When and How to Transfer Credit Card Rewards Points To Get The Most Value

Sally, let's play a game. Tell me if you think the following statement is a truth or myth.
Oh, you love podcast games. Let's do it.
Okay. The best way to use your credit card points is to transfer them to airline or hotel loyalty programs instead of booking travel through your credit card's travel portal.
Huh. Well, I want to say trick question.
This one depends. Like, I feel like almost all my answers.
You have to know which transfers actually make sense because not all of them do. That's why listeners have us.
We're here to give you the shortcuts on which transfer partners are worth booking with to save you some points. Welcome to Smart Travel, a deep dive into the tips, tools, and tactics to maximize your travel dollars.
I'm Megan Coyle. And I'm Sally French, and we're the travel nerds ready to help you plan your next big trip.
Maybe on points? If you've heard that you should transfer your points for travel redemptions, listen up. It can save you thousands of points, but you have to know which transfer partners you have access to and which ones offer the best rates.
Because not all of them do. Big hint.
We'll go over some possible good transfer partners this month in the news. But really quick, let's do our usual disclaimer.
We will talk about a few credit card companies that are NerdWallet partners in this episode, but that does not influence how we discuss them. The benefits, terms, and fees mentioned were accurate at the time of posting, but things can change.
Some offers may have expired by the time you're listening. For the latest details, follow the links in the episode description.
One thing we'll talk about later in the episode is that there are these special deals called transfer bonuses that can make transferring to a partner even cheaper. And one of those special deals right now is a transfer bonus going between Chase Ultimate Rewards to IHG.
That's one of the hotel loyalty programs that has brands like Intercontinental, Hotel Indigo, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and one of my personal favorites, Kempton. That one is an 80% transfer bonus.
So if you need 180,000 points for an awards day at one of these properties, you would only have to transfer 100,000 points. The other 80,000 would show up in your IHG account as the bonus.
That's a lot of points, but this transfer bonus is only running through April 30th, 2025. So if you're listening to this episode after that date, check NerdWallet's list of current transfer bonuses for others.
We'll link to that in the episode description. That's often where I start when I'm looking to use points for a trip.
And don't worry if you're not a Chase cardholder. There are other great bonuses out there.
One of the best ones right now is a 20% transfer bonus from Amex to Aeromexico Club Premier or Etihad Guest. Both of those also end April 30th, 2025.
And over in Cityland, cardholders with city thank you points can transfer to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club with a 30% bonus, and they have a bit longer to do that. That one ends May 17th, 2025.
Lots of good deadlines there to note. Another good one is that the federal requirement to have a real ID for commercial domestic flights is finally going into effect May 7th, 2025.
That's after years of delays. That means you have two weeks, two weeks, people, to get your real ID if you don't have one already.
You know, Megan, I was actually just in the airport this week and saw signs everywhere aggressively reminding people of this. So here we are passing on those aggressive reminders to our listeners.
This is your reminder to schedule your appointment at the DMV. So once the requirement goes into effect, if you don't have a real ID, compliant state ID, or driver's license, you might have to bring another approved type of ID to board a domestic flight.
Other approved type of IDs include a U.S. passport or passport card.
Your global entry card will also work if you have that. We have a list of the accepted IDs and how to tell if you even have a real ID on NerdWallet's website.
You can find that link in the show description. Hopefully you would remember if you spent hours at the DMV getting it.
So, all right. Another piece of news I heard last week that I'm really excited about.
American Airlines is introducing free Wi-Fi on most of its planes starting in January, 2026. Yay.
Thank goodness, because I'm paying like $25 to $35 each flight to use the internet on my American flights, and that is really starting to add up. Ooh, I actually just dropped $60 on a two-device Wi-Fi pass on American Airlines this month, in fact.
So this is so welcome. And just a reminder, it's free to join the American Airlines A Advantage program.
So once this Wi-Fi service launches, it won't cost you anything to join and then connect to the internet. You know, Megan, free Wi-Fi is becoming a trend on airlines.
Delta already offers free Wi-Fi for Delta SkyMile members, for example, on most of its domestic flights. And United is joining the party as well.
It previously announced that it's equipping its planes with Starlink Wi-Fi, and the planes that use the internet provider will offer free Wi-Fi for United Mileage Plus members. It's kind of rolling out slowly.
The first United Express regional jet with Starlink is on track to launch next month, and the first bigger jet with Starlink should launch before the end of the year. Ringing in 2026 with free Wi-Fi on many of the big airplanes.
I am thrilled. I am also glad you mentioned United Airlines because they talked about their quarterly results last week and a lot of the same results as Delta Airlines that we talked about a few weeks ago are echoed in what they said.
Weak demand for domestic flights and flights between Canada and the U.S. But they are seeing demand for premium seats like United Polaris and international routes are still going pretty strong.
But like Delta, United is also going to make a few cuts. They're going to cut back on flights at off-peak times and on lower-demand days.
Ah, that's too bad because those low-demand days are when you can typically find the best deals. Don't take away my 6 a.m.
flight on a Tuesday. Just kidding.
Take it. I always regret booking that flight later when I'm waking up at 4 a.m.
Same. All right.
One last thing I saw is that Southwest Rapid Rewards members of any level can purchase Frontier Miles Elite Gold Status for $40. That's if they purchase before April 30th, 2025.
Now, $40, that's about the price of a carry-on bag on most Frontier flights. So if you've got more than just one Frontier flight this year, this could be worth it if you pay that fee just once.
Again, it is free to join Rapid Rewards if you're not a member already. I wish other airlines would jump on this bandwagon too.
First free Wi-Fi, next $40 elite status, here I come. Although the other airlines are not usually charging for carry-on bags, so I can't hate it too much.
Yeah, that's true. All right, that wraps up today's travel news update.
But before we move on, we want to tell you how you can enter to win a one-on-one travel strategy coaching session with one of NerdWallet's credit cards and travel rewards experts. NerdWallet has a free email newsletter called Travel Nerd.

If you sign up for our newsletter by April 30th, 2025,

then you will be entered to win a private coaching session.

It includes a personalized wallet analysis,

a suggested credit card strategy you can use to earn points,

friendly answers to your specific travel questions, and more.

To sign up, just visit nerdwallet.com slash travel dash newsletter or find a link in today's episode description. If you listened to our episode on best credit cards...
Which you totally should. Yeah, I feel like I'm about to drop a spoiler.
But if you haven't listened, maybe go back and start there. But if you already do have a travel credit card, especially one that earns transferable points like Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles, Citi Thank You Points, or Built Rewards, this episode is the right spot.
Today, we're unpacking point transfers. Ooh, scary.
Well, at least really was for me at one point when I was new to travel credit cards. And it's not as scary as it sounds.
It really is very simple, but the tricky part is making sure that transferring points will actually be a better deal for you. And that's why we exist.
So let's go over some basics before we get too deep here. Most credit card points are worth about one cent per point as a baseline value.
And that's usually the case if you redeem your points for cash back or cover a travel expense in your credit card issuer's travel portal. But exceptions do exist, and these exceptions are both good and bad.
Let's start with the good. The Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve have an even higher redemption rate when you redeem your points for travel in the Chase Travel Portal.
It's 1.25 cents per point for the Chase Sapphire Preferred and 1.5 cents per point for the Chase Sapphire Reserve. This is basically like saying if you have either of those two cards, you're kind of richer than you thought.
On the other side of the coin, American Express. Their travel portal, not the greatest.
Flights and certain hotels give you one cent per point, which is, you know, baseline. But if you try to book most other hotels

or a rental car, you'll only get 0.7 cents per point. 0.7.
So that is less than one penny per point. If you want to keep it simple and redeem in the travel portal, that's fine.
Just know that you're getting about one cent per point with most of these programs. And as Megan said, that's fine.
That's fine.

But if you want to unlock next level value, let us introduce you to transfer partners. These are hotel or airline companies that partner with your credit card issuer, and you can send your points there for hopefully more value.
You can find a list of the transfer partners of every major credit card rewards program on the NerdWallet website and the show notes, of course. You might recognize some of these transfer partners.
We're talking about United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Delta Airlines, and then there's the hotel brands like Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt. Partners vary by credit card.
So for example, with Chase credit cards, one of their best transfer partners is Hyatt. That's because Hyatt points are just so valuable.
Then there are usually a few international airlines as well. And you might be sitting there wondering, like, I don't go to Canada often.
Why should I transfer my chase points to Air Canada? Now, first of all, rude. Canada is great.
And second of all, Air Canada is in the star alliance, which means you can book United Airlines flights using Air Canada aero plan miles. So sometimes it's actually cheaper to book a United Airlines flight with 20,000 Air Canada points in this example, versus it could be 35,000 United miles if you booked that same exact flight through United.
When you move your credit card points to a transfer partner, it's almost like a currency conversion, like how things cost different amounts here than they do in Europe. I know, like how croissants in France are two euros, and then I feel like in the US I'm paying six dollars for a croissant.
Oh yeah, the croissant inflation is terrible. The cool thing is, though, that when you have a credit card with transferable points, there are no fees for converting your points.
Beautiful. Why would you spend six points on a croissant when you could transfer your points to a loyalty program

and spend two points on the croissant?

I'd take the two-point croissant any day.

Right.

So just to be clear,

croissants are not real redemptions

for the big bank points programs.

Well, it kind of is with the Starbucks rewards program,

but I digress.

You love your Starbucks.

I know.

Listeners out there,

you have to go back to our episode

about flight delays and cancellations

to hear more about Megan's obsession

with Starbucks rewards.

I don I know. Listeners out there, you have to go back to our episode about flight delays and cancellations to hear more about Megan's obsession with Starbucks rewards.
Now, Megan, you said that there are no fees for converting your points, and that is true, but it is not always a one-to-one ratio. So a one-to-one transfer ratio basically just means that you're turning 50,000 credit card points into 50,000 airline miles or whatever amount of points you want to convert.
This is if you choose to move them to a certain airline or hotel. Of course, many airline and hotel partners have their own transfer ratios.
And a majority of them are one-to-one ratios for a lot of these big credit card rewards programs, so that's good. Keeps the math simple.
And as a rule of thumb, you want to avoid transferring your points to a partner that has less than a one-to-one ratio. Yo, you are teetering on getting robbed if you go this route.
So only do this in very rare cases. Like maybe you found some really great deal on points.
For example, Capital One just added JetBlue Airways as a transfer partner, but the ratio is 5 to 3. This means if you transfer 5,000 Capital One miles to JetBlue, you'll only receive 3,000 JetBlue True Blue points.
Yeah, personally, that's not ideal. In practice, that means you end up needing to transfer a lot more credit card points to be able to book your flight with JetBlue points.
In that case, you might actually save some miles if you just book through the Capital One travel portal. Let's just recap.
The first reason you might want to transfer miles is if you can get a better value. So usually better than one cent per point if you redeem your points through a transfer partner's loyalty program instead of your credit cards travel portal.
And the second reason is maybe you need to top off your account. So we just talked about how that JetBlue transfer ratio isn't super advantageous to cardholders.
But if you only need a few, let's say like 3,000 JetBlue points, because you already have maybe 15,000 JetBlue points from flying and you're just trying to book something that's 18,000, you just need that 3,000 difference. Like that could be worth it, maybe.
Yeah, little small transfers just to get you that final mile there. I would say that's when I would recommend it.
And buying points usually isn't a good option. That's something that you might see when you're checking out and you don't have enough points.
But airlines and hotels sell them for more than they're worth. So it's typically better to just transfer a few thousand points from your credit card than it is to buy them from the airline or hotel.
Yeah, don't fall for it. I see so many emails that are like, deal to transfer points, and it is rarely worth it.
All right. We've got lots more to say about points transfers.
Stay with us. We're back in a moment.
Now, another thing that I want people to understand about transferring points is that you usually should not just transfer your credit card points to a hotel or airline without a specific redemption in mind. So what I'm saying is don't just speculatively transfer your chase points to Hyatt, even though Hyatt is a great transfer partner.
We typically don't recommend that. We instead say only transfer them if you know exactly what hotel room you want to stay at and when, what flight it is, what date, what time.
Make sure then that you have checked that it truly does cost less in points in that loyalty program than it would to just pay when you book it through the credit cards travel portal. Yeah, there are so many things that could go wrong if you were to speculatively transfer points.
For example, if it's a hotel, maybe the hotel availability will get booked up and you won't be able to use those points for a stay at the hotel you want. Or maybe you're going on a trip and you transferred all your points to Hilton, but there are no Hilton hotels in that destination.
Remember, points can generally only go one way from credit card to the hotel or airline program.

It's really hard to move them around once they're at a hotel or airline because they charge more.

The transfer ratios aren't as good.

You would lose a lot of value that way.

Yeah, and I'll just add a lot of people love these more general programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards or Amex Membership Rewards because those points can be used across so many different travel brands. The problem with just Hyatt is you can only redeem those points at Hyatt.
So I always say it's better to keep your points more general and then transfer them to that specific program when you have a specific trip in mind. It gives you so much flexibility.
And one of the great things about these transfers is that most of them happen instantaneously, like within seconds. Yeah.
Oh, magical. But keep in mind that things do happen and sometimes you do have to wait a little bit for your points to transfer.
So if it's a really special deal, I would recommend putting that flight or hotel stay on hold. Most airlines and hotels have a way to do this.
Usually you just call them or sometimes there's a way to do it online. But make sure you do this if you are afraid that this booking might go away and if you don't see your points in your account within an hour or two.
And I will note that some transfers do take longer, but that it's more the exception than the norm.

All right. I want to talk about which transfer partners are good because when I'm looking to book travel, I don't check every airline or every hotel on the list.
So at NerdWallet, the nerds like me and Megan have done the work to figure out what points in each of these programs are actually worth. Generally speaking, Nurball, it says that if a point is worth more than 1.5 cents when you do the transfer, that's a good redemption.
And at NerdWallet, we have done so much work to figure out what these valuations of these points are. We have toiled.
We literally manually look up every single cash price and every single redemption rate for a set of flights and hotel stays. And we look at them every year.
There's hundreds of data points and we'll link to the full results in the show notes. We actually just updated our international airline valuations as well.
So those are really helpful. So let's say some of the best transfer partners.
I'll start with Chase. Their best transfer partner by far is Hyatt.
Hyatt points are worth more than two cents most of the time. So you'll usually spend less points to book a Hyatt with Hyatt points than if you would just use Chase points to book the same Hyatt hotel through Chase Travel.
For Amex, I'm hot on transferring to Hawaiian Airlines right now. Aloha.
It sounds random, but Hawaiian Airlines transfers one-to-one. This is kind of a special case.
If you have Hawaiian Airlines miles, you can transfer them to Alaska Airlines. Alaska acquired Hawaiian last year, and Alaska has some great low-cost redemptions, especially for international award flights on One World Partners.
And speaking of international programs, let's talk about some of the best international redemptions. I mentioned earlier, I love Canada.
And Air Canada, even though their program has gone through some devaluations this year, particularly for partner award flights, I still say I like Air Canada. What's nice is they are a transfer partner of Chase, Capital One, and Amex.
They're super flexible points. And if I were going to pick an airline to book other airline alliances like the Sky Team Alliance, which has Delta Airlines, I would actually choose Flying Blue, which is the frequent flyer program for Air France and KLM.
That program also had some devaluations earlier this year, but I booked my flights to Geneva, Switzerland to go skiing in the Alps in February this year. And it was just 22,000 points from LA to Geneva.
Very nice. Was that part of a Flying Blue promo? Yes, sort of.
So KLM and Air France, their Flying Blue program has these monthly promotions where they have discounted award flights between certain cities around the world and the hubs in France and the Netherlands. So I booked during this month where their flights from LA were in the promo, but actually the lowest cost flights were 15,000 points.
But you know, I wanted to get the better itinerary. So I splurged and I spent 22,000 points to get there.
Amazing. What fair class? Just economy, you know, but it works.
Okay. Just economy.
And I will say they do have these same promos for business class and premium economy, obviously more points, but these promos change every month. So your city might be this month or next month if Air France or KLM flies there.
Another great way to save on points when you're transferring is to book during a transfer bonus. So these are usually like a month long or six weeks.
And I'll just use March as an example. Last month, there was a 50% transfer bonus to Marriott from Chase Ultimate Rewards.
The Marriott transfer ratio is typically one-to-one. So with the bonus, if you transferred 100,000 Chase points, you get 150,000 Marriott points in your Marriott account.
So we mentioned like you want to go for 1.5 cents to be a great redemption. But when you have these transfer bonuses, that can make something that used to be a so-so transfer partner, like I'm looking at you, Marriott, and it can turn it into a much better one.
Of course, this is just for a limited time. So we have done some nice work for you.
NerdWallet has a page with all the current transfer bonuses. It also shows some transfer bonuses we've seen in the past to help inform maybe your speculative trading, and we'll link to that in the show notes.
We also have guides to the best and worst transfer partners of each of the major banks in the show notes too. So we have a lot of resources for you.
The I think key takeaway here is even with a transfer bonus, do the math because it is not always a good idea to transfer points. So Sally, do you have any strategies for finding out what the best transfers are? I will say, even though I write these pages on NerdWallet, I am also kind of lazy and I do so many flight searches on Google Flights.
And with that, I use a plugin called Points Path. So with Points Path, you install this plugin and it will show points prices on Google Flights.

And not just that, it has this really cool feature where it'll actually tell you if it thinks it's a better deal to use points versus cash because sometimes it is, sometimes it

isn't.

I'm pretty sure I told you about Points Path.

Okay.

I'm stealing what credit should go to you. Thank you.
You're right. You're right.
Thank you for showing that to me. Yeah, it was really helpful when we were looking at valuations of all these airline programs.
So that was a really good one. The other award search tools I like are Points.Yeah, Seats.Aero, Points.Me, and Roam.
These all work pretty much like a flight search tool, except that they'll show you the flight prices also in points. And some of them will tell you which airlines are transfer partners, of which banks.
These are really helpful if you're trying to book something on points and you have these flexible currencies. And then you mentioned all the work you did on your own valuations.
I think we should shamelessly plug ourselves, right, Megan? Yes, totally. If you haven't heard it enough, we have that list of how much each airline and hotel program's points are worth.
We also have articles on the best ways to fly to name your destination. You know, I know I've written tons of articles like that at NerdWallet.
Let other people do the work for you when you're trying to figure out how do I fly to Europe on points? Because people who look at this every day, we see the prices more often. And we can help point you to the places that maybe people don't always know about.
I think we should do some episodes on how to fly to those places in a future show. What do you say? I love it.
And for people in the know, the best ways to redeem your points to fly to a certain place is called a sweet spot. I just love that.
I always think of ice cream or something. I love it.
You can totally just Google Mexico sweet spots and I feel like an article Megan wrote will come up. All right.
And one last tip before we move on is some of these award search deal aggregators send out deal alert emails or notifications. So you talked to the founder of Going.
That's right. Scott.
Yeah. I think Going does that, right? Yes.
Those emails give me lots of ideas. Even if I don't book them, I remember seeing in an email what airline points they mentioned.
So I sort of bank that knowledge for my next trip. I will say we've been talking a lot about airlines.
I think it's so much easier to use points for hotels. They don't have as many partnerships as airlines do.
So it's just like you transfer your points to the hotel loyalty program, you book your stay, bing, bang, boom. It's very simple.
But it's kind of fun to find the flight deals once you get good at it. It is fun.
It's like uncovering a magical treasure. Okay.
So should we move on to listener question time? Let's do it. All right.
So one of my friends is a new smart travel listener. And she asked me recently what she should do with her first credit card.
It's an Alaska Airlines card because she's from Seattle. Okay.
She used to fly Alaska Airlines a lot. But now she lives in Atlanta and it's not as useful.
She doesn't want to lose that credit history because it's the longest card she has had open, but she doesn't want to pay the annual fee anymore. Does she have any options here? I like this question.
A lot of people open credit cards because they used to use that brand. So Nervalette's normal advice would be to downgrade cards instead of canceling them.
That's a good recommendation because you'll still retain the credit history. And having a longer account history is one of the major factors in determining your credit scores.
So, generally speaking, a longer credit history is better for your credit scores. But unlike some airline cards, Alaska Airlines actually doesn't have a no annual fee card.
Boo, so that throws a wrench in what I was about to say. Yeah, well, don't worry.
I called the issuer, Bank of America, to find out. And even though they don't list it on their website, they do have cards that you can product switch to.
Really? So here's what they said in an email. Yes, a customer can call and request to be converted from an Alaska Airlines credit card to another Bank of America credit card.
Generally, the cardholder must be in good standing and the bank may apply other criteria. Sounds like your friend should do that.
So don't cancel the card outright. Just call to downgrade to a no annual fee card.
I always recommend before you cancel any card, just in general, even if you're like, this card has an annual fee and I don't want anything to do with it anymore. If they can't downgrade you, they might offer you some sort of retention offer to get you to stay.
And I've done this before where I'm like, I just want to cancel the card. And then they're like, well, if you spend $1,000 in two months, we'll credit your account with 10,000 miles.

And then you're like, okay, maybe I will do that.

That's great advice, Sally.

And also, if you didn't get the retention offer that you wanted,

or maybe the product switch that you want isn't available,

I would recommend calling back again.

Because sometimes they're able to offer you other options as you're standing with the bank changes,

as more time passes and new promos come around. So if you don't get it the first time, try again.
Always call. So now it's time for our favorite part of the show.
Hot takeoffs are hot takes about travel. Okay, I got the hot takeoff this week.
Points should be edible, much like croissants. Oh my gosh, I love it.
What a callback. I feel like you're trolling, but honestly, you can kind of do that.

Right?

Some cards actually do let you use your points on dining. So for example, some Chase cards let you use your points on Chase dining to order takeout or even book these fancy culinary experiences like one-on-ones with a famous chef.
And then Amex has this partnership with a company called Rezzi that gets you fancy dining perks for certain Amex card holders. Yeah, the Amex Gold is one of those.
That card has a $325 annual fee and it offers up to $50 in statement credits twice a year after you pay with the American Express Gold card to dine at U.S. Resi restaurants.
And that's on top of a bunch of other dining-related perks on that card. Other ones are a $10 monthly statement credit when you pay with your card at certain restaurants.
And that's on top of a bunch of other dining related perks on that card. Other ones are a $10 monthly statement credit when you pay with your card at certain restaurants.
There's $10 in Uber cash each month. You can use that on rides or you could use it on Uber Eats.
The Amex Gold also earns four membership rewards points at restaurants worldwide on up to $50,000 per calendar year and four points at U.S. supermarkets on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases.
I dare you to try and memorize those. And so basically TLDR is this is a great card if you're spending a lot of money on food and fancy food at that with all that spending.
And then of course, there is the most important foodie perk of them all, and that is $7 in monthly statement credits when you use your card at U.S. Dunkin' Donuts locations.
Wait, Dunkin', that's not fancy at all. You mean a culotta and munchkins aren't fancy? No, that's your real hot take.
See, I was just leading up to it. Okay, tell us about an amazing transfer you made for a dream vacation.
Email us at travel at nerdwallet.com or leave us a voice memo. We might play it on the next show.
And also come back for more by following the show on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio. Yes, do follow so you never miss an episode.
This episode was produced by Hilary Georgie and Tess Biglin. Claire Soce helped with fact-checking.

And a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all their help.

And here is our brief disclaimer.

We are not financial or investment advisors.

We are just two nerds obsessed with points.

This info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes.

Hopefully it was entertaining.

And may not apply to your circumstances.

Thanks for listening.

We hope you're inspired to keep your passport full

and your wallet even fuller.

See you next episode.