Chase is running a 30% bonus on transfers to British Airways through July 31, 2022 and a 50% bonus on transfers to Marriott through August 19, 2022.
These are both relatively low value programs but that do have sweet spots.
British Airways points transfer to Iberia if your Iberia account has been open for 3 months and has earned points (you can transfer 1000 Chase points to meet this requirement). Roundtrips from the East Coast to Europe in business class on Iberia flights cost 68,000 points roundtrip.
And now that Qatar Airways uses Avios as its currency, and you can similarly transfer points into Qatar’s Privilege Club, BA has reduced the price of its own awards for travel on Qatar.
Marriott points are worth about 60 basis points each and a 50% bonus means getting around $0.009 per Chase point. There are limited edge cases where this can work out – some Marriott hotels where you’ll get meaningfully better value for your points, or topping off an account to redeem a high value reward (rather than transferring all of the points you need to redeem an award).
Definitely don’t transfer to Marriott speculatively. If you happen to have a specific need during the promotion period, a 50% bonus is much better than not a 50% bonus.
Chase is also still offering a 30% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic through June 15, 2022.
(HT: Frequent Miler and it strikes me as odd that Chase doesn’t email cardmembers about these transfer bonus opportunities.)
I have found BA points useful for short, one segment flights on Alaska, AA and BA flights.
A transfer is useful if it resets the Marriott expiration clock?
I found Marriott points useful for some good programs whose points are difficult to accrue–such as ANA’s Mileage Club. Their redemption rates are very good, but their points expire in 36 months.
Marriott has a wide variety of airline partners that Chase doesn’t have. So if you urgently need some American Airlines miles, for example, a transfer from Chase to Marriott and then from Marriott to American can be the solution. Obviously expensive, but worth it in some situations.
I have never been able to find BA points available for flights within the US on American which I keep hearing about
Can someone please explain to me how points work. It’s so confusing. If I transfer my Chase points to British Airways, and I have Alaska points on Alaska, how can I combine my British Airways with my Alaska points? I have all these points but with different airlines. I want to know how can I put them all together so I can purchase business class tickets. Thanks!!!
@Tom AndersonPecus: you cannot combine BA Avios and AS points. They are different programs.