THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CREDIT CARD TRAVEL TRANSFER PARTNERS

Miles and Points
Written By Stacy Mantellini

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Transferable points are some of the most valuable points to earn in the miles and points world. This is because transferable points give you so many options when booking travel. Unlike airline and hotel points that can only be used to book specific airline/hotel awards (i.e., you can only book flights on the American Airlines website if you have AA points), transferable points can be used to transfer to multiple airlines and hotels. This gives you extreme flexibility and so many more options when you’re booking travel.

Each program has their own set of airline and hotel partners and some of them overlap giving us extra opportunities to earn more points. The four main transferable points programs are:

  • Chase Ultimate Rewards® Points

  • American Express Membership Rewards®

  • Capital One Venture Rewards

  • Citi ThankYou® Points


If you are one of the people that earn a lot of credit card points and are still redeeming them in the bank travel portal, you are really missing out on a ton of value by not looking at your travel transfer partners. When you book in the bank travel portal you are barely getting one cent per point vs over two cents when you transfer to the right partner. This makes a huge difference.

CHASE ULTIMATE REWARDS

Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR’s) are some of the most valuable transferable points that you can earn. Because of the Chase 5/24 Rule, you want the first few cards that you get to be from Chase. If you have Chase UR points that means that you essentially can book flights or hotel stays with any of the transfer partners below. Keep in mind that not all programs are the same and your points won’t have as much value in some programs as they do in others.

Some of my favorite Chase transfer partners and sweet spots are:

  • Air Canada: Search to book flights on partners ANA, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Swiss Air and United, etc.

  • British Airways: While BA tacks on high fuel surcharges, you can combine your Avios with Aer Lingus, Iberia, Finnair and Qatar or book Oneworld partner flights on Alaska, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, etc. I also like to book short-haul AA flight on BA.

  • Flying Blue: is the loyalty program of Air France and KLM. You can book flights to Europe as low as 18k points each way in economy or 60k points in business class. As a SkyTeam member you can book flights on Delta by booking on Flying Blue.

  • Hyatt: is one of the best transfer partners for Chase. With redemptions starting at just 5k points a night you can book a luxury hotel that books for $1k/night starting at 35k points a night. I would not transfer Chase points to IHG or Marriott without a transfer bonus.

 
 

Cards that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points include:


Read my guide on the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card here and learn all about the famous Chase Trifecta here.

All information about the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom Unlimited, Chase Freedom Flex, Ink Business Cash, Ink Business Preferred and Ink Business Unlimited has been collected independently by Points for Family Travel. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

New to credit cards and points travel? Learn all the basics in my FAQ Guide here.

AMERICAN EXPRESS MEMBERSHIP REWARD POINTS

American Express Membership Rewards have the most transfer partners of any flexible points program. Some of my favorite Amex transfer partners and sweet spots are:

  • Air Canada: As a member of the Star Alliance, search and book on AC for flights on ANA, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Swiss Air and United, etc.

  • Avianca: Also, a Star Alliance member which means you can book flights on United, Swiss, Lufthansa, etc. Create an account and search on lifemiles.com

  • British Airways: While BA tacks on high fuel surcharges, you can combine your Avios with Aer Lingus, Iberia, Finnair and Qatar or book Oneworld partner flights on Alaska, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, etc. I also like to book short-haul AA flight on BA.

  • Flying Blue: is the loyalty program of Air France and KLM. You can book flights to Europe as low as 18k points each way in economy or 60k points in business class. As a SkyTeam member you can book flights on Delta by booking on Flying Blue.

  • Hawaiian Airlines: Has now merged with Alaska Airlines which means you can transfer from Amex>Hawaiian>Alaska to book One World flights and short haul AA flights for as low as 4500 points each way

  • Virgin Airlines: Like Flying Blue, you can book flights to Europe for as low as 12k points each way. Just watch the fees especially flying out of London.

  • Hilton: While you’ll get the best value by transferring to airlines, Amex transfers to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio so this is the best hotel transfer partner to redeem your points for.

 
 

Cards that earn AMEX MEMBERSHIP REWARDS include:

There are ten cards that earn Membership Rewards points between personal and business cards. Many of them have a very high minimum spend. Some of the most popular for families include: 

CAPITAL ONE VENTURE REWARDS MILES

Capital One Venture Rewards miles are some of my favorites. You can transfer miles to travel partners and use miles to redeem for any travel related purchases, like Disney or Universal tickets. Since the card earns 2x points per dollar on EVERY purchase, it’s easy to accrue a lot of miles. Here are some of my favorite transfer partners and sweet spots:

  • Air Canada: Search to book flights on partners ANA, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Swiss Air and United, etc. Don’t forget you can book domestic flights on United by searching and booking on Air Canada.

  • Avianca: Also, a Star Alliance member which means you can book flights on United, Swiss, Lufthansa, etc. Create an account and search on lifemiles.com

  • British Airways: While BA tacks on high fuel surcharges, you can combine your Avios with Aer Lingus, Iberia, Finnair and Qatar or book Oneworld partner flights on Alaska, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qantas, etc. I also like to book short-haul AA flights on BA.

  • Flying Blue: is the loyalty program of Air France and KLM. You can book flights to Europe as low as 18k points each way in economy or 60k points in business class. As a SkyTeam member you can book flights on Delta by booking on Flying Blue.

 
 

Cards that earn Capital One Venture miles include:

CITI THANKYOU POINTS

Citi ThankYou points don’t get a lot of press, but they are a great transferable points program with great travel transfer partners. Just like Capital One Venture Rewards miles you can transfer points to partners or redeem for travel related purchases like rental cars, flights or Disney and Universal tickets.

Some favorite transfer partners are:

  • Avianca: Star Alliance member. Search on lifemiles.com for flights on United, Lufthansa, Swiss, ANA, Singapore Airlines, etc.

  • Emirates: You guys know how much I love flying Emirates to Europe. Even economy on Emirates is great experience.

  • Flying Blue: Great for economy flights and business class flights start as low as 60k points. Sometimes you can find domestic Delta flights on Air France.

  • Virgin Airlines: Skyteam member which means you can book Delta, Air France/KLM flights. International flights start at 12k points in economy, 25k points in business class.

 
 

Cards that earn citi thankyou points include:

Citi cards that earn ThankYou® points are considered flexible currency. Much like Chase Ultimate Rewards, these points can be transferred to multiple travel transfer partners. 

  • Citi Strata Premier℠ Card - (non-affiliate link) This is a rebrand of a great flexible earning card with a current sign-up bonus of 70,000 ThankYou points. Earns 3x on travel, restaurants, grocery stores and gas stations.

  • Citi Rewards+® Card (non-affiliate link) - This is a no-annual fee card that earns 2x points on groceries.

All information about the Citi Strata Premier Card and the Citi Rewards+ card has been collected independently by Points for Family Travel. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.


cards THAT SHARE THE same transfer partners:

Another great reason to diversify your transferable currency is that many points from the four transferable points programs have the SAME travel transfer partners. That makes it easier when you need to earn a lot of points (for those of us with big families or those that want to book pricey business class awards) and have the ability to earn multiple sign-up bonuses across different card products.

 
 

Let’s say that you want to book five flights on Flying Blue to Europe for your family, but you don’t have enough Chase Ultimate Rewards points. From the chart above you can see that you can earn points from AMEX Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou and Capital One Venture cards and they all transfer to Flying Blue.

Want to book that business class flight on Emirates with the on-board bar? From the chart above you can see that all flexible points programs transfer to Emirates. That means it’s super easy to earn enough points for multiple people. This is just a couple of examples of how you can use this chart to earn miles from more than one card to transfer to a hotel or airline partner to help you book that redemption.

You found the perfect business class to Europe on United, but you only have Amex or Capital One miles. Now you know you can search on Star Alliance partners Air Canada or Avianca and book business class flights operated by United for much less than what United costs.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Not sure where to start? There are quite a few (free) award search tools that make finding award flights and hotels so much easier. I recommend playing around with the free versions of a few or paying for just one month to get a lot of practice on how to search and find award flights.

One of the things I always tell my readers is to always have a general idea of what you can do with the points that you’re earning. Start becoming familiar with the travel transfer partner chart above, so when you’re ready to book, you’ll see that you have multiple options to search and book award travel. Flexible points for the win.


Happy Travels!



The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of the offers mentioned may have expired.

 
 
Stacy Mantellini
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