3. Make sure the award you plan to book with your transferred points is worth more than your other n

This is the eleventh post in a monthlong hangingclothes travel cover series that started  here . Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes hangingclothes travel cover to complete. I am writing this for an audience of people who know nothing about frequent flier miles, and my goal is that by the end, you know enough to fly for free anywhere you want to go.
Transferable points programs are loyalty programs, usually run by banks, that allow a person to earn points that can be transferred to several different airline or hotel programs. The three most important programs are American Express Membership Rewards (MR), Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR), and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Starpoints.
Points are transferable to dozens of air and hotel loyalty programs including Delta (1 MR to 1 SkyMile), British Airways (1 MR to 1 Avios), Singapore Airlines (1 MR to 1 KrisFlyer miles), and SPG (3 MR to 1 Starpoint)
Membership Rewards can be frustrating if you want premium international travel because Delta has the worst award space of major US carrier, and the other airline transfer programs charge huge surcharges on redemptions.
There are ways around these frustrations, depending on where you want to go. Tahsir and I are in the process of publishing a series on Membership Rewards transfer options, so you can better understand your options. The first post was about transferring to Singapore hangingclothes travel cover Airlines .
Your Membership Rewards can be transferred to anyone s loyalty account. This is why when I sometimes do giveaways on Twitter , I give away Membership Rewards that I transfer to the program of choice of the winner.
Ultimate Rewards can be combined among your Chase accounts and your spouse s. You can also send the points to your airline or hotel accounts or your spouse s. But Chase prohibits sending points to anyone else and has shut down accounts for transfers that don t comply with Chase s rules.
Starwood Hotels loyalty program is a much-loved transfer program. Many hotel loyalty programs let you transfer your points to airlines, like many airlines let you transfer hangingclothes travel cover your miles to hotels. However, it is almost always a bad deal. By contrast, SPG points transfer to airlines at a good rate, so it is an outlier.
For every 20,000 Starpoints you transfer, you get a bonus 5,000 miles in the transfer partner s miles. Example: If you transfer 20,000 hangingclothes travel cover Starpoints to American, you receive hangingclothes travel cover 25,000 AAdvantage miles. Thus if you transfer hangingclothes travel cover in exactly 20,000 Starpoint increments, all the 1:1 transfer partners are really 1:1.25 transfer partners!
1. Keep you points in the transferable points program until you have an award in mind , then transfer . Holding on to your points in the transferable programs retains your option value: you can still transfer them to any of the partners. Once you transfer, that option value is destroyed, so don't transfer until you have an award in mind. Membership Rewards and Ultimate Rewards make following this easy because points transfer instantly to most partners. Starpoints do not transfer instantly, so you have to transfer with some anticipation, but still you should hold those as Starpoints as long as you can before transferring.
(This is not a worry with the SPG AMEX and Starpoints because those points are in your SPG hotel account. Nor is this a worry with airline cards like the Citi American Airlines Visa because your AA miles are in your AA account.)
hangingclothes travel cover 2. Make sure the award you plan to book with your transferred points is worth more than your other transfer options. For instance, you can transfer UR points to United and Southwest. Checking hangingclothes travel cover the Mile Value Leaderboard , we see that a Southwest Rapid Rewards point is worth 1.69 cents. If you're transferring to United hangingclothes travel cover for an award worth less than 1.69 cpm, and you should check that at the Mile Value Calculator , you're probably making a mistake and could get more value from a transfer hangingclothes travel cover to Southwest.
3. Make sure the award you plan to book with your transferred points is worth more than your other non-transfer options . For instance, your other best option with Starpoints is hotel stays. Many people report getting several cents per point from using their Starpoints for hotel awards using the Cash Points option even after its recent devaluation.
4. The best use of a transferable program is often topping up an account that is just short of an award . If you've got 85,000 United miles and want to book a roundtrip hangingclothes travel cover business class ticket to Europe, your miles are practically useless. Transferring in 15,000 UR points to reach 100,000 provides immense value, taking you from having hangingclothes travel cover no ticket to having the business class ticket in hand.
And this is often the best way to think about the transferable-points programs. Don't get the Ink Bold thinking it s 50,000 more United miles or 50,000 Southwest points. Instead pursue strategies hangingclothes travel cover to get huge amounts of United hangingclothes travel cover and Southwest miles other ways, and use your 50,000 UR points when you're just short of the miles needed for an award in one of its partner programs.
Reading your post today I can´t believe how many oportunities I ve lost with hotel points and car rentals points. hangingclothes travel cover I usually travel 2 times a year to USA using Alamo or Hertz rent a car and Hampton Inn Hotel, Marriot or last minute deals hotels. Never did anything with this reservations, only worried with airlines points. Do you have a post to help me to maximize and keep all those points? Thanks again.
I transferred my points from American express to Virgin because I was closing my gold cards 125,000 then the other day I was looking at Virgin to see about moving them to Hilton hangingclothes travel cover but it says it charges you to move them. But then I was looking at Virgin and they fly from Dallas to PDX so was thinking maybe not.. but is Virgin Star Alliance? How would I transfer those points if I wanted to. Are they part of American. How do you transfer without a fee? I then ended up getting the business Gold card.. So that was completely unnecessary I jumped the gun to early. Stupid me.
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