Maximize Your Points with Transfer Bonus Alerts

Amex is running a very short transfer bonus for Member Week to Marriott Bonvoy. Unfortunately, it’s not a very compelling offer, despite the short timeframe.

For one, an Amex point is worth around 2.5X a Marriott Bonvoy point. So you are getting 25% more while you’d need a 150% bonus to breakeven on point value.

For another, we have seen various transfer bonuses from Chase and American Express to Marriott Bonvoy many times before, racing from 20%-50%, so this is not even at the high end of the range. So this bonus isn’t going to be compelling for most.

As always, there can be exceptions and you might find a 5 night stay (5th night free) where the transfer makes sense, so do the math – but you likely do not want to transfer speculatively unless you are a Bonvoy pro and believe you will exceed value you can get via other, higher value, partners.

While it’s always hard to recommend speculative transfers, Hilton points have gotten more attractive since integrating SLH hotels into Hilton Honors (See Dave’s musing about his thinking on how Hilton points may be becoming more valuable and this more recent article about the extreme value in SLH and other high end Hilton brands.). The integration is already providing exceptional value at properties with rates in the $1,000 – $2,000 a night range for, on average, 130,000 points a night. So, it appears his musing has become a reality.

And as long as you have at least the lowest tier Hilton status, the 5th night is free on any award and resort fees are also waived on award stays.

It may take up to 24 hours to get the bonus miles which are being offered by Lifemiles rather than Amex.

Exact end time is February 28th, 2025 (11:59 PM GMT-6).

Details of the transfer bonus are here on the Lifemiles website. The bonus is being solely offered by Lifemiles and therefore you will not see the offer on the American Express website.

That said, I do not think almost anyone should be taking advantage of this offer.

This simply makes the rate an even 1:1 as it’s normally 1:0.8. You’ll also have to pay the excise transfer fee. Unlikely to be a great deal for most.

One possible outsized redemption would be a Qatar Airways QSuite bookable with 70,000 points if terminating in Doha. Unfortunately, connections like to Male add quite a bit on. You may find better award space to Doha on JetBlue compared to other Oneworld airlines like American, but find the space on the JetBlue website before transferring anything!!

KEEP IN MIND: Virgin Flying Club has moved to a dynamic pricing for awards. In some cases we are seeing extreme value like 29,000 point Business Class awards from the US to London. In other cases, the prices have risen dramatically.  Run some searches before transferring.

It’s also worth Virgin Atlantic transfer bonuses are fairly frequent between various programs. See historical transfer bonuses to Virgin Atlantic here. This is the 7th transfer bonus this year from a bank program to Virgin Atlantic. Most bonuses have been at 30%, although one from Chase for 40% just ended.

Best Uses of Virgin Flying Club points:

We have seen past bonuses from Chase and American Express of up to 70%, so while 35% seems like a large bonus, it’s in the midrange of historical bonuses. (See historical transfer bonuses to Marriott Bonvoy).

This is almost never a good transfer unless you are topping off for an award you are ready to book. Keep in mind that we value a Membership Rewards point at almost 3X the value of a Marriott Bonvoy point.

However, there are always exceptions and you might find a 5 night stay (5th night free) where the transfer makes sense so do the math – but you likely do not want to transfer speculatively unless you are a Bonvoy pro and believe you will exceed value you can get via other Amex partners.

This offer runs through the end of 2024, so no rush to decide.

I’m just going to come straight out and tell you not to do this unless you are an unbelievably experienced Avianca Lifemiles user and know exactly what you need more miles for. They also have transfer bonuses all the time, almost always more than 15%.

The transfer bonus is paltry at 15%, the Lifemiles program just did a major unannounced devaluation, and they are no longer the only option for avoiding surcharges on Star Alliance flights (hello Aeroplan).

Also see: Downsides of LifeMiles program.

This bonus is targeted by account. You may be offered 10% or 15% (or possibly no transfer bonus).

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles are very useful in the right circumstances. They used to “hard expire” regardless of activity, but no longer as you can reset expiration with activity every 18 months.

Best for booking Cathay Pacific metal long haul premium flights which may only be made available to its own members. Also great for booking long haul in a premium cabin with a short connection in a lower class of service which prices the entire trip lower than just the primary premium long haul segment. You can now book AA flights online as well.

I personally love Asia Miles for booking flights to Asia (either to or transiting Japan) as the booking window for Asia Miles is 360 days out which aligns with JAL’s giving you two chances to snag a First or Business Class seat right at the booking window.

Interesting that Amex is launching this on the 10th of the month (we most often see these launch on the 1st or 15th). It’s their first transfer bonus to Flying Blue since September 2023, which was 25%.

In 2024, Chase, Citi, and Capital One have all had transfer bonuses of 20-25%.

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 American Express Membership Rewards points 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.

While it’s always hard to recommend speculative transfers, Hilton points have gotten more attractive since integrating SLH hotels into Hilton Honors (See Dave’s recent musing about his thinking on how Hilton points may be becoming more valuable). The integration is already providing exceptional value at properties with rates in the $1,000 – $2,000 a night range for, on average, 120,000 points a night. So, it appears his musing has become a reality.

And as long as you have at least the lowest tier Hilton status, the 5th night is free on any award and resort fees are also waived on award stays.

We value an Amex point at 1.7 cents and a Hilton point at 0.5 cents and while those values are an average, with a 5th night free award you can definitely do well transferring 1,000 Amex points for 2,800 Hilton Honors points.

Our advice is to run some sample searches for potential redemptions to see the value you’re likely to get before transferring.

For context on the size of this bonus, since 2022 Amex has had 5 transfer bonuses to Amex. A 40% one for Platinum Card holders only early this year and the other 4 were 30%, 25%, 30% and 30%. So this is in line with a standard offer that Amex offers 2 to 3 times a year.