A few days ago, we learned that Amex plans to reduce the transfer ratio of Amex points to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles. Starting 3/1/26, 1,000 Membership Rewards points will get you only 800 Asia Miles. Taken on its own, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Asia Miles can be useful for certain situations, but they’re hardly the most valuable currency. I’m more concerned about what this means in the broader context. Is this a one-off event or a harbinger of things to come?
In recent months, Emirates apparently increased the amount it charges banks for its miles. We know this only because Chase stopped offering transfers to Emirates, and Amex, Citi, and Capital One announced reduced transfer ratios to Emirates.
Now I wonder about the Cathay Pacific change. Did Cathay Pacific increase point prices, too? Or did the Emirates situation essentially give Amex permission to devalue point transfers that cost them too much money? Either way, this makes me nervous. Will this keep happening until 1 to 1 transfers become the exception rather than the rule?
Chase’s decision to drop Emirates as a transfer partner is an interesting case study. Among the major transferable points currencies, Chase is the only one that maintains 1 to 1 transfers for all transfer partners. This includes programs where 1 to 1 transfers are a bad deal for the consumer (such as 1 to 1 transfers to IHG and Marriott). I think that’s a sensible business strategy. Point transfers are confusing enough to people new to miles & points without introducing mixed transfer ratios. The fact that Chase held firm and jettisoned Emirates rather than reducing the transfer ratio gives me hope. Many programs rely heavily on revenue from these point transfers. Few could afford to give up Chase’s business.
Bilt stands alone in continuing to offer 1 to 1 transfers to Emirates. It’s also the only program that offers 1 to 1 transfers to Japan Airlines. I don’t know whether Bilt has done a better job with price negotiations or if it banks on the fact that most Bilt members will use points for low-value things like paying rent or buying on Amazon. Either way, Bilt deserves kudos for keeping 1 to 1 transfers alive. I doubt Bilt’s program is big enough to stop this trend from happening elsewhere, but it can’t hurt to have both Chase and Bilt holding the line in their own ways.
What’s next? Amex isn’t the only program that currently offers 1 to 1 transfers to Cathay Pacific. If Cathay Pacific has raised its point prices, we’ll probably see Citi and Capital One reduce their transfer ratios, too. Chase doesn’t partner with Cathay, so nothing will change there. And I expect that Bilt will maintain 1 to 1 transfers as it has done with Emirates. But if the reason behind Amex’s Cathay transfer devaluation is simply that Amex now feels like it’s OK to do this, the other programs will keep their 1 to 1 transfers to Cathay, and we can expect other devaluations from Amex. If so, I bet that ANA will be the next Amex transfer devaluation.
Which programs offer worse than 1 to 1 transfers to airlines?
Without considering hotel points (since hotel point values are all over the map), I’ve listed below all of the non-1-to-1 transfer ratios from the major transferable points programs:
- Chase: All airline transfers are 1 to 1
- Bilt: All airline transfers are 1 to 1
- Amex:
- Aeromexico 1,000 to 1,600 (better than 1 to 1)
- Cathay Pacific: 1,000 to 800 (starting 3/1/26)
- Emirates 1,000 to 800
- JetBlue 1,000 to 800
- Capital One:
-
- EVA: 1,000 to 750
- Japan Airlines: 1,000 to 750
- JetBlue: 1,000 to 600
- Emirates: 1,000 to 750 (starting January 13, 2026)
-
- Citi: Emirates: 1,000 to 800
The list above makes Chase, Bilt, and even Citi look really good. Amex and Capital One, though, are on a slippery slope that we can only hope won’t continue.
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In a way it makes sense, in that earning directly on co-branded cards should exceed what one may earn in their currency by transferring from flexible currencies. The new normal could be that flexible currency cards are useful mainly for niche programs and topping off…and of course coupons.
For those of us who are based in markets outside the US, not having any 1 to 1 transfers has pretty much always been the norm for us. We’ve had to deal with jumbled up ratios for years (5:4, 6:5, 3:2, etc) so for us this feels like the US finally getting its side of the playing field leveled out compared to the rest of the world. All we can say is : welcome to our world and enjoy the mental arithmetic games 😉
There’s still tremendous value but to those that think its dead. Then it’s “very very dead” go find something else. Ultimately it’ll only help the rest.
I mostly stay in the points and miles game as hobby and read FM and other blogs for entertainment. The joy and the opportunity are mostly gone.
I don’t get the math of how points transfers are calculated but how much of it has to do with the ease in earning points in a bank’s ecosystem?
For example, yes BILT maintains a 1:1 transfer ratio with all partners but it’s super hard to accumulate BILT points (of course that changed recently with Rakuten so we’ll have to see if that impacts transfer ratios in anyway).
Meanwhile, Amex and Capital one have lower transfer ratios but earning in their ecosystems are arguably easier (Amex with the lucrative SUBs and Capital One with their lucrative card linked offers.)
Not really surprising though, I’ve been in this game for almost 15 years now and the golden age of award redemptions is long gone. Where we could get solid biz class redemptions almost anytime trans Atlantic for 50k miles one way. You still can if you are flexible enough. But so many people have caught on now, it’s become so diluted. That saying “ if everyone is elite status, no one is,” applies to this too. If everyone has miles, then no one does in a sense. I sort of eased up on redemptions unless it’s too good to miss. But I have found some solid cash tickets decent enough to just buy outright than try to search through many sites looking for award flights. Time will tell.
With all these devaluations, I wonder 10 years from now if award travel will still be as big. Or would most people just look for cashback credit cards