If you want to redeem miles to fly El Al, the best option is usually using Qantas miles. Qantas is a transfer partner of American Express, Citibank, and Capital One. If you’re flying El Al, it’s usually best to credit flights to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.
There’s very little use case for using El Al’s own Matmid Club, unless you’re trying to upgrade a paid booking or you’re based in Tel Aviv and earn status with the airline.
Nonetheless El Al has been an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner. That relationship, however, will only be active through December 31, 2020.
El Al Boeing 787-9 On Approach At Newark, Credit: Adam Moreira via Wikimedia Commons
You’ll no longer be able to transfer points to El Al come January 1, 2021. (HT: Travel With Grant) Genuinely, this isn’t much of a loss.
El Al is the worst business class I have ever flown: Bad service and terrible food.
It’s mostly used by the Jewish community due to it’s high level of security, so this is bad news for Jewish people.
Hi Gary, thanks for linking to my post. Have a great weekend 🙂
For TLV based folks (i.e. expats) , this is bad news. Prior to covid, El Al ran frequent redemption sales that typically offered solid redemption opportunities to Europe (and sometimes long haul). They still offer real business class, even on the 737s to Europe.
My last redemption with them was via one of these sales in February to Rome for only about 160 Matmid points (8000 Amex MR) in business plus $80 surcharges, which we can all agree is solid for real business class.
No loss for US flyers, who now have UA nonstops from multiple gateways not to mention great connections via Europe and soon via Dubai.
If El Al wants to be relevant to non-Israeli customers it needs to up its business class game and join an alliance.
I was thinking of switching to B.A so how do getting points when I would like to fly business class thank you