Some of the most valuable credit card points that you can earn are transferable points. If you’re new to credit card rewards, you might be wondering what transferable points are and how they differ from other points and miles.
In this post we’ll go into more detail about what transferable points are, why they’re worth focusing on, examples of transferable points, and more.
What are transferable points?
Transferable points are types of points currencies that are – for the most part – earned via credit cards that can then be transferred to a selection of airline and hotel loyalty programs. That ability to transfer provides enhanced value for your points thanks to their flexibility.
For example, let’s say that you have an American Airlines credit card. When you use that card for purchases, you’re earning AAdvantage miles that can only be redeemed for award flights with American Airlines and its partner airlines (we’ll have more about partner airlines in a future post).
Alternatively, you could use a Citi credit card that earns transferable ThankYou points. If one of those cards is a Citi Strata Elite℠, Citi Strata Premier℠, or Citi Prestige® card (no longer available for new applicants) – and a AT&T Access More for some partners – you’ll be able to transfer those points to American Airlines at a 1:1 ratio (or at a lower ratio if you only have a different kind of ThankYou points-earning card).
That’s not all though. You’d also be able to transfer your Citi ThankYou points to any of their other transfer partners which includes programs like Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, Singapore Airlines Krisflyer, Choice Privileges, Avianca LifeMiles, Preferred Hotels I Prefer, and many more.
As a result, you have far more flexibility when booking an award flight. You might find that American Airlines is charging 70,000 miles for a flight, but a different airline loyalty program that Citi partners with is only charging 60,000 miles for that same flight. You’d therefore be able to transfer 60,000 miles to that alternate program and have 10,000 more points remaining than you would have if you’d only had American Airlines AAdvantage miles.
Even if the miles redemption cost itself is identical between airlines, this flexibility could still save you money. That’s because airline loyalty programs often charge different amounts for taxes and fees for the same flight, particularly for international flights in business and first class. Two transfer partners might both charge 70,000 miles for a flight, but one might charge $200 in taxes and fees, while the other charges $400. In that scenario, having the flexibility of transferable points doesn’t save you any points, but it does save you $200 in cold hard cash.
What are the main transferable points currencies?
The main transferable points currencies are:
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- American Express Membership Rewards
- Citi ThankYou
- Capital One miles
- Bilt Points
- Wells Fargo Rewards
Niche transferable points currencies
HSBC has airline and hotel transfer partners for those who hold its HSBC Premier World Mastercard® credit card and/or HSBC Elite credit card. Those cards are much less popular than cards from the above issuers, so we don’t tend to regard HSBC points as a main transferable points currency.
Similarly, Barclays has a set of transfer partners for Arrival Plus cardholders, although none of those transfer on a 1:1 basis and it’s not a major program.
In addition to that, Rove Miles is a relatively new transferable points currency. They don’t currently have a credit card that can earn you their transferable miles. Instead, you can earn miles through their shopping and travel portals.
Marriott Bonvoy is another transferable points currency of sorts. You can transfer Marriott points to a large range of airline loyalty programs on a 3:1 basis. You also get 5,000 bonus miles for every 60,000 points you transfer, so 60,000 Marriott points become 25,000 miles in partner programs. Marriott also has an enhanced partnership with United which turns every 60,000 points into 30,000 United MileagePlus miles.
Which programs do transferable points currencies transfer to?
Each transferable points currency has its own unique set of transfer partners. Here are two lists for each of them; one for airline partners and one for hotel partners. The lists default to displaying 10 rows, so you can increase the number of rows to see the full lists in each table.
Airline loyalty program transfers
| Rewards Program | Amex Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Chase Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Citi Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Capital One Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Bilt Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Wells Fargo Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Rove Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aer Lingus Avios | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 via Qatar () |
| AeroMexico ClubPremier | 1 to 1.6 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||||
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||
| Air France KLM Flying Blue | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
| Air India Maharaja Club | 1 to 1 () | ||||||
| Alaska Atmos Rewards | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||||||
| American AAdvantage | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||||||
| ANA Mileage Club | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | ||||||
| Avianca LifeMiles | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||
| British Airways Avios | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 via Qatar () |
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 1,000 to 800 (4 to 8 hours) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (1-2 days) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||
| Delta SkyMiles | 1 to 1 plus excise tax (Instant) | ||||||
| Emirates Skywards | 1000 to 800 (Instant) | 1000 to 800 (Instant) | 1,000 to 750 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||
| Etihad Guest | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 hour) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||
| EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1000 to 750 (~1 day) | |||||
| Finnair Plus+ | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 via BA (Unknown) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) |
| Hainan Airlines | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||||||
| Iberia Avios | 1 to 1 (~12-24 hours (slower over weekend)) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 via Qatar (~1 day) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 via Qatar () |
| JAL (Japan Airlines) Mileage Bank | 2 to 1.5 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||||
| Jet Airways InterMiles | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||||||
| JetBlue | 250 to 200 plus excise tax (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1,000 to 600 (1-2 hours) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||
| Malaysia Enrich | 1 to 1 (1 to 2 days) | ||||||
| Miles & More | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||||||
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | ||||
| Qatar Privilege Club Avios | 1 to 1 (12-24 hours) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | 1 to 1 (12-24 hours) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (12-24 hrs) | |||
| Southwest Rapid Rewards | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~12 hours) | |||||
| Spirit | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||||||
| TAP Air Portugal | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | |||||
| Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus | 1 to 1 (3-7 days) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | |||||
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | 1 to 1 (12-24 hours) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | |||
| United MileagePlus | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||||
| Vietnam Airlines LotusMiles | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||||||
| Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) |
Hotel loyalty program transfers
| Rewards Program | Amex Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Chase Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Citi Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Capital One Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Bilt Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Wells Fargo Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Rove Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALL Accor | 1000 to 500 (Instant) | 1000 to 500 (Instant) | 3 to 2 (Unknown) | 3 to 2 (Unknown) | |||
| Choice | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 2 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 2 (Unknown) | |||
| Hilton | 1 to 2 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | |||||
| Hyatt | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||||
| IHG | 1 to 1 (4-8 hours) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||||
| Leading Hotels of the World | 1K to 200 (Instant) | ||||||
| Marriott Bonvoy | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (1-2 days) | 20K to 25K (Instant) | ||||
| Preferred Hotels & Resorts I Prefer | 1 to 4 (Instant) | 1 to 2 (Unknown) | |||||
| Wyndham | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (12-24 hrs) |
What are other benefits of transferable points?
Devaluation protection
Airline and hotel loyalty programs periodically devalue their points and miles by making it more costly to book an award flight or stay, or by upping the taxes and fees payable when booking an award. If all your points and miles are in those kinds of loyalty programs, you might find the value of your rewards worth much less overnight. If they’re in transferable points programs, you retain the flexibility to transfer them to whichever the new best redemption option is.
Transfer bonuses
Another benefit is access to transfer bonuses. American Express, Chase, Citi, Capital One, and Bilt frequently offer bonuses to select programs when transferring your points.
If there’s, say, a 30% bonus when transferring Amex Membership Rewards to British Airways, that means every 1,000 Membership Rewards you transfer becomes 1,300 Avios. In that scenario, an award flight that ordinarily costs 50,000 Avios would only need 39,000 Membership Rewards transferred over, saving you 11,000 points compared to normal.
Here’s a list of current transfer bonuses.
| Transfer From | Transfer Bonus Details | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bilt | Up to 125% transfer bonus from Bilt to JAL (Japan Airlines) Mileage Bank | 03/01/26 | 03/01/26 |
| Citi ThankYou Rewards | 25% transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Rewards to Wyndham | 02/22/26 | 03/21/26 |
| Amex Membership Rewards | 15% transfer bonus from Amex Membership Rewards to Avianca LifeMiles | 02/18/26 | 03/28/26 |
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | 20% transfer bonus from Chase Ultimate Rewards to British Airways Avios | 03/01/26 | 03/31/26 |
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | 20% transfer bonus from Chase Ultimate Rewards to Iberia Avios | 03/01/26 | 03/31/26 |
| Chase Ultimate Rewards | 20% transfer bonus from Chase Ultimate Rewards to Aer Lingus Avios | 03/01/26 | 03/31/26 |
| Capital One Miles | 30% transfer bonus from Capital One Miles to Preferred Hotels & Resorts I Prefer | 03/01/26 | 03/31/26 |
Earning rates
A third additional benefit is the ability to benefit from superior earning rates on credit cards.
Many airline and hotel credit cards offer generous welcome bonuses when meeting the minimum spend requirement, but are often not very generous when it comes to your day-to-day spending. Transferable points currencies on the other hand often have a selection of cards that can earn 3x, 4x, or 5x in a variety of popular spending categories such as groceries, dining, gas, etc. Earning 3x ThankYou points on a Citi Premier card or 4x Membership Rewards points on an Amex Gold card for your groceries is a better return than the 1x or 2x you’ll find on most airline and hotel credit cards.
Should you only collect transferable points?
Not necessarily. If you have limited capacity for earning credit card rewards (e.g. your income isn’t very high and your expenses that you can pay by credit card are limited), for some people it’ll be best to focus on transferable points as that’ll broaden your redemption options.
However, that isn’t always the priority. For example, let’s say that you travel with a partner and your local airport is a Southwest hub. It could make more sense to focus on getting a Southwest credit card and direct some amount of spending to that in order to earn a Companion Pass.
Similarly, if you’d like to see the US by train and you wish to reduce your cash outlay, an Amtrak credit card will help you earn valuable Amtrak points. Amtrak isn’t a partner of any transferable currency (it was a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner once upon a time), so Amtrak credit cards are one of the best ways to rack up Amtrak Guest Rewards points outside of paid Amtrak travel.
In an ideal world though, it’d be a both/and situation rather than either/or. Transferable points are excellent and valuable, but it’s also worth earning other points and miles if you can. It can be easier to rack up multiple welcome offer bonuses that way which might not always be possible with transferable points currencies.
Another reason it can make sense to earn miles/points in specific airline and hotel loyalty programs is that even though transferable points often transfer to partners instantly, in some cases they don’t. That’s sometimes the case as a matter of course, but other times you might encounter some kind of other random delay. If there’s limited award availability, already having points/miles in that program means you can book now and replenish later, rather than risking the awards getting booked while you wait for the transferred points to arrive in your account.
How can you earn transferable points?
Credit cards
The most common – and easiest – way to earn transferable points is via credit cards. You’ll often find high welcome offers on these cards like 75,000 points after $3,000 spend, up to 175,000 points after $6,000 spend, etc.
You’ll then earn points for the spending that you put on those cards. As mentioned earlier, many cards earn transferable points in certain categories, so that can juice your earnings even further.
Something important to be aware of is that some transferable points currencies only allow you to transfer to partners if you have a transferable points-earning card with an annual fee, or only allows you to transfer at the best transfer ratios if you have one.
In the former category is Chase. If you only have, say, a Chase Freedom Unlimited® card, you will earn Ultimate Rewards points, but you won’t be able to transfer them to travel partners. Instead, you’d need a Chase Sapphire Preferred®, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Sapphire Reserve for Business℠, or Ink Business Preferred® card and then move your points from your Freedom Unlimited card to your premium card before being able to transfer to partners.
In the latter category is Citi. If you have a Citi Strata Elite℠, Citi Strata Premier℠, or Citi Prestige® card (no longer available for new applicants) – and a AT&T Access More for most partners – you can transfer at a better ratio than if you have other cards that earn ThankYou points.
Shopping portals
There are other ways to earn transferable points, with online shopping portals being one of the key opportunities. If you have a Chase card that earns Ultimate Rewards points, you can click through to a retailer from the Shop & Earn shopping portal.
If you shop through Rakuten, you can choose to have your earnings paid out to your Amex Membership Rewards or Bilt account.
Rove Shopping is a shopping portal that launched in 2025 and they have their own set of transfer partners.
Capital One Offers meanwhile is a shopping portal that’s only available for Capital One cardholders and awards bonus miles if you have a miles-earning card.
Referrals
If you’re an existing cardholder, it’s often possible to refer someone else to the same credit card as you (and sometimes other cards too) in order to earn bonus points. Depending on the card you’re referring from, that referral bonus can sometimes be as high as 40,000 bonus transferable points which is an excellent incentive.
Card-linked spending offers
Card-linked spending offers can be another way to earn transferable points. If you’re a Capital One cardholder, Capital One Offers sometimes has card-linked offers that offer increased earnings when shopping in-store at a specific retailer. Similar, Rakuten has an in-store card-linked program, so points earned through that in-store spend can be transferred to American Express or Bilt.
Are all transfer partners good transfer partners?
Nope! While most transfer partners do provide the opportunity to get good value by transferring points to them, there are some exceptions and other things to be aware of.
Low value of points
A key thing to understand in the world of points and miles is that not all points and miles are worth the same; this’ll be something we address in a future Getting Started post.
As a result, one key reason why it’s not a good idea to transfer points to some transfer partners is that their points aren’t worth much, and/or their points can be bought fairly cheaply.
For example, IHG One Rewards frequently sells its points for 0.5 cents per point. That means that you can often buy two points for one cent when buying in a large enough batch.
IHG is also a transfer partner of both Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt. However, both of those points only transfer to IHG on a 1:1 basis. That therefore represents awful value for your points seeing as you can otherwise often buy those points for 0.5 cents per point, especially considering the fact that both of those programs also transfer to World of Hyatt on a 1:1 basis which is a hotel loyalty program with much more valuable points than IHG.
If in doubt about the value of points for any given loyalty program, be sure to check our list of Reasonable Redemption Values. As the name suggests, this gives you a good idea as to the value you can reasonably expect to get from an airline mile or hotel point without making a huge amount of effort to maximize the redemption.
Fixed value of points
There are some loyalty programs where the value of a point is fixed (or somewhat fixed) as it’s tied to the cash cost of a booking. Some of the most notable examples of that are Southwest Rapid Rewards, JetBlue TrueBlue, and ALL Accor.
That’s not to say that these partners represent bad value, just that the fixed-value nature of the points means it’s usually not possible to get outsized value.
Transfer ratios
While the majority of transferable currencies transfer to partner programs on a 1:1 basis, that’s not always the case.
For example, Amex Membership Rewards transfer to JetBlue on a 250:200 basis, Capital One miles transfer to Japan Airlines on a 2:1.5 basis, Citi ThankYou points transfer to Preferred Hotels on a 1:4 basis, Bilt transfers to Accor on a 3:2 basis, etc.
A transfer ratio that isn’t 1:1 doesn’t mean that transfer option provides poor value, but it is something important to take into account before making a transfer.
Good partner, bad redemption
Even though a transfer partner might have miles or points that are valuable, that doesn’t mean that every redemption will provide good value.
For example, many of us like to transfer our Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt as it’s possible to get great value, but that’s not always the case. For example, you might occasionally come across a hotel that’s charging 15,000 points for a night where the cash rate is only $125. Transferring 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points to book an award stay that’s comparatively cheap cash-wise would therefore represent poor value for your points, despite Hyatt historically being a solid redemption option (although that is changing).
American Express Membership Rewards excise fee
Although it doesn’t necessarily make it a bad redemption, something important to consider when transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to a domestic airline (i.e. Delta or JetBlue) is that there’s an excise fee that’s payable.
The fee is 0.06 cents per point, so for every 10,000 points you transfer, you pay a $6 fee. Amex caps the fee at $99 per transfer, so you’d max that out when transferring 165,000 Membership Rewards points in one go.
This is a fee that other transferable points programs such as Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou incur, but they eat the cost of it themselves. Amex sadly doesn’t.
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