American Express sure seems to be ramping up temptations to transfer points outside of the Amex Memerbership Rewards program and into your linked airline or hotel loyalty program.
There’s a 30% transfer bonus on now through July 1st on Virgin Atlantic transfers. That’s old news.
In this article
Transfer Bonus: Amex Membership Rewards to JetBlue and Qantas
Then last week a bonus was launched from Amex to Qantas with a 20% bonus.
Today, I see JetBlue with a 50% transfer bonus (though even with the transfer bonus, I think it’s hard to get great value out of a transfer to JetBlue unless topping up for an award).
Transfer Bonus: Amex Membership Rewards to Marriott Bonvoy
And over on other parts of the interweb, I’m seeing other transfer bonuses that are highly targeted (i.e. I wasn’t targeted so I can’t screen cap them. OMAAT reports a 50% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy. That’s a bonus I could take advantage of myself! While the Marriott Bonvoy credit cards only earn 2 Bonvoy points per dollar spent (excluding their limited bonus categories) I can earn 2x-4x Membership Rewards points per dollar fairly easily. For example, 4x MRs on dining and groceries with my Amex Gold Card or 2x on non-bonused spend with my no-annual-fee Blue Business Plus Credit Card. With this transfer bonus, that’s like earning 3-6 Marriott Bonvoy points per dollar spent. The old SPG cards earned the equivalent of 3 (current) Bonvoy points per dollar spent and I was very happy to earn that.
NOTE: With all “targeted” transfer offers, sometimes if you click “into” the offer to view all details, and don’t make the transfer, the offer vanishes. This is known and expected.
Do NOT click into the offer unless ready to use. You can view the offers on the main Transfer page which will show all bonus offers.
Transfer Bonus: Amex Membership Rewards to British Airways Avios
And then Thrifty Traveler reports a 50% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios! 50% is the biggest I’ve ever seen and is certainly compelling – perhaps even speculatively if you are experienced with how to best redeem Avios.
See Credit Cards that Earn Amex Membership Rewards.
Transfers from Amex Membership Rewards to Air France Flying Blue Offline
Finally – a quick note that Amex is showing Air France / KLM Flying Blue transfers as temporarily offline. I don’t know what the timeframe is.
Do you have any of these targeted offers or any not listed here?
Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.
