Most airlines across the globe have their own mileage program. For example:
- American Airlines has AAdvantage
- United Airlines has MileagePlus
- British Airways has Avios
What the average consumer may not know is that many credit card companies offer transferable currencies that could, on a moment’s notice, boost the amount of miles you have with a particular airline. There are a myriad of programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou points, etc. Not every transferable currency can become any airline – they each have deals with various programs to convince the consumer to use their card. I’ve used almost all of them and want to share some thoughts about each below. If you want to see the exhaustive list of transfer partners, please use this tool from Travel on Points – they are a great community to be involved in to learn more about award tickets.
- Chase Ultimate Rewards: This is a great ecosystem to earn points, especially because the 5/24 rule forces you to consider Chase cards first. The unique partners here are Hyatt and United. With only one or two sign-up bonuses from credit cards you could transfer points to Hyatt to stay at fancy all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. Or, with United miles you can book almost any flight they have across the globe (it just might cost you an arm and a leg). If you feel like earning some of these, click on my referral link.
- American Express Membership Rewards: My favorite uses of these miles are probably Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and ANA. Instead of spending over $600 in taxes to fly to London using British Airways Avios, you could use Cathay Pacific miles to buy the same exact ticket for 1/3 the taxes. Qantas is interesting in that is partners with El Al to fly to/from Israel (although it is a lot of miles), and ANA has the amazing Round-the-world ticket deal that I’ve written about previously. If you open this link in an incognito window, you can get a 90k sign up bonus on the Amex Gold card.
- Citi ThankYou points: It uses to be that one would covet these points for use on Turkish Airlines’ website and book Star Alliance carriers like United, SwissAir, Lufthansa, etc for cheap. Unfortunately, they devalued recently and it’s mostly not worth it. But, they do transfer to EVA Air, an company that can be difficult to use to book flights with their miles, but often has award availability to Asia for 75k-80k miles.
- Capital One miles: These are pretty similar to Citi ThankYou points in their use, also partnering with Turkish and EVA Air as well as a host of others. Anecdotally, sometimes they take a bit longer to transfer to their partners.
- Bilt points: The new kid on the block, these points are great and transfer to United, Hyatt, Turkish, and Alaska Airlines (used to be American as well). They often run special deals on the first of the month (“Rent Day”) and help you pay for rent with no fee and earn points. I recently used these points to book an American Air business class flight to Italy. Click here to use my referral code to get a Bilt card.
- Marriott Bonvoy points: While not a ‘bank’ currency, these points do transfer to a whole host of airlines, including American (more than any bank currency) with one important caveat: usually they transfer at a 3:1 ratio, meaning if you transfer 30,000 Marriott points you get 10,000 airline miles. Generally, I do not advise doing this unless it’s your only option to top up an account. The points also transfer slowly (2-3 days) and cap at 240k Marriott points per day (meaning around 80k airline miles). There are some small bonuses but it’s not usually worth it.
