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30% transfer bonus from Amex to Avios
American Express periodically runs transfer bonuses to their airline and hotel partners, and in the past year we’ve seen a distinct ramp up of those bonuses. Currently, Amex has debuted a new 30% bonus when you convert Amex points into British Airways Avios or Iberia Avios. Is this a good deal? It definitely could be, so let’s take a look.
30% Amex transfer bonus to British Airways
- Runs until 09/30/24
- 1000 Amex = 1300 Avios
- capped at 999k Avios
Booking Qatar Airways QSuites with British Airways Avios
Let’s take a look at a couple of different itineraries…the first is to Doha. I would have loved to stay at the St Regis Doha a bit longer when I visited back in 2019, and would highly recommend the property. I’ll also point out that Doha is littered with incredible properties at attractive prices, but when we stayed, my family was upgraded to an incredible suite for our stay.
If you were to travel from the UK/Europe to Cape Town = 75k British Airways Avios or 58k Amex points with this transfer bonus
I recently flew this route, but used American Miles and did a stopover in Doha.
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Move to Qatar, FinnAir, Aer Lingus, Iberia
Whenever you have points with a single Avios Airline, you can move them between any of them. Last year Qatar Airways was included in the Avios program, and this year we added FinnAir.
Using FinnAir to book Cathay Pacific is a great deal…especially with a transfer bonus. For instance, US to Asia is just 75k miles ( or about 60k with this bonus ).
Link your Qatar Airways and British Airways Accounts to move points between them
I haven’t dug through all of the various permutations of where one program has suite spots the other doesn’t, but linking your accounts means you could take Amex, Chase, Cap1 points, move them to BA, and then over to Qatar Airways Avios if they priced better. It takes a few minutes to complete and sets you up for success.
Once you log into you account you’ll be prompted to link your BA and Qatar Airways accounts.
Other great uses of British Airways Avios?
Funny enough, the best ways to use British Airways Avios isn’t on British Airways itself. Here are a few of the ways I’d look to leverage them into great deals.
Upgrade your British Airways flight with British Airways Avios
BA makes it pretty simple to figure out whether or not you can use points to upgrade. If an award seat is available in the next cabin up, odds are, you can upgrade.
There are exceptions to these rules:
- Your ticket was issued by a partner airline American, Finnair, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, etc
- You booked a fare coded as Q, O or G.
How many points will you need? Whatever the difference in a award price from your cabin to the next cabin up. The easiest tool I’ve found is the avios calculator here.
I have done this many times – the best…using 25k points to upgrade from a cheap business class ticket into BA first class from LA to London. You can read the review here
Should you move Amex points if you don’t have a booking
Absolutely not. I never recommend moving points without a specific redemption in mind; however, I have done in the past, but unless you are especially savvy at extracting value I wouldn’t do it.
Recap
If you have use for British Airways Avios, this could be a good time to move those bad boys over and book it. If not… don’t do a speculative move.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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