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Don’t forget there’s a 30% Amex transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic
Amex offers some of the best flexible points out there. With over 20 transfer partners you can find ways to travel incredibly well. One of those transfer partners is Virgin Atlantic and they’re offering a great 30% transfer bonus. This means you could fly roundtrip to Europe on Delta in business for just 77k American Express points. How? Virgin Atlantic has a sweetspot in their unpublished chart whereby you can fly ( without all those pesky taxes and fee) on their partner Delta for 100k miles roundtrip. Since Amex is being generous and offering a 30% bonus, all you’d need to transfer is 77k.
Here’s a few Virgin Atlantic Partner sweet spots to consider.
- ANA First Class roundtrip from USA to Tokyo for 110k
courtesy of ana.com - Air China First Class roundtrip from London to Beijing for 75k
they will hit you with taxes and fees on this though. $500-1000
courtesy of air china.com - Delta Business Roundtrip from USA to UK 100k and UK to USA for 90k
- Delta Business Roundtrip USA to Africa roundtrip for 120k
Once I’m back from the trip I’ll do a more comprehensive write up on different redemptions, but hopefully this gets your mental juices flowing.
You have until May 22, 2017 to enjoy a 30% bonus on transferred 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 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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