Two weeks ago the ability to move points between British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus was suspended without notice.

Is was still possible to move points between BA, Qatar and Finnair. Reportedly British Airways was dealing with fraud issues where points get drained into Iberia accounts. This was exceptionally inconvenient to members.

• British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways, Finnair and Aer Lingus share the Avios currency

• And points can be moved back and forth, plus different programs partner with different bank programs for points transfers.

  For instance, British Airways is a transfer partner of Chase, Amex, and Capital One. Iberia and Qatar are partners of Chase and Amex but not Capital One. But Finnair is a partner of Capital One. And

• Several of these airlines offer better award space to members of their own program than to other partners (e.g. you get more space on Qatar Airways using BA Avios than with American AAdvantage miles)

• And the programs have their own pricing and change policies – move points from one program to another for the best deal.

Moving points between programs means that each program takes advantage of the partnerships of the others, and delivers value to members at the best level of any of them. It also means you can transfer points in from most card programs and wind up pooling your points into a single account. Iberia’s program isn’t very good in most cases, but offers good pricing on business class awards between the U.S. and Madrid.

While the British Airways and Iberia weren’t speaking publicly to the suspension of transfers, it was flagged as temporary with no comment on when the function might be back. Well… it’s back with a new tool, which is great news for program members and for those with credit card transferable points.

(HT: Ron L)