Last week American Express restored one-to-one transfers from Membership Rewards to British Airways.

Now American Express is running a 40% bonus on transfers to British Airways through September 17. So for a two month period transfers have actually gone from 1 to 0.8 all the way up to 1 to 1.4. That’s 75% better than a week ago!

There’s no limit to your taking advantage of this bonus, and the bonus points instantly included in the transfer.

British Airways became a less valuable program than it used to be. And then, once we thought the bloodshed was over, they came back and eliminated 4500 Avios awards for short haul North American itineraries.

So now American Airlines (when you can find any saver space) and Alaska Airlines economy rewards start at 7500 points one-way for flights up to 1150 miles. That’s still useful, of course, and better than American’s new 7500 mile one-way awards on flights under 500 miles.

American Airlines Economy

I find British Airways awards best for short haul awards, including short haul business class, outside the United States. And I love them for upgrading business class stackable sale fares to first class although some people call and get told no — over and over — I’ve not had a problem doing this myself.

If you have an Iberia account that’s been open 90 days and has earned any points at all (including a transfer of 1000 points from American Express) you can move British Airways points to Iberia and redeem transatlantic business class for fewer miles and very low fuel surcharges. Just make sure the space you want is available.

I would not make speculative transfers, however, since transfers are instant (so there’s little reason to) and once British Airways parent IAG figures out how to roll up all the Avios programs into one there’s a reasonable chance they devalue again.