108. Credit Card Points Transfers: Do’s, Don’ts, and Pro Tips

Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Point Me to First Class podcast. How are you all doing today? I am in my usual state of pre travel panic. My family is leaving in two days for our spring break trip. I have about nine days’ worth of work to get done in those two days before we leave, and I haven't yet even started thinking about getting myself and our kids packed up in carry ons only for a week away.

So my adrenals are contracting. My cortisol is pumping and my blood pressure is rising, but I know it will all work out because if nothing else, I will be able to relax in a lie flat seat across the Atlantic in just a few days that I booked for a steal of a deal thanks to points. And I want the same thing for you. Not the last minute pre-travel panic part, but the part about booking travel deals using points.

Now there are a lot of elements and aspects to booking award travel, and in the last couple of podcast episodes, I've tried to touch on some of those aspects, including tips for running award searches and how to expand your points redemption skills to increase the value you can get from your points. And today, I wanted to place another aspect of using points under the microscope because it's a topic that often gets overlooked compared to the more exciting and dopamine inducing ones but is just as critical to understand.

And that is points transfers, the mechanics of actually moving transferable credit card points out of your credit card account and into airline or hotel loyalty accounts in order to book travel. I know, that does not sound exciting at all, but hear me out. Understanding the nuances of points transfers, how they work, how to get them right, and where they can really mess you up if you don't, can mean the difference between booking your dream points trip and having all your travel plans go down the toilet.

And after recently making a pretty colossal points transfer mistake myself, I was reminded that it is never too early or too late in your points journey to get a refresher on points transfer do's and don'ts. So that's what we're going to be diving into today. We're going to cover the basics of points transfers that you need to understand if your goal is to get outsized value from your points, which I think it is if you're hanging around this podcast. And we're also going to review my top 10 points transfer do's and points transfer don'ts.

My hope is that understanding this critical aspect of points management will make your award trouble planning even easier and also possibly save you from an award booking disaster. So let's get started. And I wanna begin with just a quick background on points transfers and the basics of the process of actually transferring your points. So for the rest of this episode, when I refer to points transfers, I am talking specifically about transferring points from a credit card account to an airline or hotel loyalty transfer partner account.

I am not talking about combining points between yourself and another person, like transferring your partner's Chase points to your Chase rewards card. That's an entirely different topic. I am just referring to moving points from your credit card account to an airline or a hotel loyalty account that's a transfer partner of your specific points currencies.

So we are going to be focusing on the transferable points currencies today, namely Built Points, Citi Thank You Points, Capital One Miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, and American Express Membership Rewards Points, which are referred to as transferable points precisely because they all give you the option to transfer or move the points that you earn on certain of their rewards cards out of your credit card account entirely and into the airline or hotel loyalty account of one of their given transfer partners.

If you've earned airline miles from flying or from putting spend on an airline co-branded credit card, or if you have hotel miles in a hotel loyalty account that you've earned from staying at that chain or putting spend on a hotel co-branded credit card, that's great. But those aren't the type of points that we're talking about today because they are not transferable. Airline and hotel points and miles live in your airline or hotel loyalty account specifically. Once they're there, they can't be moved or transferred out of that account to an entirely different airline or hotel account, with a very few exceptions.

But for the purposes of today's episode, remember that we're specifically going to be talking about transferable points currencies. And for those of you who have not yet done a points transfer, here's a quick review of the step by step process of moving points out of a credit card account and into an airline or hotel loyalty account.

First, you need to create a loyalty account for the specific airline or the specific hotel that you may want to transfer points to. This is usually easy and straightforward as opening airline frequent flyer accounts or hotel loyalty accounts is free and can be done online. When you're creating a loyalty account for the first time, just be sure that the name that you enter into your loyalty account matches the name on your credit card account exactly. This is gonna help you avoid potential problems transferring your points down the road.

Once your loyalty accounts are set up, you need to actually link them to your various credit card accounts before you can actually initiate any points transfers from your credit card account to your loyalty account. In order to do this, just log in to your credit card account, navigate to the points portal area of that account, and then find the option to transfer points.

So the first time that you want to transfer points between your credit card account and a specific transfer partner, you will have to link those two accounts together online. All you have to do is input in the loyalty account number that you want to link to your credit card account, and you're done. You only have to link a specific airline or hotel loyalty account to your credit card account once. After that, they should remain linked, which is really, really convenient.

So now that your loyalty account is linked up to your credit card account, you can initiate a points transfer. You just designate which specific transfer partner account you want to move your points to. So let's say you want to move your Chase points into an Air France Flying Blue frequent flyer account. You just tell Chase you want to specifically move your points to Air France flying blue.

You have already linked your flying blue account to your Chase account, and then you can type in exactly how many points you want to transfer from your credit card account to your transfer partner account and click confirm. That's it. It's done. While many points transfers are instant, it's really important to understand that not all of them are.

And so one thing you're always gonna wanna do is log in to the airline or hotel loyalty account that you're transferring your points to and confirm that the points have landed in your account. This may require that you log out and log back into your loyalty account. But for instant points transfers, you should see your points deposit out of your credit card account and into your transfer partner account practically immediately. And once your points have successfully transferred from your credit card account to your transfer partner account, you are free to use them to book amazing award travel.

Now the last thing that you need to understand about points transfers is probably the single most important thing, which is that points transfers are one way and irreversible. You can move points from your credit card account to any of the airline or hotel transfer partners that it offers, but you cannot move them back. Once points have been transferred, they cannot be moved again. That means that you cannot transfer points, say, from your Chase account or your Amex account to an airline loyalty account and then decide you want to send them back to your Chase account or your Amex account. You can't do that. Alright?

Once they've been moved out, they cannot be moved or transferred out either back to the original credit card account or even to other different airliner hotel loyalty accounts either. So say you transfer Capital One miles to your Turkish Airlines frequent flyer account. That is where they're going to live until you use them to book travel directly through Turkish Airlines. You cannot then decide that you actually want those miles to go to an entirely different airline frequent flyer account. You're not gonna have the option to do anything else with them. You're gonna hear this point reinforced several times as we walk through the points transfer do's and don'ts today, but it bears repeating because it's such a critical aspect of transfers to remember.

Points transfers from a credit card account to a transfer partner account are one way and irreversible. And now that I've told you this is the one critical, immutable rule of points transfers, let me briefly acknowledge two exceptions to this rule. So there are a few airline partnerships where specific airlines share the same type of points currency, and they allow you to freely move points between loyalty accounts of those designated airlines. So one example of this is Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines. At least at the time of this recording, those two airlines share a points currency.

So if you have points in a Hawaiian Airlines account, you can move those points from your Hawaiian account into an Alaska Airlines loyalty account and vice versa. So you can move points back and forth specifically between Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines accounts. So another exception to this otherwise immutable rule is the airlines that share the Avios points currency.

Again, at the time of this recording, the airlines that all use Avios as their points currency are British Airways, Qatar, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Finnair. So if you move transferable points from one of your credit card accounts into a loyalty account for BA, Qatar, Iberia, Aer Lingus or Finnair, you can then move those points or Avios again amongst the various airline programs that all share Avios as their currency. So you can move BA Avios into your Qatar account.

You can do vice versa as well. And so the details of how all of this works specifically, why you'd wanna do that, and what award sweet spots exist that you can take advantage of by doing these kind of inter partnership transfers is better saved for a podcast episode all on its own. But the important thing here is to understand that these examples really are the exceptions and not necessarily the rule, especially for those of you just starting out in points or just starting out to explore the world of transferring your points to book awards, it's my recommendation that you start by learning the rules before you start experimenting with the exceptions.

And so in this case, the rule is points transfers are one way and irreversible. Forget that at your own peril. The last thing I want to touch on before we get into specific points transfer do's and don'ts is why this even matters to begin with and why you might consider transferring your points from a credit card account to a transfer partner account. And the answer here is very simple. Transferring your points is the single best way to unlock potentially exponentially more value from your points than leaving them in your credit card account and using them to book travel directly through your credit card travel portal.

Leave your points in your credit card account, and you're gonna be stuck getting about a thousand to $1,500 in value from 100,000 credit card points. Transfer them out of your credit card account and into the loyalty account of an airline or hotel transfer partner like Singapore Airlines or Hyatt Hotels or Alaska Airlines, and those same 100,000 credit card points could instead be worth $2,000 in travel, dollars 4,000 in travel, or even $10,000 or more in travel once you understand how to find and book high value travel awards.

So now that you understand how to transfer points and why to transfer them, let's get into the top 10 points transfer do's and don'ts every award traveler needs to know about. Now these are geared primarily towards those folks with beginner to intermediate level experience redeeming points, but I have also included a few tips for more advanced points users as well. Alright.

Coming in at number one on the list is a do, and that is do familiarize yourself with the specific transfer partners of each of your transferable points currencies and where they overlap or have unique transfer partners. So as I mentioned, the five major transferable points currencies, they all give the option to move your credit card points out of your account and into specific airline or hotel loyalty accounts. But all five of these transferable points currencies don't have the exact same menu of airline and hotel transfer partners as one another.

So one of the things that you're going to want to do, especially in the beginning, is first of all, understand what transferable points currencies do you currently earn with your rewards credit cards. And then for each individual transferable points currency, you want to look up what are the specific airline and hotel transfer partners that you have access to with each one of those currencies. So that is step number one. Those are the options of where you can send a specific type of points currency if you do want to transfer your credit card points out of your account.

Now, for those of you who grow into more than one points currency, not only do you want to be familiar with what are the specific transfer partners available to you for, say, Chase points or say, Citi points. So when you have more than one points currency, you want to start looking at where do those transfer partner menus overlap, what are the transfer partners that more than one of your points currencies have in common, and where are those transfer partner menus unique? Where are the options where one specific points currency has a transfer partner that none of your other points currencies share or that not all of them share?

This is going to expand your view of what are the potential airlines and hotels that you have access to with your specific points currencies. And over time, this can help you be very strategic about if you're ready to move into a new points currency, which one is going to be the best for you based on their specific transfer partners. Alright.

Moving on to tip number two. This is another points transfer do and that is actually it's a mix, do and a don't. Do leave your points in your credit card account until you're ready to use them and actually book an award with them, otherwise known as don't transfer them before you confirm award availability.

Now remember, this comes back to that really important rule that points transfers are one way and they are irreversible. So until you actually know exactly what you want to do with your points, until you have confirmed that the actual award flight or the actual hotel stay that you want to book is available and how many points you need, do not transfer your credit card points just randomly into different transfer partner accounts. They're going to be the safest and the most flexible when you have them in your credit card account. Once you move them once, you don't get to move them again.

So do leave your points in your credit card account until you are ready to use them. And I'm just gonna say this again because it is so important. Ready to use them doesn't mean a flight that you think that you would want to fly if it was available. Don't transfer points out to Singapore Airlines just because you think Singapore Airlines would be fun to fly at some point. Wait until you have actually done an award search. You actually find a flight or hotel stay that you wanna book. Once you've confirmed that, by all means, go ahead. That is the time to transfer your credit card points out of your credit card account and into a specific transfer partner loyalty account.

Alright. Moving on to number three on our list, and that is don't wait until you're ready to search for or book an award to create a loyalty account and link it to your credit card account. Okay. So while I don't think that you need to go out and create 20 new frequent flyer accounts immediately and link them to all of your different credit card accounts, I do think it's a mistake to wait until the second you actually want to book an award flight or you want to book a hotel stay to actually create a loyalty account with that airline or hotel.

Instead, what I think you should do is if there are airlines or hotels that you're pretty sure you may wanna book an award through because you've read a lot about similar awards online or someone has made a recommendation to you and you really wanna follow it. Instead, what you want to do is go ahead, set up your airline frequent flyer accounts or your hotel loyalty accounts before you immediately need to book an award and make sure that they are linked up to your specific credit card accounts.

This takes out a lot of stress when you actually do find an award that you wanna book. You don't have to waste any time in that moment trying to get some of this back-end stuff set up. So I promise you, this is gonna save you some stress and potential headaches. Go ahead, create some of your airline and hotel loyalty accounts ahead of time. Get them linked up to your credit card before you actually need to start searching for awards in real time.

Alright. Moving on to number four on our list. This is a very specific don't and this is one that very commonly affects folks who are first time Amex points transferers, specifically when they want to transfer points to American Express's domestic airline partners. And that is, don't be shocked by transfer fees for Amex points transfers to domestic airline transfer partners, including Delta, Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue. Now let me back up for a second. The vast majority of the time when you go to transfer your credit card points to airline or hotel transfer partners, there is no tax or fee to do so.

You just get to tell your credit card company how many points you want to send, where you want to send them, and then they do it. But there is one exception. American Express points transfers to domestic, so US based airline transfer partners, are going to come along with an extra fee. You're going to be charged 0.06 cents per point when you transfer American Express points to US airline programs. So this does not apply to Amex points transfers to international airline partners or to hotel partners.

Here's what this looks like. Let's say that you want to transfer 50,000 American Express points to your Hawaiian Airlines frequent flyer account. In that case, you're going to pay a $30 fee in order to transfer 50,000 Amex points to Hawaiian Airlines. Now, this all has to do with a law that was passed in the nineties that extended the normal federal tax on domestic flights to include mileage awards and eventually to credit card companies as well. Now, interestingly, American Express passes that cost onto cardholders, but other credit card issuers like Chase and built in Citi eat the cost of those taxes instead without having consumers pay them when they transfer their points.

So this is not a scam on the part of Amex, which some people I see a lot of times people will post this is a scam. You know, I've transferred Amex points to international partners and I've never had to pay. Now I'm trying to transfer my Amex points to Delta. They want me to pay this fee. This is a scam. I assure you, it's not a scam. It's just not as generous a policy as the other major points issuing banks and institutions have for those of us who are based in The U.S. when we specifically want to transfer our credit card points to domestic U.S.-based airline programs.

Now, the good news, I mean, if there is any, is that these fees to transfer Amex points specifically to domestic airline partners is capped at no more than $99 per transfer. So it's in your best interest to transfer as many points as you need all upfront all in one bolus, especially if your points transfer is going to be over around 165,000 points. You're going to cap out on the maximum fee that you're going to have to pay for that points transfer.

The better news is that you shouldn't expect to pay any fees or taxes to transfer your Amex points again to any of their other transfer partners or for points transfers from any of your other transferable points currencies to their transfer partners.

Let's move on to number five on the list. And this is, don't assume that all points transfers are a one-to-one ratio because some are better than that, but some are also worse. Now, the vast majority of points transfers from your transferable points currencies to airline and hotel transfer partners will be at a one-to-one ratio. Meaning, if you transfer 100,000 Citi points, for example, to your Virgin Atlantic account, you're going to end up with 100,000 points in Virgin Atlantic. But not all points transfers are one to one, and this can lead to either a happy surprise when it comes time to transfer points or a big disappointment if you're expecting a one-to-one transfer ratio and it's less advantageous.

So let me start with an example of a better than one to one transfer ratio, and that is American Express points transfers to hotel partner Hilton at a one to two ratio. So if you transfer 100,000 Amex points to Hilton, you're going to end up with 200,000 Hilton points in your account. Knowing this is going to help you more accurately assess potential hotel award options and also allow you to correctly plot a points earning plan if you are shooting for a particular redemption.

Now on the other end of the spectrum, there are also points transfer ratios that are less favorable than one to one. One example of this is Capital One. Capital One miles transfers specifically to EVA airlines, one of their international airline partners at a two to 1.5 ratio. Meaning if you transfer 200,000 Capital One miles to your EVA airlines account, you'll end up with, not 200,000 points, but a 50,000 EVA points or EVA miles in your account.

The last thing that you wanna have happen when you have found award availability that you wanna book and you're ready to transfer your points over to your transfer partner account is to find out that you don't actually have enough points for your redemption or that it's going to cost significantly more than you were expecting just because that specific transfer partner pair may not have a one to one transfer ratio. So do yourself a favor, and while you're still in the trip planning stage, do a quick Google search. Make sure you understand the transfer ratio between your specific points currencies and whatever particular transfer partner you're considering booking an award through.

Okay. Moving on to points transfer don't number six. This is don't assume that all points transfers are instant. Instead, you want to make sure that you understand average points transfer times between your specific points currency and the transfer partner that you want to move your points to before you book your travel awards. Now, while it is true that many, many points transfers are instant or are immediate, others are known to take hours or even days to complete. And you do not want that last minute surprise of finding out your coveted award that you have spent time searching for and confirming is available may actually slip through your hands simply because you have to sit back and wait for your points transfer to complete.

Now average points transfer times can also easily be found with a Google search. And as I mentioned, the majority of points transfers are immediate. Your transferred points will show up in your airline or hotel loyalty account literally seconds after you initiate the transfer through your credit card account. But savvy award travelers know that this isn't always the case, like with Amex points transfers to ANA Airlines, which are known to take two to four business days to complete, or Chase points transfers to Singapore Airlines, which can take one or more days to complete.

Now very few things in this hobby are as stressful as finding an amazing award that you want to book, knowing it's available right now, having enough points to book that award sitting in your credit card account and then having to suffer the agony of waiting hours or days for those points to make their way from your credit card account into your transfer partner accounts that you can actually book that award.

Now sometimes points transfer delays are not always predictable and avoidable. Sometimes they can happen with transfer partners where transfers are usually instant, but you can do yourself a favor by first becoming familiar with average points transfer times and using that information to help you plan when to initiate your points transfers to put yourself in the best position to have your points land in your loyalty accounts when you need them.

Okay. Let's go on to tip number seven. This is don't forget about points expiration policies when you're thinking about transferring your points. Now, this is a huge difference between how your points are treated when they live in your credit card account versus how they're treated once they live in an airline or hotel specific loyalty account. When you earn transferable points from your rewards credit cards, those points, again, whether they're Amex points, Chase points, Capital One miles, Built points or Citi points, they live in your credit card account until you decide to cash them out or redeem them or transfer them out to a transfer partner like we've been talking about on this episode.

Now as long as your points earning credit card account is open and in good standing, you don't have to worry about anything happening to those points. They will not disappear. They will not expire. Even if you leave them in your credit card account and don't use them for two years or five years or ten years. Now I do not recommend that you leave your transferable points sitting in your credit card account for years without doing anything with them. But the point is that you could do that. You don't have to worry about those points expiring.

The same is not true of points or miles that are earned or transferred into an airline or hotel loyalty account. All airline and hotel loyalty programs have their own policies around points lifespans, that is, how long those points are available for you to use before they potentially expire. These policies vary by loyalty program, but you're going to want to be sure to do some quick research before you transfer your points to ensure that you understand the points expiration policy of the program that you're about to transfer credit card points to before you make your transfer.

The great news is that many airline and hotel programs have very generous expiration policies where you have years to use your points or miles, and you can oftentimes even extend the lifespan of your transfer points practically indefinitely with certain activities like transferring in just a small amount of extra credit card points to your account or making one purchase through an associated online shopping portal to completely reset the expiration time limit on all of your points in your account. So I don't want you to worry that transferring credit card points to airline and hotel loyalty accounts is risky in terms of potentially losing those points before you can use them. Because for the vast majority of transfer partners, it is not. But there are a few exceptions to every award travel rule, and there are a few with this rule as well.

And it can be heartbreaking to lose points just because you were not aware of a points expiration policy. This is not my most recent points transfer debacle, but a couple of years ago, this happened to me when I lost 90,000 Lufthansa miles and more miles because they had been in my account for three years without my redeeming them. They expired. They disappeared from my account and there was no way to get them back. And I learned an expensive lesson about making sure to know the points expiration policies of any of my transfer partner accounts that I'm going to move credit card points into.

ANA comes to mind again as another classic example here. Once you move American Express points into an ANA account, you have thirty six months to use them before they expire. And, at least currently, there are no options to extend the lifespan of those points once that clock starts ticking. So if you do not use them, you lose them. You just want to make sure that you understand when that's the case.

Alright. Let's head on to number eight on the points transfer do's and don'ts list. And that is don't initiate multiple points transfers back-to-back from your credit card account to one specific transfer partner account. So here's what I mean. Say that you want to transfer 50,000 Chase points to your Hyatt account so that you can book a hotel stay with your Hyatt points. Do not go to your Chase account and set up a small transfer of 10,000 points from Chase to Hyatt and then immediately go back in and set up a second points transfer of 25,000 points to Hyatt, and then a couple of minutes or an hour later, go back in and initiate another points transfer of 15,000 points to Hyatt, all in quick succession.

First time points transferers may do this out of a sense of caution. They wanna make sure that a points transfer will work with a small amount of points before they set up a points transfer with what can feel like a substantial amount of points. But this approach can backfire. If you set up multiple or sequential points transfers over a very short period of time, again, just between one specific transfer partner pair, that activity can get flagged as potential fraud by your credit card institution, and they can freeze those points transfers or just outright reject them and send all your points back to your credit card account.

Sometimes these points freezes last a few minutes, but sometimes they can take a few days to resolve. Again, the last thing you want when you are ready to plunk down a bunch of points for an award that's available right now is to have your points get stuck in transfer limbo. So please avoid the temptation to do multiple small points transfers or back-to-back transfers if you can help it. Figure out how many points do you need for an award you want to book and set up one single points transfer that's going to take that entire amount of points out of your credit card account and send it where you want it to go one time.

Alright travelers, now it's time for a couple of points transfer do’s and for some tips for more experienced award travelers. Coming in at number nine on this list is do choose points transfer partners wisely when you have more than one option based on the transferable currencies that you have access to.

So here's an example. Let's say that you find an award flight on KLM Airlines that you want to book through the Flying Blue program, and that flight costs 100,000 points. Let's also say that you happen to have access to three transferrable points currencies available, Amex, Chase, and Capital One, and that you have 100,000 points in each of those three credit card accounts.

Now you have a choice of which specific transferable points currency you want to tap into to transfer points to your flying blue account since all of your points currencies, Amex, Chase and Capital One, have Flying Blue as a transfer partner. Now again, this is something that I want you to consider as you get more experienced. If you are brand new to points and this sounds overwhelming, ignore it for now and come back to it for later.

But I know that there are a lot of you who are ready for this level of strategy, so let's talk about what this looks like. When you want to book a specific award and you have access to multiple points currencies that all could potentially transfer points to that specific transfer partner, there are two ways that I think about strategizing this.

Number one is to conserve your hardest to earn points. So in this example, you have Amex chasing Capital One points. Let's say the Chase points are the hardest ones for you to earn. You can earn Amex points in Capital One points at a much faster rate than Chase points. In this scenario, it would probably make sense for you to save your Chase points and instead transfer points from Amex or Capital One, either entirely or a little bit of both, to your Flying Blue account for that specific award. That way your Chase points are saved because those are harder for you to earn.

Here's kind of a second aspect, a second way to look at this type of decision. And that is, again, when you get a little more advanced, a little more experienced, maybe you're working with a points surplus, maybe you are like me and you compulsively plan multiple trips at a time or you plan your travel as far in advance as you can. So at any given time, you may have a few trips that are kind of rolling around that you're thinking of booking.

In this case, one strategic approach is to favor unique transfer partners and allocate your points based on where they're going to have the biggest bang. So here's what I mean by this. Again, let's pretend that you're trying to book this KLM flight through Flying Blue and it's gonna cost 100,000 points. You've got 100,000 Chase points, 100,000 Amex points, and 100,000 Capital One points. You could theoretically transfer points from any of those points currencies to book your KLM flight.

But let's say that you also know that in the next year you want to book an award flight on Turkish Airlines because you've gone through step number one that I gave you in points transfer do number one, and you have reviewed the points transfer menus of each of your different transferable points currencies, you may see that Capital One is the only one of your transferable points currencies that transfers directly to Turkish airlines.

You can look at your points transfer chart and see that Amex and Chase points cannot transfer directly to Turkish Airlines. So knowing that you want to book an award flight on Turkish in the near future, you may strategically conserve your Capital One points specifically so that you can use them on their unique transfer partner. And instead for the KLM flight you want to book now, you know that instead you can actually use your Amex points and or your Chase points for that booking.

Okay, let's talk about another points transfer tip again for those who are a little more experienced. So here we are. We've come to the tenth and final points transfer tip on our list and that is do consider speculative points transfers to take advantage of time limited transfer bonus opportunities. Now if you are newer to award travel, listen to this part, but don't do anything just yet.

I really want you to follow the advice laid out earlier in this episode in points transfer do slash don't number two, where I recommend that you not transfer your credit card points to a transfer partner until you have an award that you are ready to book and you have confirmed that award has availability. But at some point in this game, you're going to be ready for a more advanced approach to points transfers, especially if you reach the point where you are sitting on a points surplus, that is, you have more transferable points in your credit card accounts than you need to book whatever your next upcoming award trip might be.

Periodically, credit card issuers or loyalty programs themselves offer points transfer bonuses during a designated period of time. For example, at the time of this recording, Chase is offering a 20% transfer bonus when you transfer your Chase points to British Airways. If you transfer 100,000 Chase points to your BA account during the transfer bonus period, you're going to end up with 120,000 deposited in your BA account thanks to the 20% bonus. Transfer bonuses are a fantastic way to effectively earn more points without having to make any extra purchases or do anything extra.

But the prevailing points advice is that even when there's a lucrative transfer bonus available, you should never prospectively transfer points in order to take advantage of it, meaning you should never transfer your credit card points to a transfer partner account in order to take advantage of transfer bonus unless you already have a plan for using those points. And honestly, I can understand this advice, especially for folks who are less experienced using their points or those who do not have a surplus of transferable credit card points.

But I actually think it's terrible advice for other people. Speculatively transferring points in order to take advantage of a transfer bonus can be a very strategic and worthwhile move that can pay off in dividends for future award bookings. So while I will repeat that I don't recommend speculative points transfers to take advantage of transfer bonuses to everyone, I absolutely do think they can be a great option when the following conditions are true.

Number one, I will consider speculatively transferring points during a transfer bonus when I have a reasonable level of confidence that I will use those points in the next one to two years to book an award. So I don't have to know immediately how I'm going to use them in the next one to two months, but I want to have a relatively high level of confidence that within the next one to two years, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to take advantage of these points.

Number two, I will consider speculatively transferring points during a transfer bonus when I'm very familiar with that specific award program and I know what type of awards they commonly offer. And again, I have a high level of confidence I'm gonna be able to find an award and book something I actually want through that program. I personally would not speculatively transfer points into an airline program that I had no familiarity with. There's not that many of those for me at this point, but I want to make sure that if I'm gonna transfer my points and not have an immediate use for them, that I have a very high level of confidence that I will have a use for them again in a relatively short time frame. And I'm gonna know what potential uses are available for me that I could take advantage of.

And number three, I will consider speculatively transferring points during a transfer bonus when that transfer does not leave me points poor or unable to have enough points to book other travel that I know I want to get scheduled in the near future. But assuming that I meet all three of those conditions, I will absolutely speculatively transfer points during a transfer bonus because I know that move will pay off substantially by giving me many more points to work with when I am ready to book future award travel.

And for those of you who feel like you have enough experience in points that you can confidently make those same determinations for yourself, please don't let common points advice dissuade you from your own speculative points transfers. Alright everyone, there you have it. Everything you need to know about points transfer dos and points transfer don'ts to get you started on using your points to their fullest potential to book unforgettable travel.

Now it's only March 2025 and I'm recording this episode, and I've already booked $192,000 worth in travel for this calendar year alone using points. And the only reason that I've been able to do that is because I have learned how to transfer my points out of my credit card accounts and into transfer partner accounts so that I can dramatically increase their value.

Even if you have the wonderful advantage of having high expenses that allow you to earn large quantities of points year after year, nothing will impact the kind of travel that you can book or the number of trips that you can book using your points as understanding how points transfers work and learning to do them well. But that doesn't mean that knowing exactly where to transfer your points to get the best deals or which transfers will be the most useful and valuable to you is obvious or intuitive.

In fact, for most people, it isn't. While learning how and where to transfer your points is the single most impactful skill that I think you can develop in the points hobby. It's also the one that more people struggle with than any other. If you feel great about earning points, but kind of lost when it comes to using them, if you've ever tried to search for rewards on your own but come up empty handed or discouraged, or if you're scared of using your points because you don't know how to tell a great deal from a mediocre one, please hear me when I say you are not alone.

And I would love to help you. If you want to learn how to get better at leveraging credit card transfer partners to get two to 10 times more value from your points, I want to invite you to join me inside Points Made Easy, my three month online course where I teach you everything you need to know about creating your best fit rewards credit card portfolio, how to use those cards to earn tons of points sustainably year after year, and how to turn those points into your dream travel without all the guessing frustration and overwhelm of trying to teach yourself.

Travel like points made easy course member Jennifer just booked for two of her family members where she booked them to fly business class to Australia for just $88 out of pocket in cash. Not only did she book over $9,000 worth in business class flights thanks to transferring her points to an airline transfer partner, but this was also her very first points redemption. My very first points redemption sucked compared to that, and it's because I had no idea that it was even possible to transfer my credit card points out of my credit card account to book travel.

I love breaking down what can seem like a complicated process to find and book award flights and hotel stays into a simple step by step process you can follow so that you don't have to wait years to book your first great points trip or worse, give up trying to use your points entirely. Your first points redemption or your next one. It doesn't have to be business class flights to Australia, but I bet there's a trip that you're dreaming of taking with points.

Join the Points Made Easy course, and I will show you exactly how to do it. The course is open for enrollment now if you're listening to this episode real time, but only for a short period. Enrollment closes on Sunday, March 30, 2025. So if you want this year to be the one where you learn to turn your expenses into travel using points so that you can travel more and travel better, I would love to see you inside Points Made Easy.

You can learn more about the course and grab your spot now by going to pointmetofirstclass.com/pointsmadeeasy. That's pointmetofirstclass.com/pointsmadeeasy. I hope you all have a fantastic week and I will see you here next time on the Point Me to First Class podcast.

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of point Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.