My favorite points programs, by far, are transferable points programs. These are programs where points can be transferred to airline and hotel programs, making it possible to cherry-pick the best opportunities. If you earn points in only one loyalty program then you may find that flight awards or hotel awards are not available when and where you need them. With transferable points programs, though, your opportunities are far greater.
I’m also a fan of “promiscuous” transfer partners. These are the loyalty programs that make their points available to multiple transferable points programs. For example, Air France Flying Blue miles are transferable from all major transferable points programs that we track. The value to this should be obvious: if you need more points to book an award, you can get those points from any one of the supporting transferable points programs. So, if you opportunistically earn transferable points when it is easiest to do so (via big welcome offers, special promotions, etc.), you will likely find that you can scrape together points needed for an award by pooling points from multiple transferable points programs into a single promiscuous partner.
Promiscuous transfer partners, ranked by number of partners
Let’s look at the programs that are most widely available through the major transferable points programs.
6 Partnerships (The Most Promiscuous Programs)
Shown below are all airline programs that are direct transfer partners with six transferable points programs (Note: For a complete list transferable points programs, please see our Transfer Partner Master List):
| 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| Iberia Avios | 1 to 1 (~12 - 72 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) |
| Qatar Privilege Club Avios | 1 to 1 (12 - 24 hours) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 via BA (Instant) | 1 to 1 via BA (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 (Unkown) |
5 Partnerships
Shown below are all airline programs that are direct transfer partners with five transferable points programs:
| 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avianca LifeMiles | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | |
| Emirates Skywards | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
4 Partnerships
Shown below are all airline programs that are direct transfer partners with four transferable points programs:
| 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||
| Cathay Pacific Asia Miles | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (1 - 2 days) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
3 Partnerships
Shown below are all airline programs that are direct transfer partners with three transferable points programs:
| 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AeroMexico ClubPremier | 1 to 1.6 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~6 days) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||
| Etihad Guest | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 hour) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||
| JetBlue | 250 to 200 plus excise tax (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | |||
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | |||
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | 1 to 1 (12 - 24 hours) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
2 Partnerships
Shown below are all airline programs that are direct transfer partners with two transferable points programs:
| 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska MileagePlan | 1 to 1 via Hawaiian (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | ||||
| EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | 1 to 1 (2 to 4 days) | 1000 to 750 (~1 day) | ||||
| TAP Air Portugal | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | 1 to 1 (Unknown) | ||||
| United MileagePlus | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) |
Wrap Up
The tables above show the most “promiscuous” programs. These are the programs that are supported by multiple transferable points programs. Of course, just because you can transfer points to a particular program does not mean that it’s a good idea. Every airline program has its own award rates and rules. And, the best program to use for booking an award is often not the airline you want to fly. Thanks to partnerships and alliances, many flights can be booked from many different programs. And, these programs differ both in how they price awards and in the taxes and fees charged.
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FM Team, on your transfer bonus page, it would be helpful to be able to see all bonuses in a single table that can be sorted (by column) or searched. With columns being:
<Transfer From> <Transfer To> <Bonus Percent> <Date From> <Date To>
The current “Transfer Bonus Details” column would be split at above.
It would also be helpful to include *all* transfer bonuses as opposed to select set of programs.
Thanks for the consideration.
Is there a need to keep the comments – some having value at the time and others quite worthless – from an earlier posting three years ago? While I’m confident the post itself has been thoroughly updated, the comments may have merit, may be irrelevant, or may be completely wrong by now. I’ve noticed this on other FM posts. Is it technically hard to do an updated post and at the same time eliminate the comments that people thought were pertinent at the time, but may not be today?
As a rule, we don’t delete comments unless there’s something unkind or offensive in them. In some cases, I think that older comments can be a very useful record for what’s happened in the past and what might come back again (not really relevant to this post).
That said, they are organized chronologically, so you can always just disregard them once you get to the older ones if you don’t want to read them.
You can sort comments by “newest” and avoid needing to scroll through the lot of them. Hope this helps.
Oh Singapore, you’re a dirty, dirty airline.
I guess no surprise that the more promiscuous the airline program, the less likely there will be industry leading sweet spots.
Can you do a list of all the indirect partnerships like how you can transfer Chase points to Hyatt then to Latam? Are there anyother weird oddities like that?
Our Transfer Partner Master list post now includes those indirect transfers: https://frequentmiler.com/transfer-partner-master-list/
Greg,
While promiscuity is an attractive idea, in the days of COVID I think this is a less alluring feature. I do not want to transfer points to an esoteric program, have the flight cancelled, and be “stuck” with points that are hard to use and may expire. I much prefer the “girl next door” concept. For someone in the US AA, DL, and UA miles are the clear front-runners. If flights are cancelled or moved I can easily get miles back, get refunds on cash co-pays, and know I can still use the miles later with confidence. I’m focusing on AAdvantage miles (JAL first class later this year!), but maybe Skymiles aren’t worthless?!
Yep, good points. These days it’s great to use the US-based programs if you can since they’ve mostly made it free and easy to cancel or change awards.
[…] on that route (See: Emirates slashes award fees: now worth a second look). Given that Emirates is one of the most promiscuous airline programs, you can transfer points to Emirates from Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi […]
[…] great feature of Emirates Skywards is how easy it is to transfer miles into the program. It’s one of the five most promiscuous airline programs as you can transfer in from Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou, […]
I’m not actually seeing Air France on amex transfer partners page. Has it been removed temporarily?
Maybe you scrolled past it? It’s there. I just logged in to check.
Round round, git around, I get around….I get around….
Which of these promiscuous partners would be best for economy class domestic flights?
Depending on where you live, avios and lifemiles can be good. Especially when transfer bonuses are available. And now turkish airlines with nicks find.
It also depends on how far you want to fly. Avios are good for Direct flights
under 1150 miles, and Virgin Atlantic, if it survives, for longer flights on Delta. Singapore is good for direct flights on Alaska, especially direct flights between region 1 and region 2 (mountain states to west coast).
So, where do you want to go?
Clearly, we need to find a way to get Bonvoyed points on the cheap.
With how bad United is messing with their new (lack of) award charts, is it time for Chase to go out there and find a few new partners? If Virgin Atlantic does go under, Hyatt will be the only worthwhile transfer partner left.
Not sure if there’s any partners left that’s really worthwhile that hasn’t been snatched up. Korean Air already walked away from them once, maybe EVA or Asiana?
Asiana would be an amazing addition. I do wish Chase would add to their partner list, but I seriously doubt that’s anything close to a priority for them — especially right now.
Asiana already has a co-branded CC with Bofa, I don’t think that is happening. EVA might be possible but like you said Chase could not be bothered with adding new partners to UR program.
JAL would be a good get for UR but that is wishful thinking.
Asiana is being taken over by Korean Air due to debt & drop in demand due to COVID. Last I read they’re hammering out the details of the merger but they’ll likely continue to fly under their separate names but run by the same company behind the scenes.