An Avios solution to Nick’s 100K Vacay plans

Our 100K Vacay team challenge is coming this fall. I previously noted that I would love to solve the challenge by using options available to my competitors. Given the current point transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards, I think a core part of my strategy will obviously Aviosly be Avios.

What is the 100K Vacay challenge? This fall, Nick, Stephen, and Tim have each picked a different transferable points currency they think can compete with Greg’s 100K Chase Ultimate Rewards points, each trying to beat Greg’s 100K Vacay with one of their own. In the end, we’ll find out who can book the most amazing 100K point vacation!

Current point transfer bonus

Through July 15, 2025, there is a 30% current point transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards to each of the Avios programs.

While American Express offers the bonus when transferring to its Avios partners (British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus, and Aer Lingus Aer Club), the bonus is effectively good for all of the Avios program airlines (including Finnair Plus and Qatar Airways Privilege Club) since it is possible to combine and move Avios between the various Avios programs.

With this bonus, my 100,000 American Express Membership Rewards points could become as many as 130,000 Avios (though I may not transfer my entire balance to Avios).

What would I do with Avios?

Avios have long been hailed among the more useful transfer partner programs thanks to having a relatively broad range of uses between the various airlines that use the currency. Still, despite a handful of sweet spots within the various Avios programs, the truth is that I do not redeem Avios often.

However, I feel like Avios could be highly useful in this challenge. And while each of the major transferable points programs offer transfers to one or more Avios programs, redeeming Avios would give me a chance to highlight an Amex Membership Rewards superpower: frequent transfer bonuses. I had decided early on that I would like to use Avios for this challenge. Part of my calculus had been that I knew it was highly likely that we would see a good transfer bonus to Avios in the window between launching the challenge and travel. As if on cue, that transfer bonus came in almost immediately after we announced the competition.

If I do take advantage of the transfer bonus, here are some things that I might do with Avios.

Hotels

I mentioned in a previous post that I hoped to mostly book my trip using currencies that the other contestants would also have available to them — in part to highlight the power of a good Amex transfer bonus and in part to show how having any one of these currencies can give you an opportunity for an incredible trip.

However, the hardest part of that challenge is hotel booking. While Greg will also have access to transfers to Marriott Bonvoy and both Stephen and Tim will have access to transfers to Choice Privileges, I do not share any obvious hotel transfer partners with all competitors.

Enter Avios.

Last year, I published a post about using Finnair Avios to get great value for hotels in Scandinavia (See: Use Finnair Avios to book Nordic / Scandinavian hotels at 2c per point or better). The short story is that it is possible to use Finnair Avios to buy vouchers for several different Scandinavian hotel brands to get good value per point. And while that post focused mainly on two specific brands (Scandic and Sokos), the Finnair hotel program has expanded to quite a few more brands (though it still focuses on brands within Scandinavia).

Some may question whether Finnair Plus Avios is a legitimate hotel booking method for this competition. After all, as you’ll see in that post, you are essentially buying a voucher with cash and a relatively small number of Avios. The Finnair Plus vouchers are not a way to stay “for free”. Since there would still be a significant cash component to booking those hotels, one might argue that booking them is not within the spirit of the competition (since we are not allowing for booking of hotels entirely with cash).

Nonetheless, as shown in the post, it is sometimes possible to get 5c or 10c or even 20c or more per point with those vouchers — and that’s before a transfer bonus. Getting outsized value like that toward a hotel booking feels very much within the spirit of the competition.

I expected to leverage this sweet spot use to demonstrate a somewhat out-of-the-box way of using Amex Membership Rewards points to get outsized value for lodging and I thought that fall in Scandinavia could make for an interesting vacation trip. However, as I have progressed in my planning, I am less certain that I will use this trick after all. While you can get highly outsized value per point toward Scandinavian hotels at times with stronger demand, the value dips significantly as nightly rates fall in the fall. In other words, in most of the included locations, hotel cash rates are such that the opportunity for outsized value is less than it would be during a peak season. I am still interested in trying to make use of this opportunity, but I feel far less confident that it will work out than I did at the outset.

The good news is that Hilton and Marriott have more properties than you may think where you can do better than 1 cent per point. That could be particularly useful with Hilton given the standard 1:2 transfer ratio from Amex Membership Rewards, though I’ve found the Hilton footprint to be leaving a bit to be desired. There simply aren’t Hilton properties everywhere I’d like to be, though Marriott does show up with some reasonable opportunities in many of those cases. If we see a transfer bonus to Marriott, that may swing the pendulum of value far enough to affect my plans.

Flights

Avios is mostly known for their short-haul sweet spots, with very short-distance Oneworld alliance flights often providing opportunity for far outsized value over cash fares, even in economy class.

Unfortunately, several Avios programs are also known for their surcharges. While Iberia’s surcharges can be more moderate than British Airways, we nonetheless do see surcharges added to many Avios redemptions. With only a $1,000 cash budget, I can not afford to overspend on surcharges.

However, British Airways is perhaps lesser-known yet still well-loved for its multi-carrier award chart.

British Airways Multi-Carrier Award Chart

British Airways Executive Club publishes a separate multi-carrier award chart that differs significantly from its normal award model. In order to use this award chart, your itinerary must include two oneworld carriers not counting British Airways. In other words, an itinerary with American Airlines and Iberia would qualify, but an itinerary with only American Airlines and British Airways would not (though American, British Airways and Iberia would count).

The most significant way in which this award chart differs from the standard chart is that the multi-carrier award chart prices a trip based on cumulative distance rather than pricing  segments separately. In other words, if you flew from New York to Madrid on American Airlines and then from Madrid to Milan on Iberia, you would pay according to the total distance from New York to Madrid to Milan rather than paying the cost of a New York to Madrid award and Madrid to Milan award (in that specific instance, the multi-carrier chart may not make a compelling difference, but in many cases it does). Here is a look at the chart (which you can find here on the British Airways website):

Both Head for Points and Prince of Travel have written excellent guides on the multi-carrier award chart that will serve as my beacons if I do navigate this more complicated booking option.

As you can see, the chart above shows prices for economy class travel based on cumulative distance. Premium economy costs 1.5 times the economy class price; business class costs double the Avios.

A compelling aspect of this chart is that it would give me the opportunity to book a multi-stop trip since this chart allows for up to 8 segments and an open-jaw is allowed. While some view a vacation as a time to unpack and unwind in a single spot, I find it exciting to use my points and miles to visit multiple places. And in real life, we rarely ever plan a simple trip to one destination, instead preferring to combine a trip to see a couple of places. The multi-carrier award chart fits my style. I won’t be able to visit 8 cities, but I could imagine visiting at least a couple.

The biggest question for me will be which distance band to use (and whether to transfer before settling on an exact itinerary). I think my goal will be to stay within the 9,000 to 10,000 mile band, which costs 70,000 Avios. That would give me the ability to travel a reasonably long cumulative distance and thanks to the transfer bonus, it would only cost me about 54,000 Amex Membership Rewards points.

Keep in mind that the multi-carrier chart isn’t necessarily a good deal for distance alone. For instance, while you could fly between 4,001 and 9,000 miles for 60,000 Avios with the multi-carrier chart. However, you could fly from Dallas to Sydney, which runs more than 8,800 miles, for 51,500 Avios one way (about 40K Membership Rewards points with the transfer bonus).

Even if you combined that Qantas flight with an American Airlines positioning flight, the multi-carrier chart may not save you much if anything at all. Using the multi-carrier chart isn’t necessarily a deal for simply getting far away but rather it is a deal for the ability to pack multiple stops into a particular distance band (and potentially end the trip where you began).

While my goal is to stay under 10,000 miles flown (and I have already pieced together availability for some potential journeys of around 9,900 miles flown!), I could bump up to the 10,000 to 14,000 miles flown band for 90,000 Avios. Thanks to the transfer bonus, that would only cost 70,000 Membership Rewards points, leaving me with 30,000 points to book hotels. While that isn’t a lot of points, it could become at least 60,000 Hilton Honors points (more with a transfer bonus).

While that doesn’t seem impossible, I think it is more reasonable to consider the 9K-10K distance band for what will be 54K Membership Rewards points. That would leave me with 46,000 Membership Rewards points to book hotels (potentially more than 90,000 Hilton Honors points) and/or positioning flights to start my multi-carrier award in a more advantageous market.

Goals

While I have not yet made final decisions for the trip, I have some goals forming that I think will guide my decisions between now and the end of the Avios transfer bonus.

1. I would like to use the British Airways multi-carrier chart, though I hope to have itineraries priced out even if not fully ready to book before transferring points so that I can make sure that the taxes and fees fit within my budget.
2. I want to get good hotel value with my points. I don’t want to settle for subpar value just to meet the goal of using points for lodging. And I do have one more trick up my sleeve on this front that I have not yet shared but which I think could blow things open on this front. We’ll see!
3. Visit at least one country that I haven’t visited before. So far, I have visited 68 UN countries and a number of territories that some may count separately. That leaves a lot of the world open to meet the criteria here, but if I use the multi-carrier award chart, I am somewhat limited by the reach of oneworld carriers. While British Airways has some non-oneworld partners, those can not be included on this type of ticket.

I might throw all of this out the window

All of the above said, I have not yet transferred to Avios and there is still a chance that I won’t. There are a number of nice-looking Hilton properties in South America with very reasonable award prices at destinations that simply aren’t served by oneworld carriers. Avianca Lifemiles offers some compelling value to South America and there are numerous opportunities to leverage Air Canada Aeroplan for interesting itineraries that include a stopover. I may yet change course entirely.

Indeed, the planning is a big part of the excitement for our challenges. My wife has learned to completely tune out the first few excited-filled “plans” I share with her, knowing full well that my trip completely changes direction a few times before it is booked every time. While I am feeling pretty good about the British Airways multi-carrier chart today, that perspective may change with the wind, particularly if and when the wind blows in a new transfer bonus or two. Given that we frequently see Amex transfer bonuses launched near the beginning of the month and the fact that the end date on the Avios bonus gives me until mid-July to make a move, I feel like I have time to wait and see what comes our way next week.

But if I do decide to go for the British Airways multi-carrier award chart, I’ll probably need to commit to Avios sooner rather than later, so it is time for me to put the pedal to the medal on pricing out itineraries. More to come in a few weeks . . .

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.