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30% transfer bonus to BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus
We are seeing the trend of transfer bonuses continue this year. Chase has dropped a, limited time, 30% transfer bonus when you transfer Ultimate Rewards into British Airways. Note that you can move Avios amongst partner programs Aer Lingus, Iberia, FinnAir, and Qatar since these are all members of the Avios program and those points can be merged.
If you have travel coming up and could utilize these bonuses…amazing, if not, I wouldn’t recommend moving points over to these programs just because they’re on offer.
What are some great uses of British Airways Avios?
In the past I have primarily used these to upgrade a discount business class fare into first class. For roughly 25k Avios you can upgrade a flight from the West Coast to England for just 25k Avios…or 18k Ultimate Rewards with this promo. I’ve also done it from Chicago where it only required 20k Avios…just 15k Ultimate Rewards with this promo.
How about Iberia?
Did you know that you can transfer British Airways Avios into Iberia Avios. Well, you can. Just read our guide here which step by step leads your through the process.
By far, bar none, the very best use of Iberia Avios is to redeem on a flight from the East Coast of the US to Madrid in business class. This can be done for just 43k Avios, or 86k roundtrip. That’s just 64k Ultimate Rewards!
And you’d fly like this – you can read our review here.
British Airways and Qatar Airways points can be used interchangeably
First thing you want to do is link your accounts, which you can do here. Once you do that, you’ll see the points you have in either account show up in both places. Qatar Airways is a part of the Avios program now.
Traveling to Doha
First, if you just want to go to Doha, the pricing on British Airways and Qatar are the same. I stayed at the St Regis Doha when I visited back in 2019. We were upgraded to an incredible suite for our stay.
USA to Doha = 70k British Airways Avios and 70k Qatar Airways.
The Maldives is a different situation.
- USA to Maldives on Qatar QSuites would cost 105k British Airways Avi
- 85k if you book it via Qatar Airways
You don’t even have to move points between accounts, you can book on Qatar’s website with points in your BA Avios account
Overall
Great time to transfer points
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 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 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 Points Boost
- each account anniversary you’ll earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders
- $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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