Once you have earned your favorite type of credit card points (Amex, Chase, Citi, or Capital One) and airline miles (AA, Alaska), you may be tempted to use them on the respective credit card travel portals. All these credit cards also encourage you to use them during the checkout process of PayPal and Amazon. I know a few friends and colleagues who wasted over 100,000 Amex points this way because they are not familiar with the concept of point transfers to partner airlines to book award flights.

Cashing Points on the Travel Portal vs Transferring to Partner Airlines

I will give a few redemption examples of the cashing vs transferring points to another airline below. These examples assume that you have 100,000 MR points in your account.

Example 1:

AA airways nonstop one-way economy flight from DFW to Santiago (SCL) typically costs ~$800.

If you use Amex travel to book that flight using your MR points, you are going to lose 80,000 points to cover the flight cost.

But, if you transfer the 26000 MR points to British Airways from the Amex portal (you must create a free British Airways (BA) account number and link it with MR points first), you can book the one-way AA flight for 25,750 British Avios and $5.60 in taxes.

By using this method, your 26,000 points have yielded a value of $800.

• For beginners, it may sound strange that we are transferring Amex points to British Airways and not even travelling on British Airways flights.
• This transferable point system works because of the affiliation between British Airways and their partner airlines like AA (both belong to One World Alliance). 
• The best part of this redemption is that if you ever want to cancel a flight you can do so by just losing the money paid in taxes ($5.60) and Avios will be refunded to the BA account.

Example 2:

A nonstop business class round-trip flight by Eva air from Chicago (ORD) to Taipei (TPE) in the summer months typically costs ~$5500.

If you use the Amex travel portal to book this flight using your 100,000 point earnings (equal to $1000), you will end up paying for the remaining balance of ~$4500 from your pocket. But, if you transfer your 95000 MR points to the ANA mileage program (free to sign up), you will be able to book the business class round trip for 95000 points and $265 in taxes/fuel costs (see the picture below).

Example 3:

The Japan Airlines business class flight from JFK to Tokyo one-way trip typically costs ~$6000 and can be booked with just 60K AA or Alaska miles.

Can Credit Card Points be Transferred to any Airline?

Each credit card company has agreements with individual airlines and transfers are restricted to those programs only. However, there are certain airlines that partnered with all the major credit card point systems (e.g., Emirates, Singapore Kris Flyer, Virgin Atlantic, Flying Blue, etc.,) and you can combine points from multiple programs to complete the award redemption.

Airline Transfer Partners of Major Credit Card Points

How to Link and Transfer Credit Card Points to Partner Airlines?

The partner airline affiliation list is long, but only a handful of airlines offer the best redemption choices. I recommend that beginners enroll with the list of airlines below by creating a free account.

1. Air Canada Aeroplan https://www.aeroplan.com/enroll.do#/
2. Avianca LifeMiles https://www.lifemiles.com/enrollment/step/1
3. ANA Mileage Club https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/amc/join-amc/
4. Flying Blue https://login.klm.com/enrol/flyingblue
5. British Airways Executive Club Avios https://www.britishairways.com/travel/execenrol/public/en_us
6. Iberia Avios https://registro-iberiaplus.iberia.com/?language=en&origin=US
7. Qatar Avios https://www.qatarairways.com/en-us/Privilege-Club/join-now.html
8. Emirates Skywards https://mobile.emirates.com/english/skywardsEnrollmentLoad.xhtml
9. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/ppsclub-krisflyer/registration-form/
10. Virgin Atlantic Flying Club https://www.virginatlantic.com/profile/enrolllanding.action
11. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles https://www.asiamiles.com/en/enrolment.html

Once you have signed up and got the account numbers for the programs, the next step is to find each one of them on your credit card point portal and link them so points can be transferred when needed. This process only needs to be done once for each credit card point system.

Amex MR Point Transfers

You can find the Amex MR point transfer portal by clicking on the following link and then logging into the account. (https://global.americanexpress.com/rewards/transfer?tier=PR&intlink=us-mr-c586%7Cweb%7Caw%7Cmr%7Cxfergen%7Cprtb&rfs=1&mrk=)

Can you transfer MR points to authorized user accounts?

Amex lets you link & transfer MR points from your account to your authorized user’s travel partner accounts (e.g., Emirates). However, the authorized user account has to be active for at least 3 months. If your household has more than one Amex MR point earning card, I suggest you make yourself an authorized user on at least one single account (e.g., Amex Gold or Blue Business Plus) as soon as possible. This way you are not struggling to find points when you see a good reward redemption.

Chase UR Point Transfers

Once you log into the Chase account, click on your UR point balance, and on the next page you will click on the 3 horizontal bars from the top left.

Then, you will see a long list of options and you should click on the “Transfer to Travel Partners” option.

In the next page, you will find the list of travel partners and any available bonus offers.

If you have added any authorized users to your Chase Sapphire Preferred/Reserve cards, Chase also lets you transfer points under their name to a partner program by clicking on the “Select Recipient” option.

Once linked, transferring points to any of the selected airline programs is very easy; point transfer times are instant for most airlines (Aeroplan, British, Avianca, Virgin Atlantic, and Asia miles) and 1-2 days for others (Singapore and ANA). In most cases, there is a minimum of 1000 points required for each transfer. 

How to Combine Your Chase Personal and Business Card UR Points?

Unlike Amex MR points, which are combined by default for both personal and business cards, Chase keeps the accounts separate. You should first link both your Chase business and personal accounts by following the procedure:

https://www.chase.com/digital/customer-service/helpful-tips/business-banking/general/cbo-account-linking

After you have merged both accounts, you should look for the option “Combine Points” located at the bottom of the same menu mentioned earlier.

Then, you will be able to transfer points from your personal and business cards as many times as needed.

Combining points helps transfer the UR points earned from Chase credit cards that do not transfer directly to travel partners (e.g., Chase Ink Cash and Unlimited) to either Chase Sapphire Preferred, Reserve or Business Ink Preferred accounts.

How to Combine Chase UR Points in Your Household?

Chase lets you transfer UR points from another single household personal Chase account to your account or vice versa. Sometimes this process can be initiated online when you see the option “Add a Household Member” under the “Combine Points” menu. If you don’t see that option, you will need to call customer service to set it up. They will ask for the card number and name of your household member, and you will soon see the household member’s account appear on your “Combine Points” page.

If you have a second family member (same address) with Chase’s business UR point card (e.g., Business Ink), his/her account can also be combined with your Business Ink Preferred account. This method works if two individuals in the same household have Chase business cards and are considered business partners.

Conclusion

Based on the flight examples and the discussion from above, airline points are worth 4 to 10 times more if you exclusively use them to book overseas flights (higher yield for business class award booking), compared to the diminished value you will get by using the hard-earned points on travel portals. I rarely use my credit card points to book domestic flights. I will discuss the complexities of finding the award seats and avoiding high taxes in the next review (https://awardcracker.com/searching-for-partner-airline-award-space/).