Current and Historical Transfer Bonuses Plus Transfer Bonus Alerts

Capital One just added JAL Mileage Bank as a partner today. The transfer ratio is sub-optimal at 2:1.5, but they are kicking off the points transfer partnership with a transfer bonus that gets you *almost* to 1:1.

1,000 Capital One Miles gets you 975 JAL miles until October 22nd, 2025 with this transfer bonus. Usually, 1,000 will get you 750 JAL miles.

When Bilt added JAL as a transfer partner back in May, we wrote an extensive guide to JAL. If you aren’t familiar with JAL (and most aren’t), check out that guide to JAL Mileage Bank.

Importantly, you cannot transfer points into JAL Mileage Bank until your Mileage Bank account has been active for 7 days, so create that account right away whether you have a transfer in mind today or not.

Transfers should be instant.

JAL does offer a Round The World award (appealing now that ANA’s RTW is no more), but note that JAL miles “hard expire” 36 months from the date you earn them.

Need more Capital One Miles? We have 5 cards that earn Capital One Miles here.

Remember that with Capital One cards that earn cash back, you can convert the cash back into transferable miles as long as you have any of the Miles-earning cards.

Virgin Red links directly to Virgin Atlantic so this is basically the same thing. From within the Virgin Red side, you can redeem for things like Virgin Voyages, Virgin Hotels, luxury safaris, and even Richard Branson’s private “Necker Island.” It’s one extra click to move them into your Virgin Atlantic Flying Blue account.

You can view past transfer bonuses to Virgin Red and past transfer bonuses to Virgin Atlantic which range as high as 40% (excluding Bilt’s one day transfer bonuses).

You can also, of course, move the points to your Virgin Atlantic account where you can redeem for flights starting at 6,000 points. We like using points for domestic Delta flights (when there is availability!) as well as for SkyTeam flights and, of course, ANA First and Business Class flights. Virgin’s own flight rewards are dynamically priced but with high surcharges. I’d been seeing a lot of Upper Class seats from 29,000 points but I’m not seeing much now so do some homework on what you are hoping to book before transferring.

ANA First and Business class awards:

• First Class to/from Japan from West Coast: 145,000 points Round Trip
• First Class to/from Japan from East Coast: 170,000 points Round Trip
• Business Class to/from Japan from West Coast: 105,000 points Round Trip
• Business Class to/from Japan from East Coast: 120,000 points Round Trip

(Note that you can book one way for half the price of the points price listed.)

Valid August 1-31, 2025 at 11:59pm ET.

I do not think many of you should be taking advantage of this offer.

Ending on May 31, 2025 at 11L59pm ET, this is a pretty rare 20% transfer bonus opportunity if you are savvy with Qantas’ program (which probably isn’t a ton of you!). We only see two historical transfer bonuses to Qantas dating back to 2022 when we started recording them, one from Capital One and one from Amex. Both were also 20%.

The first thing you’ll want to see is the Qantas award chart as prices rose, significantly in some cases, in August of 2024. There are actually multiple charts: One for Qantas, Jetstar, Fiji Airways, Air Vanuatu, and American Airlines and another for Air France, Alaska Airlines, Bangkok Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern, EL AL, Emirates, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, KLM, LATAM Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Oman Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, SriLankan Airlines and WestJet.

And then there’s yet another for mixed oneworld awards.

The Qantas frequent flyer program tends to have very expensive rates, however, there are often times that they make First and Business Class seats from the US to Australia available with Qantas Frequent Flyer and not with partners. You may also find expanded availability with other partners – you’ll have to search but happily their search interface is pretty easy to use and provides calendar views.

You can also book Emirates First and Business class flights with Qantas. Compare against the Emirates Skywards program before transferring.

Don’t forget to check surcharges!

From now until March 31st, Etihad Guest is running their own transfer bonus.

Of all eligible partners, the only US participating bank is Capital One. You will get between 20% and 40% bonused depending on how much you transfer. You won’t find the promo on Capital One’s website.

Complete a points transfer between 03 March 2025 (00.00am UTC+4) and 31 March 2025 (23.59pm UTC+4) and receive up to 40% of bonus miles.

• Etihad Guest members who transfer 0 to 9,999 miles, will receive 20% Bonus miles on each transaction.
• Etihad Guest members who transfer above 10,000 to 49,999 miles, will receive 30% Bonus miles on each transaction.
• Etihad Guest members who transfer from 50,000 and above miles, will receive 40% Bonus miles on each transaction. 

Now, should you transfer? My opinion is that only an expert user of Etihad Guest should even consider it. If booking on Etihad itself (which you might do for access to Etihad First Class space), you will pay between 25% and 75% to cancel a GuestSeat (saver) booking. That is the most punitive of any program I can think of. You can use it to book JetBlue (80k US-Europe in business) but you can also use Qatar for that without the punitive penalties.

You can book short haul partner awards like AA for as little as 6,000 miles, but I don’t think the juice is worth a speculative squeeze. Then again, AA to Europe for 65,000 Etihad isn’t bad with a 40% transfer bonus… You can always check pricing for Etihad Partners if considering it and you can view. the promotion page here.

There are so many transfer bonuses to Avios, many 30% – 40%, that I don’t think you need to speculatively transfer on this one unless Capital One Miles are your only transferable point and you regularly use Avios anyway (meaning you know how you’ll use them in advance).

Otherwise, my usual thoughts apply:

Despite past shortfall domestic sweet spots evaporating, you can still transfer these miles over to Qatar Airways Avios where that same flight would be 9,500 miles (up from 6,000 but still cheaper than BA). And that’s the thing – you can transfer these Avios to any other Avios program airline including Finnair.

Also – outside of the US, BA still prices flights under 650 miles (i.e. SYD-MEL on Qantas) at 6,000 miles in Economy and only 12,500 miles in Business – hello, sweet spot!

BA does have a very favorable lap infant policy – 10% of the miles paid for the adult fare. Beware their draconian surcharges on long haul awards.

Flying Blue rates are variable, so run a search before transferring. When you get lucky, business class from the US to Europe can run as low as just 50,000 Flying Blue miles. That would be just 42,000 Capital One Miles during this promotion!

Flying Blue is the best way to book Virgin Atlantic Upper Class from the US to Europe and beyond, due to the lowest taxes of any way to book Virgin Atlantic. It can also book Delta, KLM, and other SkyTeam members.

Transfers should be instant. Promotion ends 11:59PM Eastern Time on 09/29/2024

The Qantas frequent flyer program tends to have very expensive rates, however, there are often times that they make First and Business Class seats from the US to Australia available with Qantas Frequent Flyer and not with partners. Still, a 20% bonus is probably not enough to move the needle unless you see an award to book today.

You can also book Emirates First and Business class flights with Qantas. Compare against the Emirates Skywards program before transferring.

Virgin Red converts 1:1 to Virgin Atlantic.

As always, your best uses are to fly Delta One to Europe (excluding England) for 50,000 miles – IF you can find available award space and to book ANA First and Business class awards.

Business Class on ANA to Japan would be 35,000 – 37,000 points while First Class would be 56,000 – 66,000 points (depending on if you are on the West Coast (cheaper) or East Coast.

One more great use is domestically on Delta within the US or US-Mexico/Canada from 7,500 Virgin points.

Transfer 1000 to 10,000 miles and get 20% Bonus Miles on each transaction.

Transfer 10,001 to 50,000 miles and get 30% Bonus Miles on each transaction.

Transfer 50,001 miles and above and get 40% Bonus Miles on each transaction.

Remember that Etihad Guest recently devalued and miles expire after 1.5 years. We advise against a speculative transfer.