Hot off the press – between now and May 31, you can transfer your American Express Membership Reward points to British Airways Avios and receive a 50% bonus. Typically, for every 1,000 Membership Reward points you transfer over, you’ll receive 1,000 BA Avios points, but with this promotion, you’ll instead receive 1,500 Avios points. There is no registration needed – you can just transfer your points here.
British Airways Avios Program Details:
Since British Airways changed their entire program last year, there are some significant differences from what you may remember. Unlike many other programs, you redeem your Avios points based on distance and segments, not zones. Depending on your travel desire, this can be a huge advantage or disadvantage. Ultimately, the best redemption of your points will be for US domestic short and medium-haul flights and those from the US to South America (due to low taxes/fees). One of the great perks with British Airways is that round-trip redemption is not required (unlike Delta), allowing you to redeem for one-way trips.
Award Chart:
Unlike other airlines, there is no standard chart outlining the points needed for an award redemption. In my opinion, this is one of the more frustrating aspects to the program. You will need to enter the two city pairs on this online calculator to see the points required. However, if there are no direct flights you will need to enter the individual segments and add up the points for segment to find the total points needed. For example, to check Houston to Atlanta which has no direct flights on American Airlines, you will need to enter Houston to Dallas (which is 4,500 points) and then Dallas to Atlanta (another 4,500 points). This means the total points needed for the entire Houston to Atlanta route will be 9,000 points one-way. For non-direct routes, you will need to do some prior research to check the connecting city.
Sample Redemption Opportunities:
- Flight from JFK to Montreal will require only 9,000 Avios points round-trip! This same flight would cost about $450. With this promotion you can transfer only 6,000 Membership Reward points! That is valuing your points at about 7.5 cents per point – which is AMAZING!
- Flight from Miami to Buenos Aires will require 50,000 Avios points round-trip. To pay for this flight could run you close to $1,500! For 34,000 points, this flight could be yours! This values your Amex points at a little over 4 cents per point – which is great!
- While a round-trip ticket from JFK to London is only 40,000 miles, the fees will $653.34!! With British Airways, even when redeeming on a partnering flight to Europe, you will still get his with these hefty fees. Typically, this redemption is not worth it.
Since this promotion ends in two and a half month, if you are looking to transfer points earned from the credit card bonuses, I’d highly suggest applying and spending quickly to ensure the points post to your account in time. From my experience, points post from these two cards pretty quickly after hitting the minimum spend needed. I am personally waiting for a bigger bonus for the Amex platinum card!
Thanks The Points Guy and Mommy Points for sharing this bonus! Both have some great British Airways redemption suggestions as well!
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Do you think it would be a good idea to transfer all of your MR points? seems like you can do a TON with avios points.
@Ryan – I wouldn’t transfer yet without a destination in mind. You have until May 31st, so i would hold off. But you are right, you can do a TON! Being from MA you can do a lot with AA
I have 22k MR points in my Pen Fed AmEx account which I’m told by Pen Fed’s CSR are held separate from AmEx’s accounts such as my AmEx Gold Premier Rewards card. Can I use those Pen Fed MR points to get a 50% bonus in British Airways Avois points? I just transferred 20K from my AM Ex gold premier account bringing my Avois total to 82K and the Pen Fed transfer if possible brings me closer to a trip to Australia.
@David – I do not believe you can transfer your Pen Fed Amex points to partner loyalty programs. However, are you 100% sure they will not transfer those points into your other Amex account. I will not claim I am an expert with this card!
[…] Thursday (May 31, 2012) is the last day for the 50% bonus when transferring your American Express Membership Reward points to British Airways Avios …. British Airways Avios points definitely have their pros and cons. Some people love them, while […]