points through Amex Travel for either a First or Business class flight on any airline, or for any flights with your selected airline.”
• Bilt Rewards: Bilt offers the ability to use points at a value of 1.25 cents per point when booking travel through their travel portal.
• Capital One “Miles”: N/A
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: 1.5 cents per point value by redeeming points through Chase Travel with the Sapphire Reserve card. Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred cardholders can redeem at 1.25 cents per point.
• Citi ThankYou Rewards: N/A
• Wells Fargo: N/A

Other not-too-terrible uses for transferable points

• Amex Membership Rewards: Cash out points at 1.1 cents each with the Schwab Platinum Card (1,000,000 points/year max).
• Bilt Rewards: Bilt Rewards members can use points toward their down payment at a value of 1.5c per point when redeemed through participating lenders for eligible home purchases.
• Capital One “Miles”: Capital One Entertainment can be an incredible deal for terrific seats to Major League Baseball games. “Cardholder Exclusive” seats are often within a few rows of the field and sometimes include club access – for only 5,000 miles per ticket.
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: Bid on experiences; Redeem for gift cards when they offer a significant discount on those gift cards; Redeem for cash at 1 cent per point value.
• Citi ThankYou Rewards: N/A
• Wells Fargo Rewards: N/A

Moving points to another person’s account

• Amex Membership Rewards: United States cardholders cannot move their Membership Rewards points to other accounts. However, you can transfer points to a friend’s loyalty account as long as you add them as an authorized user or employee to one of your Membership Rewards accounts. Once your friend has been an authorized user for 90 days you can transfer points to their loyalty accounts.
• Bilt Rewards: Bilt doesn’t allow points transfers to other members’ accounts.
• Capital One “Miles”: Capital One allows members to freely move “miles” to anyone else’s account without limits.
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: Chase allows cardholders to freely move points from/to a household member. The recipient must also have a Chase credit card that earns Ultimate Rewards points.
• Citi ThankYou Rewards: Citi allows ThankYou members to move points to anyone’s ThankYou account, but points then expire 90 days after transfer. Citi only allows you to transfer or receive a maximum of 100,000 points per calendar year.
• Wells Fargo Rewards: Wells Fargo Rewards allows you to transfer between member accounts free of charge. You can also transfer between cashback-earning cards and points-earning cards.

How to keep transferable points alive

• Amex Membership Rewards: Points do not expire as long as you have an open credit card that earns Membership Rewards points.
• Bilt Rewards: Points do not expire as long as your account remains open and is active. An account becomes “inactive” when there has been no activity for 18 months.
• Capital One “Miles”: If you cancel a card account that has Capital One “miles”, you will lose those points. Move points first to another account held by you or someone in your household. Alternatively, product change to a no-fee Capital One Miles card such as the VentureOne Rewards Credit Card.
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: Points in an open account will not expire. If you close a card that earns Chase points, you will lose any points associated with that card. You should first combine points and move them away from the card you intend to close and to another card that will remain open before canceling.
• Citi ThankYou Rewards: There are several situations in which you may have Citi ThankYou Rewards points that will expire: 60 days after cancelling an account, 90 days after a point transfer and after 18 months of inactivity for some credit cards.
• Wells Fargo Rewards: Points do not expire as long as you have an open credit card that earns Wells Fargo Rewards points.

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