The Key to Points Accumulation
My first travel credit card was an airline card. It was a mistake.
It was an honest mistake. We flew United often, and I already had some frequent flyer miles accumulated.
What I didn’t understand, at the time, was the power of transferable points currencies.
What is a transferable points currency?
These are points that are NOT tied to a single airline or hotel program. Instead, they can be transferred to a variety of travel partners, which makes it more likely that you can use your points for a trip you want to take.
For example, if you have all your points tied up in United’s program, but the best flight deal is on another airline, you’re stuck. If you have transferable currencies your options expand.
Here are the major currencies and some of their notable partners:
American Express Membership Rewards (MR) - Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, and British Airways (BA). This the only program that transfers to All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Delta.
Bilt Rewards - Aeroplan, Flying Blue, BA, Japan Airlines (JAL) and United. This is the only program that transfers to Alaska Airlines.
Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) - Aeroplan, Flying Blue, BA and United.
Citi Thank You Points (TY) - Flying Blue and BA. Citi is the only program to transfer to American.
Capital One - Aeroplan, Flying Blue and BA.
You’ll note that many of the programs transfer to the same airline partners. This is key. For example, we once flew to Madrid in Air Europa Business Class for 110,000 Air France/KLM Flying Blue Miles roundtrip per person. Air Europa is a SkyTeam partner with Flying Blue (I’ll explain airline partner awards in my next post). We didn’t have 220k points in any one program, so we transferred most of the points from Amex MR and the balance from Chase UR.
That’s the magic of transferable currencies.
If you’re just starting out, then use this guide to understand your credit card options:
Learn how to earn points and miles, then spend them well from the Frequent Miler
It’s best to start with one bank, say Chase or Amex. You’ll eventually want to expand to give you more flexibility. I have credit cards with all five banks, which means when I see an award that I want to book, I will likely have enough points, even if it means transferring from two different bank programs (like in my example above).
What questions do you have about transferable points currencies? Put them in the comments. Thanks for reading.