Qantas now an Amex transfer partner (instant transfers!)

Qantas Frequent Flyer has today become a new American Express transfer partner, bringing the total number of airlines that are Amex transfer partners up to 19 (assuming you count Iberia / British Airways / Aer Lingus separately). In great news, transfers are instant. That’s a huge improvement over Citi ThankYou points and Capital One Venture Miles, which each take a couple days to transfer.

The Deal

• Qantas Frequent Flyer is now an Amex transfer partner

Key Details

• Transfers are 1:1
• Minimum transfer of 500 Membership Rewards points to 500 Qantas miles
• Transfers are instant

Quick Thoughts

I’m personally excited to see this as I’ve written that Qantas can be great for short awards on American Airlines that require connections. Qantas can also be a great option for awards on El Al, so those looking to travel to Israel can benefit from a new transfer partner. Dan’s Deals has a good post on using Qantas points for travel on El Al.

Also exciting is the possibility that we’ll see future point transfer bonuses to Qantas. Looking at our Current point transfer bonuses page, I can see that Citi ran a transfer bonus earlier this year and then Qantas stacked an additional targeted bonus on top of that whereby you could do really well when transferring. Hopefully we’ll see the same with Amex. Dan’s Deals reports that getting targeted for those additional transfer bonuses on the Qantas side might be more likely if you have previously transferred points to Qantas. He suggests transferring 500 miles to Qantas now, and that certainly may not be a bad strategy.

Unfortunately, when Greg went to link his Membership Rewards account to Qantas, he received an error. I haven’t yet tried it today, but I’ve received a similar error in the past when trying to transfer within 24 hours of adding a new partner account. For that reason, I recommend at least linking your Qantas account to Membership Rewards sooner rather than later so you can take advantage of an opportunity that knocks in the future. Speaking of that concept, the key strength here over Citi ThankYou points to transfer to Qantas is the speed. I transferred ThankYou points to Qantas a couple of months ago and it took several days. I was lucky that award availability didn’t disappear while I was waiting. Instant transfers from Amex are great news so you won’t have to wait to book if you find award space that works for you.

We have added Qantas to our list of Amex transfer partners.

H/T: Dan’s Deals

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