American Express Membership Rewards is offering a 40% bonus on transfers to British Airways. Since you must log in to see the offer I cannot guarantee that it will be available for everyone.
This is close to the best bonus that they offer on transfers to BA. The program is solid for short haul redemptions especially in economy. While British Airways generally has good business class availability, and purchase of premium economy with upgrade to business is good value, their surcharges make these awards choke-worthy.
In fact, when British Airways is running a sale you’ll often do better buying business class than redeeming miles plus around $1500 in charges to Europe. That said, BA’s product is much improved on flights with its new business class.
And BA Avios now transfer to Qatar Airways Avios and BA’s Executive CLub has also generally adopted Qatar’s lower pricing (both in points and surcharges) for Qatar Airways flights.
Right now one of the best values you can get out of British Airways Executive Club is redeeming for Qatar Airways, e.g. 70,000 Avios from the U.S. to Doha or 85,000 to the Maldives plus modest fees (around $125 each way plus taxes).
(HT: Doctor of Credit)
Can you then transfer BA points to another program, like AA at a 1:1 ratio? I have never never been able to use BA miles for a domestic AA flight so that isn’t an option.
@GetToThePoints, you can transfer to other Avios-based programs, i.e. Iberia, Qatar, and Aer Lingus. To book BA partners, you don’t need to transfer them. Instead, just search for the award flights on the BA website.
I utilize these transfers for AA from NYC-MIA Business class. 66K for 2 seats, so to me it’s worth 47K MR for 2 seats. They have a ton of flights from LGA and JFK and easy to get saver awards, though often they don’t show on BA.com and you have to call.
I highly urge caution to readers thinking about this speculatively. I transferred points last time there was a bonus and have struggled since to use my Avios towards domestic AA tickets. This used to be my favorite redemption, I’d use it all the time for MIA-PHL on the lie-flat flights.
The issue is that AA’s new “web special” pricing is so prevalent there is pretty much no longer a such thing as “sAAver” rates. AA is pricing tons of domestic F cabin tickets at nearly double the sAAver rate, even on non-peak Wednesday flights where not a single seat has been booked in the F cabin.
What’s worse? Many flights seem to be priced at 25.5k or 26.5k miles; justtt high enough to not be the 25k rate that opens up space to BA and other partners.
In the quick check I did, I couldn’t find any biz award availability from PHX to MLE on the BA website, but the premium economy was 65K avios + $630. That’s not what I would call “reasonable”. Maybe you mean booking with Alaska miles? I was able to snag a biz itinerary, including Qatar flights for 85k +$51. Now that’s reasonable, to me anyways. I was going to book premium economy using alaska miles with both flight segments on BA metal for 70k miles + $700. Luckily, I found a better choice I think.
I routinely use avios to fly my family of 5 to Chicago (from Tampa) on AA metal to visit family. Economy space is widely available and as EP I get main cabin extra seats for free. 5 round trip flights for ~54k MR points is pretty great.
I haven’t had a qualifying transaction since 2019 and I have a substantial number of avios.
Transferring 1000 MR points would be a cheap way of keeping my avios alive.