Still, although I'd give more consideration to the benefits, I would have to say that Membership Rewards edges out Thankyou Points here since at the very least they boast the better hotel selection and offer
better airline transfer options.
Not exact matches
With so many
airline partners, you'll never lack for
transfer options... and that might not even be the
best part of
transferring Starpoints to
airlines!
Points lose their cost significantly if you redeem them for other
options as
well as when you
transfer them to
airline partners.
As the Citi ThankYou program gives you the
option to both
transfer points to
airlines as
well as use your points at a fixed rate to buy cash fares, the
best use of points would be to redeem them for miles.
With so many
airline partners, you'll never lack for
transfer options... and that might not even be the
best part of
transferring Starpoints to
airlines!
The choice of
airline and hotel partners is also much
better than the
transfer options of American Express» Membership Reward Points.
Because you take at a 29 % decrease (or 41 % for Japan
Airlines) in the number of miles when you
transfer, this will not always be the
best redemption
option.
While statement credits and merchandise are
options, the
best use of points is for travel, particularly if you
transfer your points to one of American Express» several
airline and hotel partners.
More specifically,
transferring points to one of the Citi ThankYou Points
airline partners is the
best option.
While there are a number of redemption
options for Choice Privileges points including gift certificates and
transfers to
airline mileage programs, the
best use of your points is to book free nights at hotels.
Your
best transfer option will probably be to
transfer your UR points to United
Airlines and book your international flight through them.
Specifically,
transferring to
airline partners is your
best option.
Below, we categorize the participating
airlines to give you an idea of the
best and worst
options for
transferring points.
While statement credits and merchandise are
options, the
best use of points is for travel, particularly if you
transfer your points to one of American Express» several
airline and hotel partners.
As the Citi ThankYou program gives you the
option to both
transfer points to
airlines as
well as use your points at a fixed rate to buy cash fares, the
best use of points would be to redeem them for miles.
Sure she could always
transfer them to an
airline, often a uniquely
good option with Starwood, but that's obviously more complicated than just getting a refund and moving on with your life.
SPG's Starpoints are probably one of the
best options and are valued around 2.5 cents each, plus you can
transfer them to most
airline programs.
Transferring your Citi ThankYou Points to one of their partner
airlines can provide some fantastic travel
options, and is in our opinion the
best way to use Citi points.
As you know by now,
transferring your points to Chase's
airline and hotel partners is absolutely the
best option!
Transferring to
airline and hotel partners (as we discussed above) is still the
best way to get the most value out of your points, but using the travel portal can be a
good option for many cardholders.
If you want to make the
best possible use of frequent flyer miles, you'll have plenty of
options with Membership Rewards» 17
airline transfer partners.
In some ways, this card is
better than the Southwest card because you can earn double points for travel and dining, and the
option of
transferring points to other
airline and hotel programs.
Possibly the
best travel benefit of the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the
option to
transfer your rewards points on a 1:1 basis to 13 of the leading
airline and hotel loyalty programs.
Transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to the various
airlines and hotels will be the most valuable
option in most instances, but, sometimes it can be a
better deal to not
transfer and book directly through the Chase Travel Portal.
The Reserve's 50 % redemption bonus through Chase's portal is awesome, but you can still find
better redemption
options by
transferring your points out to a travel partner and booking directly from the
airline or hotel.
While statement credits and merchandise are
options, the
best use of points is toward travel, particularly if you
transfer your points to one of American Express» multiple
airline and hotel partners.
These
airlines have
well - recognized business class
options and in the case of
transferring your Amex Membership Rewards points, they are reasonably priced.
Having the
option to
transfer points over to Singapore
Airlines KrisFlyer is a nice bonus as Singapore
Airlines has a habit of offering
better award availability to its own rewards program members than it does to members of its
airline partners» programs (United MileagePlus, Lufthansa Miles & More etc...)
Starwood points are generally a
good option to
transfer to
airline miles because they
transfer to most
airlines at a 1:1 ratio.
However, if you are non-committal and prefer to have
options, a card that allows you to
transfer points to a host of partners, including
airlines, hotels and car rental companies, may be a
better choice.
Singapore
Airlines is a bit of a pricey
option for getting to New Zealand but it still makes the list since it's a
transfer partner to the major reward programs (and thus easy to accumulate miles for) and it offers one of the
best business class and economy products out of any
airline.
More specifically,
transferring points to one of the Citi ThankYou Points
airline partners is the
best option.
Prior to the devaluation of these 2 programs, I would have considered this card the
best and only way to earn valuable American
Airlines AAdvantage miles, with a great
option to
transfer to BA Avios should that work out more favorable.
With so many
airline partners, you'll never lack for
transfer options... and that might not even be the
best part of
transferring Starpoints to
airlines!
United
Airlines may not have many cabins that one would call aspirational (The latest Polaris seats on the 777 - 300ER are nice but there's hardly any of them in service) but it offers far
better award availability than American
Airlines and requires considerably fewer miles for premium cabin awards than Delta — that makes it a valuable
transfer option to have.
If you have SPG Starpoints thanks to hotel stays or one of the Starwood Preferred Guest credit cards from American Express, your
best option by far is to
transfer them to Japan
Airlines Mileage Bank or Alaska
Airlines Mileage Plan.
Transferring points to
airline and hotels are by far the
best redemption
options in my opinion and allows members to really stretch their points.
While
transferring points to partner
airlines is the
best way to get a free
airline ticket, especially in a premium class, the ThankYou Travel Center also offers an uncomplicated booking
option where each point gives you $.0125 in value.
American Express Membership Rewards points are more valuable than the average rewards point, for a variety of reasons: The points are fairly flexible, with no expiration dates or blackout dates to worry about, you have a plethora of redemption
options to choose from, plus American Express has a large list of
airline and hotel partners that you can
transfer points to at a
good value.
And, if you
transfer the points to an
airline partner, you can do even
better by carefully searching for airfare
options with higher values.
For example, a card in the Chase Ultimate Rewards program would give you the
option to
transfer points to Korean Air and six other
airline partners, as
well as the ability purchase a wide variety of award travel through the program's travel center.
While there are a number of redemption
options for Choice Privileges points including gift certificates and
transfers to
airline mileage programs, the
best use of your points is to book free nights at hotels.
However, if you prefer to use your rewards points on domestic travel, Chase Sapphire Preferred ® is the
better option, because Citi ThankYou ® Premier's points
transfer program includes fewer
airlines and most are international.
You can certainly argue that charging Amex gift cards to one of the Starwood American Express cards would be the
better option due to the
airline transfer bonus.
The reason for this is twofold: First, Ultimate Rewards offers a
good mix of
options between
airline and hotel
transfers.
If you're a Citi customer with a case of wanderlust, we have
good news: Eligible Citi cards now offer the
option to
transfer ThankYou Points to select
airline partners» frequent flyer programs.
@Dave Brown:
Best option for you is
transferring to 132K United and have them book you on Air Canada or any other Star Alliance
airline with no fuel surcharges.
Some of the
best redemption
options include
transferring to Singapore
Airlines and flying their A380 in Suites Class;
transferring to ANA and booking one of the few remaining round - the - world awards; or flying to Hawaii via Air France / KLM Flying Blue.
Transferring points to
airline and hotel partners is usually my preferred way of using UR, but if there aren't
good options with their
transfer partners, you can use your points to book through the Chase Ultimate Rewards booking portal.
While many of Starwood's partners offer very high point values, American
Airlines is one of the
best transfer options.