When it comes to points, there are many different kinds. The first thing that comes to mind for pretty much anyone will be the standard airline/hotel points. I’ll always refer to hotel points, as points, but sometimes the terminology between airline miles and points are interchangeable. So, you may see me using both of these terms interchangeably when referring to an airline’s loyalty program.
However, these points are traditionally “fixed” to being used on a certain airline or hotel booking engine (not necessarily airline due to alliances) so these can be less valuable than we are referred to as “transferrable” points.
When it comes to being able to transfer points, there’s a few things to keep in mind.
Not all points are equal
One of the biggest factors when it comes to points and miles, is the difference between transferrable points versus these airline/hotel points. Transferrable points are more valuable as you have the option to transfer points to many different loyalty programs and are not limited to just booking on one airline. Some of the best and biggest transferrable point programs are below –
- American Express Membership Rewards®
- Bilt Rewards
- Capital One Miles
- Chase Ultimate Rewards®
- Citi ThankYou® Rewards
These are the main issuers that have what we refer to as transferable point currencies. Each of these programs will have different transfer partners that you can transfer your points over to that make your points work further. These points are worth a considerable amount more than for example Delta Skymiles, Hilton Honors points, or Southwest Rapid Rewards Points. The reason being that points within airline and hotel programs are locked to just being used within that program.
For example, the following are transfer partners of American Express –
American Express Airline Transfer Partners
- Aer Lingus
- AeroMexico
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France KLM – Flying Blue
- Avianca lifemiles
- British Airways Executive Club
- Cathay Pacific
- Delta Skymiles
- Etihad Guest
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Iberia Plus
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Quantas Frequent Flyer
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
American Express Hotel Transfer Partners
- Choice Privileges
- Hilton Honors
- Marriott Bonvoy
Compare this with just having airline or hotel points, you can only use those points to book on that specific website.
Example
To help illustrate the value of transferrable points versus fixed points, let’s use the example of 100,000 AMEX Points versus 100,000 Delta SkyMiles. If you wanted to travel from Minneapolis (MSP) to Amsterdam (AMS) on a one-way flight on April 28th, the traveler with Delta SkyMiles will have to book this ticket through Delta.com
Booking via Delta.com
After performing an award search for this flight – the lowest possible point redemption option for a one way flight is 120,000 + $6. Take a look at the flight below that is a non-stop flight on KLM (one of Delta’s alliance partners through the SkyTeam alliance)
Now it’s important to note that with some airlines, booking a roundtrip fare with points can actually save on total costs. Though the opposite is true for nearly all airlines, with Delta they do traditionally give you a discount when booking roundtrips with points. As you can see below using flexible dates, a roundtrip ticket will cost at the lowest price 98,000 points + $100 in taxes and fees.
As mentioned, a person who only has Delta SkyMiles, is limited to just using those SkyMiles on the Delta website. However, if you have American Express Membership Rewards points, your options open up quite a bit.
Booking via KLM.com
Since you are in Minneapolis (a SkyTeam hub) you will still likely want to search through SkyTeam partners. Booking through Delta.com directly is an option since American Express points do transfer there, but since we know the point cost already on Delta, let’s look at a couple of other options. The first option I am going to look at is KLM, since they are the Netherlands main carrier, and after all, KLM is based in Holland.
As you can see, the price going through KLM for that exact same flight as a one way is 100,000 miles cheaper – that is insane! Sure, taxes and fees are $80 more, but I would gladly pay that if I could save 100,000 miles. It costs about the same price on the way back (20,000 points + $130 or so in taxes and fees) so going through KLM still saves over 50,000 points for a roundtrip ticket.
Booking via VirginAtlantic.com
However, our search is not yet done, we’re now going to look at one of the best transfer partners for SkyTeam flights, Virgin Atlantic.
As you can see, the booking price going through VirginAtlantic is only 15,000 miles + $5.60 for a one way flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. Compare that to the one way going through Delta for that same flight, and you’re now saving 105,000 miles! A one way flight on the way back (via KLM) will be the same cost of 15,000 miles (the taxes and fees are a bit steeper back – about $130)
The clear choice here is to book via Virgin Atlantic. You will save quite a bit of points by transferring them to Virgin Atlantic than transferring them to Delta. This is the reason why I always recommend cards that have the option to transfer points, you simply just have more options when you transfer and your points can go a lot further.
The Last Stop
Transferrable points are simply a game-changer in the credit card rewards space. You not only will have more options, but the points themselves are worth quite a bit more. The downside of course is that if you decide to close your credit card and you do not have another that earns the same point currency, then you lose them. This is compared with loyalty programs for airlines and hotels that are increasingly switching to a “never expiring” model.
If I had to pick between an airline credit card versus a card that earns transferrable points, 99% of the time I am going with a credit card that earns transferrable points.
