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It’s not unusual to see a Membership Rewards transfer bonus on the 1st of the month. What is unusual is seeing 12 of them!
That’s right – American Express has launched a ton of new transfer bonuses today ranging from 15% up to 40%.
The Deals
- American Express is offering the following new transfer bonuses:
- Air Canada Aeroplan – 1,000:1,200
- Aer Lingus Avios – 1,000:1,400
- Aeromexico Club Premier – 1,000:2,000
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue – 1,000:1,250
- Avianca LifeMiles – 1,000:1,150
- British Airways Avios – 1,000:1,400
- Hawaiian Airlines – 1,000:1,250
- Iberia Avios – 1,000:1,400
- Qantas Frequent Flyer – 500:600
- Virgin Atlantic – 1,000:1,300
- Hilton Honors – 1,000:2,600
- Marriott Bonvoy – 1,000:1,300
Key Terms
- Expires September 30, 2021.
Quick Thoughts
It’s incredible seeing so many transfer bonuses available from Membership Rewards, especially seeing as so many people are now sitting on a hefty pile of them thanks to all the recent generous welcome offers.
There are too many programs here to break down all the potential sweet spots, so check out Amex Membership Rewards sweet spots which lists existing great deals that’ll only be made sweeter by these transfer bonuses.
There’s even the potential for new sweet spots with some of these transfer bonuses. In particular, Aeromexico Club Premier is an ignored program precisely because there don’t seem to be many – if any – sweet spots. However, with a 100% transfer bonus it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s the potential for at least some kind of deal available on award flights booked using their program. Update: I forgot that the transfer ratio to Aeromexico is usually 1,000:1,600 and so it’s a 25% bonus rather than 100%.
As always, we wouldn’t recommend transferring points unless you have a specific redemption in mind. There’s also no hurry to make a transfer as it looks like all these bonuses are around until the end of this month.
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[…] has transfer bonuses often. Never before it unleashed 12 of them at the same time, WOW! The 40% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios sure looks great and…I am thinking […]
Running contrary to the don’t transfer without travel plans advice, which is of course valid and appropriate, but also realize that advice runs contrary to the core thing we do – we all earn miles and points across multiple airlines and hotels without specific travel plans in hand all of the time, and we most often do it based on offers – SUBs, spending thresholds, etc. So, that leads me to my thought – 40% is rare bonus, so why not go for it isn’t that just like what we do for most everything else? While I am able to maintain ~ 200k – 400k miles in AA, United, and Delta with earnings off-setting use, I have 0 miles in all of the bonus airlines. So my question becomes, with an interest in making annual trips to Europe, being near all 3 DC airports, which program should I go for? My gut says load up on Avios, redeeming my MRs @ 40% bonus and my URs at 20% bonus (I believe is available too), setting me up with a foundation of about 200k Avios miles as a starting point. The alternative is to skip the bonus month, and hold about 150k MR/URs for a 1:1 transfer to United, which pretty much serves IAD for me and gets me most anywhere. Any thoughts, would be appreciated, particularly why AeroPlan is being encouraged.
I’m after this idea of transferring from Amex-???(best way)-United.
Sorry to mislead, I was mixing up my programs; MRs can only transfer to Delta (domestic), only the URs can transfer to United.
If you really want United miles from Amex, you could transfer Amex->Marriott->United. This 30% bonus + United is giving 30% bonus for transfers from hotels makes this a 1 Amex = 0.77 United. But the United 30% is limited to 25k bonus miles so you could only do 93k Amex -> 120.9k Marriott then 120k Marriott -> 71.5k United. All that said, I’d rather have 111k Aeroplan miles from the 93k Amex (20% bonus) than 71.5k United.
Thanks
This calculation is exactly what I need for now. Really appreciated!
Aeroplan is similar to United – great business/first pricing with no fuel surcharges on Star Alliance flights. It’s cheaper than United for many itineraries (e.g., IAD-FRA on LH) is 70k AC vs 77k UA.
Robert, helpful, thank you. So without obligation, your thought is Aeroplan 20% boost for MRs is better than Avios 40% boost b/c better miles pricing particularly for business, 0 to less fuel surcharge, and as much flex as United gives? Do all the Avios partners/airlines have the huge fuel charges we run into with British?
Aeroplan doesn’t have as flexible of terms as United and BA. I believe it’s $75 per one-way to cancel 60+ days out and $100 within 60 days.
I view Avios as good for domestic flights. Fuel surcharges apply to most international redemptions (notable exception is AA within the Americas). The one big perk of Avios for transatlantic is the award availability is very good, assuming you’re willing to pay the surcharges.
Well, then I’m leaning to Avios, either to BA or AL programs. Those are the locations we expect to be traveling to – hopefully once or more a year.
[…] list them all here, many other amazing blogs like Frequent Miler already have done that – here. I don’t have any specific trips I need to book right now (although I did really want to book […]
I’m on the Amex canada page for transferring points. Still shows 1:1?
These transfer bonuses are for US accounts.
[…] posted about 12 new Amex Membership Rewards transfer bonuses yesterday, one of which is a 15% bonus to Avianca LifeMiles. Then Avianca launched a 15% transfer […]
Wow, this is tempting but I can’t trust any of the airlines not to devalue right now. Also, more proof that Hilton points are worth half that of Marriott points.
[…] 9.1到了，通过Schwab Platinum兑现MR点数的比例从1.25降到1.1了。没想到这一天AmEx居然来了个福利大放送，同一天出现了众多不错的转点bonus活动！HT: FM。以前从来没有过这么多！其中比较不错的活动有： […]
I know it’s conventional wisdom to not make speculative transfers without an immediate redemption in kind, but it can also be risky to keep a massive pile of points with Amex, since they could shut you down on a whim. So I’m thinking of speculatively transferring some to Aeroplan, and then transferring some more to VS for a later ANA F booking.
I would also say the post title is rather misleading and clickbaity. “12” instead of “12x” would be more applicable. “12x MR transfer bonuses” implies you are getting 12x the points you are transferring as a bonus.
Good point regarding the title – I’ve fixed that as it wasn’t meant to insinuate that you’d earn 12x the points.
Wr2, i am a little confused by your comment. Where would u transfer the points for a ANA booking? Virigina atlantic? I am sitting on close to 50K ana points so i am trying to figure how to get in more points.
Conspiracy theory: I think this is AMEX’s solution to calm down the Platinum Schwab members for the devaluation of cashing out their points.
Alternate conspiracy theory: Amex let all of the Schwab card holders cash out their MR and then added the transfer bonuses the next day knowing that millions of MR were no longer in the system.
Most of these transfer partners are lame, and not something majority of us would use. I’d say Aeroplan is only one worth speculatively transferring to.
That is a fair point, but none of the transfers excite me as of today. Already got too many miles in the programs I am familiar with and don’t need to transfer more miles over without any travel plans to use up the miles.
The BA Avios 40% transfer is very tempting but I still have lots of them…so I wait 🙂
Yeah, Avios for me.
Yep the BA one and actually the Quantas one are both very good
The usual transfer bonus for AM is 1,000:1,600 as its in km and not miles, so it isn’t a 100% transfer bonus…
That’s a great point, I forgot about that normal ratio. Thanks for that – I’ll update the post.