THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CREDIT CARD TRAVEL TRANSFER PARTNERS
Disclaimer: Points for Family Travel is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as Milevalue.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.
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.
The four main transferable travel programs are Chase Ultimate Rewards®, American Express, Membership Rewards®, Capital One® Venture® Rewards and Citi ThankYou® Points. Each program has their own set of airline and hotel partners and some of them overlap giving us extra opportunities to earn more points.
Cards that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points include:
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card - Favorite card for beginners
Chase Sapphire Reserve® - Best premium card with perks like lounge access
Chase Freedom Flex℠ - The workhorse, this cards earns 5x points on rotating categories
Chase Freedom Unlimited® - Earns 1.5 x points on all purchases
Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card - Business credit card that earns 5x points at office supply stores and on phone/internet
Read my guide on the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card here and learn all about the famous Chase Trifecta here.
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:
American Express® Gold Card - The best all-around travel rewards card - earns 4x points 4x at U.S. Supermarkets, on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1x.
The Platinum Card® from American Express- A premium card with tons of perks and credits that offset the high annual fee
Cards that earn Capital One Venture miles include:
Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card - Earn unlimited double miles on all purchases. The sign up bonus is enough for two round trip flights to Europe.
Capital One® Venture X Rewards Credit Card - This is my new favorite card! Comes with access to the Capital one Lounge, Global Entry/TSA PreCheck and $300 back annually for bookings through Capital One Travel
Capital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card - Earn 20,000 miles after meeting the minimum spend of $500 in purchases in the first three months of account opening. No annual fee.
Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business - The business card version of the Capital One Venture card. Earns 50k miles and no annual fee the first year. Great if you’re over 5/24.
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 Premier® Card (not an affiliate link) - This is a great flexible earning card with a current sign up bonus of 60,000 ThankYou points. Earns 3x on travel, restaurants, grocery stores and gas stations.
Citi Rewards+® Card (not an affiliate link) - This is a no-annual fee card that earns 2x points on groceries.
which cards have the same transfer partners:
Another great reason to diversify your transferable currency is that many points from the four big flexible 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 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.
FINAL POINT:
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 transfer partner charts above, so when you’re read to book, you’ll see that you have multiple opportunities to search and book award travel. Flexible points for the win!
Happy Travels!
Learn how to book your first award flight here!
Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
