Frequent Miler on the Air - Transfer bonuses galore: Why so many and which are best? | Ep114 | 9-4-21

Episode Date: September 4, 2021

00:27 Giant Mailbag: Is the Hilton Surpass the better choice for Hilton Diamond status in 2021?   3:10 Mattress Running the Numbers: If you're spending for a Hilton free night certificate in 2021, should you finish off the spend for Diamond status?   10:14 What crazy thing...did Citi do this week?   13:55 Main Event: A deluge of transfer bonuses   https://frequentmiler.com/wow-12x-membership-rewards-transfer-bonuses-aeroplan-avios-virgin-atlantic-more/   https://frequentmiler.com/stacking-lifemiles-bonuses-new-domestic-theory/   https://frequentmiler.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-transfer-points-to-airline-and-hotel-programs/   43:01 Post Roast: Is the Capital One transfer bonus to Air France a poor deal?   https://frequentmiler.com/20-transfer-bonus-to-flying-blue-from-capital-one/   48:17 Question of the Week: What are you excited about in September?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6iMWd2BlXM&t=561s   Subscribe to our email list: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/   Thanks for watching or listening!   Music credit: Annie Yoder

FrequentMiler on the air starts now. Today's main event, a deluge of transfer bonuses. You can call it a flood, an avalanche, a tsunami, whatever you want to call it, there are tons of transfer bonuses right now. We'll get into it for our main event. But first, we've got the giant mailbag, of course. Today's giant mail comes from, I want to pronounce it Lag11 via YouTube comments.

And Lag11 says, I know Hilton Aspire is a great card, but this year there's still a great opportunity for Hilton Diamond status with the Hilton Surpass card. You need to hit 60,000 points, normally 120,000, to get Diamond status. That is, can easily reach that with 15k to 20k of everyday spend because the card earns 3x everywhere and has category bonuses to get you better than that um and you also get a free night certificate along the way if you could pair that with a new card bonus it's a great opportunity so that's from lag 11 it's you know it's this was in response to our conversation about ways to get elite status. And we didn't really touch on other ways of getting it from Hilton besides the Hilton aspire card.

So, so that's, that's another way. And, and I thought that was a pretty good feedback today. Cause it's going to come up again, that exact topic when we get to matches running the numbers. Yeah.

But I mean, it's, it's definitely an interesting path because it's, it's a much cheaper path potentially than getting the aspire card. So if you value and want Hilton diamond status, that that's a great point. And that's a point that a few people have made to me various times this year.

And it's kind of gone in my mind and back out of my mind again, because I just don't usually think of spending toward Hilton status mostly because I mean, truthfully, it's not really worth spending usually towards Hilton diamond status because there really isn't that much more benefit. The key benefit, if you have diamond status is getting lounge access. Whereas if you only have gold status, you only get lounge access. If you happen to get upgraded to a lounge room, which happened once to me as a gold member, but wasn room, which happened once to me as a gold member, but wasn't something that happened often to me as a gold member. You do get breakfast for free as a

gold member. So the only add-on really is lounge access, I guess, a better chance at an upgrade. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess you get a hundred percent point bonus instead of 80%. That's true. That's a good point. So if you're making a lot of paid stays, yeah, then you'll make out a little bit better with diamond status too. But definitely, I mean, this year, it's a little bit different because, yeah, that's far

less than it would normally require. And if you have a surpass card, you are likely spending $15,000 on it each year for the free night certificate that comes with the card. So you're already en route. So should we just transition this right into mattress running the numbers? We're going to get back to the crazy thing after that. Yeah. So today's mattress running the numbers is this exact topic is spending your way to Hilton Diamond status. I have a slightly different scenario

than Lag11 suggested. In this scenario, it's my son. He had signed up for the Hilton business card not too long ago. He had spent $15,000 on that card to get the free night certificate, which as you know, right now it's better than usual getting that free night certificate, which as you know, right now, it's better than usual getting that free night certificate because you get it now, it's valid until the end of 2023 or- 2022.

It's the end of 2022. So anyway, it's valid longer. It's valid for a long time. Valid for a long time. And it's valid for any day of the week instead of weekends, which is how it normally would be. And so worth more than usual.

I figured it was worth helping him spend the way to $15,000 on that card. And I didn't even think about the fact that that was also getting him close to diamond status. So after reading Lag11's message, I checked my son's account. He currently has 45,000 points towards the 60,000 needed for Hilton diamond status. And since he's spending entirely within non-bonus categories, so earning just three X, three points per dollar, he would need $5,000 more spend to get to diamond status. So here's like the basic math before we get into whether he should do it. He'll spend 5K, he'll get 15,000 more Hilton points and diamond status. The 15,000 points at our reasonable redemption value of 0.4 cents per point, those 15,000 are worth about 60 bucks. If he had spent the same $5,000 using a 2% cashback

card, he would have gotten $100 cash back. So we could say that, that this spend would cost him $40 basically. Um, if we, if we value the Hilton points that way. Right. And, um, so $40, that's the question. Is it worth it for him to get diamond status? Well, that, I mean, that's, that is a good question. I guess it, so I know you like to look at the opportunity cost versus the 2% card, which makes a lot of sense. But I know other people will look at it and say, well, what does he have to do in order to spend the 5,000? Is he going to, because you know, it does make sense to do that. If you were going to spend $5,000 anyway, then your method makes a lot of sense.

If you weren't going to spend $5,000 anyway, then I might argue that it makes more sense to say, okay, well, what's it going to cost you to do $5,000 spend, right? I mean, are you going to buy gift cards? How much are the gift cards going to cost? How much is the liquidation going to cost? Because that is relevant if you're doing spend that you wouldn't have otherwise done. I mean, am I right? Yes.

Yeah. And I guess I like to just say that the cost of spend, in that case of manufacturing spend, I estimate at 2% because of the effort involved. So it might be that it's costing you much less than 2%, but you might be spending a lot of time in line and going from store to store and dealing with gift cards that aren't working and having to call and get them reset and all kinds of nonsense. Right. So, so I don't know. I just find it convenient to use 2% as a, as a nice number.

So whether you're talking opportunity costs or actual costs, I, I, I like having that sort of simplification. Okay. So, I mean, 2% of, of $5, though, is 100 bucks, right? Greg Foss, MD, MPH, Right. Right. Preston Pyshko, MD, MPH, So, I mean, maybe it's going to cost you 100-ish dollars. So, is diamond status worth 100 bucks? Is that, I mean, that's the specific question. Greg Foss, MD, MPH, But again, he's getting 15,000 miles from this. Preston Pyshko, MD, MPH, Oh, true. True, true, true, true. Greg Foss, MD, MPH, I mean, points. So, that's why I got to the $40. Preston Pyshko, MD, MPH, I see. I see. I see. I see. You're correct. Look at you.

Look at you with your math. Greg, the frequent miler guys is good at math, believe it or not. He's good at his math. Just what everyone comes to the show for. Let's do some math, everybody. That's what makes this one compelling. Going to shoot up the charts with our math. So, so is it worth it? Yeah. I mean, that seems like a no brainer, doesn't it? I mean, if you get lounge access once or twice, well, you know, I say a no brainer. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Does your son travel to Hilton properties with a lounge? Is the lounge open? Is it going to be open in the next year? I mean, I guess that depends a little bit. Those are completely unknowables. He just graduated college recently. What the future holds for him and how much travel and all that, no idea.

So, yeah, it's tough. So, my decision in this case was like, yeah, it's not very expensive, so we'll just do it. Right, right. Which is probably what I would do. But does it make sense? Is that reasonable? I mean, what you and I would do is not necessarily exactly sensical. We do a lot of things that don't make sense in this game.

So, yeah, I mean, I would probably do it just to have the top tier status, to be able to maybe match it to something useful, maybe possibly down the road, and then also to get lounge access once or twice if I happen to end up going to a nice Hilton. Yeah. I mean, I feel like the cost there, I often look at little things like that and I say, is that a critical spending decision? Yes. Okay. Every 50 or a hundred dollars does add up over time. But in that case, not a critical spending decision, might as well go for it and have some fun. But I don't think you really justify it in the current environment especially if most of your travel

yeah is domestic and lounges in many cases are closed then it's a little like yeah but they might open next year who knows um but yeah yeah i i totally agree with that that it probably won't pay off but it's such a small investment that it's not even worth. That's where just playing the game, even if it's sort of a small net loss, it's okay. Because you win more often than not, right? Exactly. You win so much. And all you need is one good stay for that to be a big win.

Yeah. And as you said, you just never know. Like, you know, I can imagine next year Marriott's trying to get the elites back or something and saying we're going to do an outright match from Hilton and, you know, and boom, it's going to pay off for him.

All right. I mean, there was that one day a couple of years ago that Hyatt matched everybody, like whatever status you had to match Hilton and everything else on Twitter

for like, you know, a couple of hours. And so, yeah, I mean, if that came back, you would find out about it right away and help them get matched over. So yeah, exactly. Exactly. You got to be in it to win it.

All right. Okay. So then what crazy thing did city do this week? City is back. So, all right. So some time ago, we found or learned that the Citi Preferred, that's their really old no-fee card that earns thank you points, that it was allowing people to cash out points for one cent each, which brought it up to par with the city premier and city prestige card on that um on that level because it used to be you'd only get half a cent each that actually used to be true with the other cards too but but city had increased the prestige and then later the premier to one cent each purposely um but we learned now that city said said, oops, that was a mistake. We shouldn't have let

people cash out for one cent per point. We're going to reset it back to half a cent. And there you go. What? Why? Why, Citi? What sense does that make? I don't get it. No. And it makes, not only is it ridiculous that they made this mistake and backed it out, I don't get it. They let you for no fee, you know, redeem points for a penny each. So why would they expend any effort whatsoever to make sure that people with the old no fee preferred card can't do the same thing? Yeah, yeah. It doesn't make any sense at all, right? I mean, so you have to open a new fee-free card or convert your card over in order to get the one centi. It's just like, it's silly.

Yeah. Or you combine your thank you accounts. So you could, you know, if you have an old preferred, you can combine it with a custom cash card. Although I don't see any reason not to convert it to a custom cash. That's a nice card. Well, right, right. But I guess it's a push for the custom cash to make people get the custom cash, I guess.

I mean, maybe they're just not, I can't not. I can't even give Citi the credit for thinking this out this far, but I guess you could think, oh, well, they just want to get a lot of new cardholders. So they're going to say, hey, no, not for you, preferred cardholders. You got to get a custom cash, I guess, maybe. It seems dumb and it seems even worse. How do you backtrack that? Right. I guess maybe, I don't know. It seems dumb and it seems even worse. How do you backtrack that? Right. It just, it seems like one of those things where you make that mistake. Once that floodgate is open, you just can't really go back on it, especially in my custom cash card. I mean, my guess as to why they did it is there's two options. One is just pure, like not thinking it through. Like, so someone realized they made a mistake and undid it. And it's that simple. The other possibility is, is about that. They're probably very happy when people don't know what they're doing and cash out their points for half a cent each. And so they don't want to give up that opportunity for themselves to get off cheaply with those points.

Right, right. There you go. So maybe it's that sinister that they're like, oh, we're going to trick them here. We're going to give them a penny for a hot minute and then watch when they're not paying attention. They're not looking. We're dropping back down to half a cent each and nobody will notice when they click the redemption button. So which is probably true. There are probably plenty of people that won't.

So, right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Citi, for rejoining the crazy thing segment. Welcome back to the party. All right.

So that brings us then to the main event. Main event time. Which adjective or disaster term did you like best for... We start with a deluge of transfer bonuses it's not a disaster this is a good thing so you know waterfall maybe is better or a i mean flood and flood suggests something bad tsunami certainly bad um just a showering bonanza a uh yeah yeah anyway there's a lot there's a lot that's a lot of that's a party a party of transfer right a party yeah i don't know a lot like a lottery win or something like that yeah i don't

jackpot anyway i don't know we should have done this offline before the show right what are we doing babbling about what to call this are Are we recording now? It's on. It's on. We're live. Well, we're live recorded anyway. Oh, boy. So there's a lot of transfer bonuses.

So, I mean, how exciting is this? I don't think, well, I don't even think I know. We've never seen nearly this many transfer bonuses at once. And so most of them come from transferable points currencies, which are the bank points that we talk about all the time, like from Amex or Citi or Chase or Capital One, that can be transferred to airline or hotel partners. And so most of the transfer bonuses that have appeared all of a sudden are from those things. But actually, the vast majority are all from Amex. I mean, Amex came out with 12 transfer bonuses all at once. 12. 12. Yeah.

I mean, maybe we've seen two at a time before. I mean, maybe three, if you're counting like a targeted Hilton one and a Marriott one and an actual airline one. I think that is probably the most we've seen. Right. Yeah. So 12, 12 is just, it's off the charts. Totally unprecedented to see 12 at one time.

Right. And, but, but even without Amex, there's like a lot going on with, with airlines offering bonuses to transfer their miles to hotels or vice versa. And, you seem like there's a lot more of this transfer stuff going on than usual, not just with Amex. So what is going on? What's the motivation for telling everyone, basically, I want you to have someone else's points instead of my points. That's what these companies, I I think are sort of saying, right? What do you think's going on? You know, it's interesting because I think that, I don't know if it is necessarily a push from the programs as much as it is. This is something that has regularly happened in the past, right? I mean, every month or two or three, you'd see a

transfer bonus or two from various airlines, but But then the valve just got shut off during the pandemic. And that was, I don't think, because nobody wanted to offer a transfer bonus, but rather nobody wanted the optics of being the travel company that was encouraging people to do something that people thought was unsafe. So I think that we didn't see the transfer bonuses because I mean, Amex didn't want to be the one that's encouraging you to travel when you shouldn't have been traveling and the airlines didn't want it. So I think that it just kind of got shut off for a while. And this is kind of like, you know, it's been built, the pressure has been building up. And so now all of a sudden they've opened the hose and it's just all coming out at once. And so I think, you know, it's probably just transfer bonuses that were meant to have happened already. And so what are you going to do? Keep waiting and then make who gets to go last, right? Or not gets to go last, who has to go last. If you just restart now,

then somebody kind of becomes the last currency to get a bonus. And that's at that point, there'll be like two years since they last had a transfer bonus, right? So I think it's just a matter of fairness to all of the various programs that have been on a rotation, so to speak. Yeah, it could be. It could be. I mean, some other ideas, and I think that's actually a very likely answer. But some other ideas that occurred to me are, one, it could be getting towards the end of these programs fiscal years. And so they might just want

to get their points off the books because they have to sort of account for them. And there might be an accounting reason why it's good for them to basically have people redeem their points before the end of the fiscal year. In some cases, another thought, but I don't think that's what's happening here. Another thought is like, in some cases, if a program has bought sort of pre-bought way too many points and they just want to ditch them. So like when Amex like re-signs a deal with Marriott or Hilton or Delta, you know, the deal involves sort of pre-buying usually ridiculous numbers of points. And so I could see them wanting to encourage people to redeem for those points. Right. But maybe I don't think that's happening here because Amex is transfer bonuses.

I mean, they do have Hilton and Marriott in there, but most of the rest, if not all the rest, are not from their own programs that they were their partners with the airlines or hotels. Right. And I think Aeroplan, if I remember correctly, I think this is the first time that I recall ever seeing a public Aeroplan bonus. They've had targeted Aeroplan bonuses before, but I don't think I've ever seen a public one from membership rewards. I could be wrong on that. I didn't double check that. I just can't remember one way or another on that. But at any rate, so it's not just those situations. And I guess they issue the Aeroplan credit cards in Canada. So maybe they bought a lot of aeroplane miles cheaply too by that logic. But yeah, I doubt that that's the case. And if they did, if they bought tons and tons of points

and miles, you would think that they got decent deals. And I don't know, is there an advantage to getting rid of those sooner rather than holding onto them and continuing to have a supply forever that you bought cheaply? I don't know. I don't know if there's a huge advantage apart from the accounting advantage of getting the points off the books, so to speak. But I don't even know what that's like. I don't know the macroeconomics of these programs in terms of how much liability that even becomes because you have this funny money that's not actually worth a cent each or anything, especially in Amex's case. So I don't... Yeah, I couldn't tell you. Um, another, another possibility that occurred to me, but I also don't think it's too likely in this case, but it's possible is, um, and this is

more about why transfer bonuses might be provided in general, uh, is if they kind of don't really want us to be transferring to the programs that cost them the most. So, for example, if like, like we never see a transfer bonus to ANA, which is one of our favorites from Amex. And, you know, if ANA points cost Amex like one cent per mile, whereas like British Airways might cost them one cent, two cents, then, you know, maybe they're like, oh, well, let's encourage people to get British Airways obvious instead because it's cheaper for us. Maybe. Might be. Maybe.

That's as good an explanation as any. I think you misspoke there because I think you said ANA one cent and then obvious one cent also. I meant two cents. Yeah, you meant more. So I think that was obvious. So obvious for the obvious. But a question here, is there any chance that transfer bonuses are subsidized by the programs that there's like some marketing cost that goes into that? And so maybe that like last year's marketing budget

already came in for these transfer bonuses before the pandemic shut everything down. And so going back to kind of my original theory, these would have been scheduled to have happened last year and didn't. So, um, so I, I think it's, I think there's a chance that that's the way it works, right? I think that's very likely. Yeah. That, that, yeah, these programs came to amex uh you know and said we'll basically subsidize a bonus and um and this goes back to your original theory right right like this has been they've been collecting up these opportunities for a long time saying well hold up we'll get to it we'll get to it we'll get to it and now they're finally like okay it's it's time. We've gotten to it. So they're doing it now.

All at once. Yeah. One last like potential explanation as well is simply a sort of marketing approach for Amex, right? Like, so they've been trying so hard to get people to sign up for the new platinum card with ridiculously big offers. This could be another side of that. They know that the travel blogs are all going to be writing

about these transfer bonuses and saying, how do you get the Amex points in the first place? Oh, well, you could get half a million Amex points from one credit card sign up. So click here kind of thing. And then turn that into 30% more Virgin Atlantic miles and go to one of these Virgin limited properties and, you know, get yourself a Virgin ducky and totally sell that dream. Right. So, uh, yeah, I mean, that's, uh, that's not a bad theory. MX is clearly investing a lot right now in getting people excited about their cards by giving away a lot of points. So it certainly doesn't hurt to allow those travel bloggers, so to speak, to write about those amazing redemptions right now and say, oh, wow, it costs you even fewer. I mean,

I've already seen some of those headlines. They're like, round trip business class to Spain for 49,000 points. And it's just the transfer bonus to Iberia. Iberia only charges 34K each way. So if you get a 30% bonus, yeah, it's a lot less. So they're already happening, those types of posts, and probably will continue to. So I think that's a decent idea, a decent theory. Yeah. So anyway, so there's all kinds of reasons why it might be happening. Well, we left out- You've got more? Yeah. I mean, we left out the theory that I'm sure there is a segment of readers saying, oh,

they are doing this so that people will stop cashing out their points via Schwab, you know, because they've had this opportunity and it was 1.25 cents per point. It was scheduled to drop on the 1st of September, but for some reason, it's continued at least to the 2nd of September. We don't know when it's going to stop at 1.25 cents and go to 1.1 cent. Probably by the time this publishes, it will have, but we don't know for sure. Are they trying to shut that off and make that less attractive? I mean, I can't lie, I cashed in a lot of Amex points a few days ago. And when I saw the transfer bonuses, even though I don't make any sense to me. Yeah, I don't think so either. Transfer bonus would have anything to do with the Schwab.

I don't think so either. I'm sure that there are some people who are going to say, oh, it's to stop you from using the Schwab cache. I don't think it is either. No. I mean, Amex over the past year, they changed. The Schwab cash out method used to be kind of confusing. You actually had to log into Schwab and sort of pull the points over. They change it now where it's like front and center when you log into Amex. It's like, click here and transfer your points over. If they wanted to stop people or reduce how much people were doing that, it wouldn't have made it easier to do. That just doesn't make any sense to me. No. And I'm sure that that option is subsidized

by Schwab to some extent. I would think so. I don't think it's costing Amex the full 1.25 cents per point. So yeah, I don't think that that option is remarkably more expensive than other options for Amex. And obviously, like you said, they wouldn't have made it easier if they didn't want people to still be able to do it. And they've already announced kind of in a backdoor way that it was going to drop anyway. So, yeah, I don't think they're connected, but I'm sure that there are some conspiracy theorists out there that will see a connection that we're not, you know, a few dots that we haven't discussed. But I don't think the connection is there either. So are any of these transfer bonuses worth it?

I mean, should you jump on any of these right now? Should you transfer speculatively? What do you think? Are you excited about any of these? Well, let's talk about some of the good ones that are at least worth talking about. Then we can talk about, should we do it prospectively? Okay. Amex transfers to Avios, whether it's British Airwaysways iberia or aerolingus 40 bonus that's pretty darn good that's really good uh you could alternatively still get a 30 bonus uh from transferring from chase i believe i'm not sure when that ends but i'm not sure either but um so those are two options for obvious virgin atlantic you already talked about, 30% bonus. So if you're able to find in a first class to Japan for ridiculously cheap prices using Virgin Atlantic miles, or you're able to find Delta One flights to Europe for only 50,000 Virgin Atlantic miles

each way, this 30% bonus makes it much cheaper than that. Aeroplan 20%. I mean, if you're going to transfer to Aeroplan, that's Air Canada. That's good. But 20% doesn't excite me much. Really? 20% doesn't? I mean, I agree. It doesn't excite me as much as 30% or 40%. But Aeroplan's got some sweet spots in there. So I don't know that I'd say it doesn't excite me as much as 30 or 40%, but Aeroplan's got some sweet spots in there. So I don't know that I'd say it doesn't excite me. I mean, 105K business class to Australia, right? I mean, so 20% bonus, what's that? Like 80,000. I guess that's pretty standard. Maybe that's not exciting. All right. All right. Well, we can come back to that if you want to. And Avianca LifeMiles has an interesting thing, 15% bonus from Amex. And apparently there's also a 15% bonus from Amex that LifeMiles is hosting themselves as well.

So the idea is that Amex will show you, you know, if you transfer, let's say, 100,000 points, they'll show you getting 115,000 LifeMiles. And then LifeMiles will presumably tack on another 15%. So it comes out to a little bit better than a 30% bonus when you tag those both on. So that's fun. And then Air France, 25%, and Marriott and Hilton, 30%. I'm not going to talk about Aeromexico because just don't do that. No, absolutely not. And I don't get, you'll probably tell me why I'm wrong, but I don't get excited about the Marriott or Hilton ones either because they're still not good enough to me to make it worth transferring over just buying those points if I wanted the points.

No, I agree. I mean, I think there are times where Hilton at 40% makes sense, but yeah, it's not enough. So throwing those out the window for me anyway, I look at the rest of the list and there's really good options in there. I mean, all of those that you just went over really offer some great opportunities when you look at how cheaply you could book premium cabin flights with some of these programs. So if you have a redemption in mind, I mean, it is a good opportunity for those. I think they're all potentially pretty exciting. Maybe not the Aeroplan one, the more I think about it, especially given the 40% obvious and 30% life miles essentially effective and 30% Virgin Atlantic.

There are just too many other sweet spots, I guess, in there. So, yeah, I mean, these are solid, solid bonuses. Would you go after any of them? I mean, would you speculatively transfer for any of these? Because I might. I might on one of them. I won't. So I have to kind of think about if I wasn't in the situation I'm in, would I? And the situation I'm in is that due to the pandemic and some previous things that happened,

I'm sitting on so many airline miles in various programs because I had all these award flights booked that were canceled and miles went back to the programs that for me, converting more transferable points into airline miles would be crazy unless I had a very specific use where I didn't already have those miles. Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. So now let's imagine new scenario though. Let's imagine you weren't in that situation. Would you transfer to any of these speculatively? Which one if yes and why? Or which ones? Yeah, it's tough. For the most part, I'm going to say I wouldn't do any without having a specific award that I'm saving for. Because most of them, things like Virgin Atlantic, 30%, we see that so frequently from not just Amex,

we see that sometimes from Citi at 25% or whatever. And so it's not that unusual to be able to get a transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic. Avianca, I think same thing. We have transfer bonuses frequently to them. Air France, I think we've seen them pretty regularly. Especially on the city side, I think. And Avios transfer bonuses are pretty common too, but 40%. That's as high as it usually gets because sometimes it's only 25 or 30, 40. I think we've seen 40 once before, if I remember correctly. And I didn't double check that that's just coming off my

memory. I think I've only seen 40% once from Avios. So. Right. Right. So that's the one I would consider. And, and it would be, I would only do it if, if I felt confident that, you know, I'm going to use them regularly. And my personal, you know, flight habits are such that I wouldn't be confident about that. But, you know, if someone else knows that they often will fly with, you know, British Airways or Iberia sweet spots, I think it's worth doing. Yeah. You know, and that's the one that I might speculatively do because of my unique situation. And so the situation that I'm in is that last year, last August, Iberia offered award tickets to Spain at 50% off. So normally during off-peak, it's 34,000 points each way in business class between New York and Madrid or

New York and a couple of other cities, but New York is where I booked it out of. So normally that would be 34,000 each way, but with the 50% off, it was only 17,000 each way. So it paid 34,000 round trip per passenger for me and my wife and my son for business class tickets to Spain. And I booked it last August, obviously middle of the pandemic, but I booked it for spring of 2021 thinking, well, probably everything will be better by then. Right. And then I, of course, spring ran, came around and we weren't out of the woods and I was like, all right, well, let me book this for much later this year. If we're still in a situation in October where we can't do this kind of trip, then, you know, we got bigger problems on our hands. So let's change that to October. And so in the spring, I changed it to October. And of course, you know, here we are knocking on October's door and I'm still not getting on a plane with my kids yet. And hold on,

you were able to change that award without it repricing? I was, which amazed me. That totally amazed me. And not only was I able to change it without it repricing, I did this online, I was able to change it to a different departure city. So I changed it to Boston, which would be the same price, but still the ability to do that blew my mind. So, and I had, obviously I found three seats round trip business class, which amazed me. So I was, I really felt like I was threading the needle as it was. And so now I'm in a situation where I can't change it online. It does say that there's been a schedule change, so I can call in to change it. Okay. At this point, it's been more than a year since I originally booked it. So I'm a little hesitant as to what's even going to happen.

Are they going to let me change it? Is this going to be a problem? Because the tickets already expired, so to speak, because usually they're only valid for a year. I really don't know. And I thought to myself initially, and I did some searches to back this up. What are the chances I'm going to find three seats in business class again? And then, of course, a couple of days ago, I saw some headlines on other blogs that,

hey, there's a bunch of Iberia business class availability. And I was like, oh, great. I got to search for next year and take a look. And then, of course, this transfer bonus came around. I'm like, all right, well, there goes all of the business class availability, I'm sure, because everybody's scooping it up. But I'm going to try to change to next summer and hope that they don't reprice it. But I'm willing to bet that it's not going to work, that they're not going to let me change it without repricing it. So assuming that they don't let me change it without repricing

it, then I think it's going to make sense for me to take advantage of the transfer bonus because I'm going to need to top up that account in order to be able to book another trip in the future. So I think at 40%, it probably will make sense for me to transfer over enough for the three of us to be able to book a trip at some point next year. Right, right. And there's sort of an interesting thing there too that's worth mentioning. Amex transfers instantly to most of their partners, not all of them. And we do have a page that shows all the transfer times. In fact, if you look at our transfer bonus master list page, the times are in there. And to British Airways, they transfer instantly.

They sure do. But to Iberia, not so much. And what I found was that when I initiated a transfer midweek, it actually only took about 12 hours to Iberia. But when I did one on a Friday, the points didn't show up until like Tuesday. So someone takes a long weekend every weekend maybe. Must be nice. The old points transfer person is a part-timer. Right. And so you can't count on that.

But you can, as long as you have your account set up to match your name and address, all that stuff, exactly the same on your Iberia account and your British Airways account, you can simply move your points over instantly. And so you could just transfer points to British Airways and then move them to Iberia. Is that what you're going to do if you do take advantage of this? Absolutely. I might as well because if it comes up, I don't think I'm going to need them right away. Cause I'm probably not going to book something right now for next summer. I mean, if I can change it without repricing it, I obviously will, but assuming that I can't change it without repricing it, I think I want to take advantage of the 40%, but yeah, I mean, I might as well have them there in case a booking comes up. So yeah,

that's what I've done in the past. I've transferred to British Airways and then moved them over to Iberia because I do have it all connected. I've done it before and it's instant to British Airways and then instant to Iberia. So it's pretty quick. It does take a little setup. The initial setup takes a little time, but once you get that done, then you're all set and good to go. So yes, that is definitely what I'll do if I do it. And I think it's more likely than not that I will while the bonus is on because 40% is so good. And I'm stuck in a situation where I'm not going to have enough points now and have enough points for one way and not the way back. And I guess I could book a different award, but I don't know. I'm probably going to do it though. So, okay. So that's the one I'll speculatively do.

The other ones I totally agree with Greg. I wouldn't speculatively do them because we'll see them again. None of the rest of them are unprecedented. If you're not booking a trip right now, we'll see those transfer bonuses. Are there any specific awards, though, that people should be excited about? I mentioned like first class ANA or business class Delta to Europe. Yeah. Those are both great reasons if you need Virgin Atlantic points and you see those awards. They are.

And I did transfer bonus while it's here. And I didn't, well, I didn't bust out the calculator, but I think from memory anyway, the Virgin Atlantic bonus, you're talking about, I think like 93,000 ish membership rewards points transferred to enough to fly round trip first class from the East coast to Japan. I mean, that's incredible. And the Delta one you're mentioning, Via Virgin Atlantic,

again, I think it's about 37,000 membership rewards points for business class. Again, nonstop on Delta to Europe. I mean, that's great if you can find the availability. Are there any others? Yeah, I mean,

I hesitate to get excited about Avianca because they sell their points so cheaply so often. But at the same time, the mixed cabin awards are potentially such a great deal. And their pricing anomalies like New York to Lisbon, and I can't remember now off the top of my head as I speak, whether it's JFK or Newark, it's one or the other to Lisbon is only 35,000 points one way in business class.

So if you're getting effectively a 30% bonus, you're talking what? 25,000? No, a little more than that. Maybe 27-ish thousand points one way for business class. I mean, wow, that's incredible. So that's on tap Air Portugal. Actually, other partners also, it comes out the same pricing on that route. So that one's a pretty good one. Air France. I mean, Air France is potentially a great deal here too, because sometimes you can find business class Europe for 45 or 55,000 one way. So, I mean, if you get a 25% bonus, again, you're in that same 30 something thousand points will become enough for a business class ticket to Europe, which, you know, if you look at the Schwab cash out, you're talking about like $500 worth of points for a business class

ticket to Europe. That's an incredible deal. It sure is. It sure is. Another one I'll point out, you mentioned Avianca LifeMiles, using them to fly first class Lufthansa to Europe is, I want to say they charge something like 87,000 if the whole way is first class. But if you throw in a business class segment or a coach segment, it'll get lower than that. And that's before the transfer bonus. So that's an incredible deal for an incredible experience, basically. Lufthansa first class, the experience is not just in the air. It's also on the ground as you transit through Munich or Frankfurt, amazing ground services. So it's definitely worth that sort of once in a lifetime or once a decade, however often you can manage it to experience that.

Well, and I think I saw one mile at a time reported this week that the first class terminal in Frankfurt just reopened. So that's now newly reopened and they have a limited edition like pandemic ducky with a mask. So it's, you know, if you're, if you're, you got the ability to do it sometime soon. I agree. I think that's one that's particularly interesting too. And then if you have kids and you're traveling with a lap infant, then keep in mind both Aeroplan and British Airways because Aeroplan only charges 2,500 points each way for an infant award ticket. So that's a super cheap infant award ticket. So if you're able to take advantage of the bonus, it might be a better deal than other

programs because most programs charge you 10% of the adult fare. So if you can make your Aer airplane ticket a little bit cheaper, thanks to the transfer bonus, then you get a great deal on an infant ticket. Also, same thing with British Airways. They charge 10% of the adult obvious. And I think, well, no, nevermind. I take it back to what I was going to say.

10% of the adult obvious. So you get your 40% transfer bonus and it'll help you save a little bit on the infant ticket too. So those are potentially sweet spots wherever you're going. And premium economy can be a good deal by the way, on obvious, premium economy on Japan airlines to Japan from the West coast can be a pretty good deal too.

So don't forget that it isn't only first in business class when we're talking about premium cabins, premium economy can be a decent deal. That's very interesting. I haven't really looked into that much. It's not bad, especially with the 40% bonus. And you're looking at the equivalent of a domestic first-class type of experience. So a recliner seat with decent space, a little more separation could be worth it.

It reminds me of one great sweet spot is using Virgin Atlantic miles to fly premium economy on air France to Europe. It's got to be dirt cheap with this, right? It's dirt cheap. I mean, it's already dirty, so it's even dirtier, cheaper. And you know, when I first like found that sweet spot, I saw like air France premium economy is wide open as award space. When the pandemic hit, like they took away like all of that award space, they didn't release any.

And I haven't seen them release any against since then. So I don't know if it'll come back. Hopefully it will. Hopefully it will. Hopefully it will. All right. So those are our thoughts on that. I think that pretty much wraps up.

I think the points transfer bonanza. So let's slide into post-roast because I have a related post-roast. I'm the points transfer and it's, it's a post-roast because I have a related post-roast on the points transfer. And it's it's a post-roast that's not even for you. It's a it's a Stephen Pepper post-roast. I have a bone to pick with Mr. Stephen Pepper. So you are going to be tasked with the unenviable position of defending Stephen Pepper's perspective because he wrote this week about the transfer bonus from Capital One to Air France. And basically he said, this is a trash bonus because even with the transfer bonus percentage,

it only comes out to 1,000 Capital One venture points equals 900 Air France miles. So he said, this is not any good. There's too many other programs that already transfer one-to-one. This doesn't even bring up the ratio one-to- one. And Amex has a transfer bonus on top. So he was like, basically, this is still not worth it. And my bone to pick with Steven Pepper is, but compared to what with your Capital One points, like what else are you going to do with your Capital One points? That's a better option than that right now. And maybe you've got some things, but at the end of the day, the venture card earns two points per dollar. And if you can transfer those to 1.8 Air France miles per dollar, you're talking about 1.8 Air France miles per dollar. That's not terrible,

right? I mean, that's a pretty good, better than one and a half points per dollar with your freedom unlimited or whatever else potentially anyway. And if you can get better than one cent per mile on your redemption side, it's certainly better than your best option with Capital One points in terms of erasing travel. Isn't this a great bonus, Greg? Yeah, I mean, I certainly wouldn't dismiss it out of hand the way Stephen did, but I do agree with him that you should be looking, if you have other types of points like membership rewards, and you, so you have a transfer bonus opportunity, you should definitely be looking at that. If all you have are Capital One miles, and their one-to-one partners don't excite you or don't meet your needs for travel,

I certainly wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. I'm going to partly disagree with what you just said, because I would rather keep my membership rewards points for a more valuable redemption. And this is about as, I mean, I say about as good as it gets. There are some Capital One partners that are one-to-one. So we know nowadays there are some really good Capital One partners. So I'm being a little bit facetious here. But my point here was that I wouldn't necessarily want to part with membership rewards points. This is a pretty good use of Capital One points. Maybe not. So you're defending, Stephen. You're arguing with yourself. No, I'm saying that I wouldn't want to use the transfer bonus from Amex necessarily if I have Capital One points. I'd rather keep Amex points for later on for more valuable redemption or a different transfer bonus and use my Capital One points because that's, again, about as good as it gets more or less with Capital One points. It certainly beats redeeming them for one cent each towards paid travel in most cases. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to mention a couple of just points here, not, not arguing one

way or another for this transfer, but, um, one point, some people who know, or think they know about Air France's program might say, but wait a minute, those points, uh, expire and there's like no good way to keep them alive. But as we've learned, uh, and I think we've, we've talked about in a, in a, what crazy thing did Air France do segment, as long as you don't credit any flights to Air France, you can keep your transferred in Air France miles alive by just occasionally transferring in a thousand more points. So you can actually keep them alive indefinitely. And the other thing I'd mention, as far as like, there's a case to be made that the most valuable transfer partner for Capital One, I think, is

Turkish. If people could ever get Turkish to actually ticket awards again, there's some problems with that. But if I had capital one uh points which don't transfer one-to-one to turkish and i had city which do i would still want to use my capital one miles to turkish because of the instant transfer i think well that's the instant transfer is definitely to turkish is very nice because otherwise you're waiting on city for however long it ends up taking and and so yeah yeah, I agree with you there. And truth be told, the other part of the argument against what I said is when you say, well, 1.8 Air France miles per dollar is pretty good. I mean, maybe sort of, but at the same time, last week on this show,

we were saying how neither of us are using the Blue Business Plus very much because just two points per dollar just isn't that good right now compared to all of the other options out there. So that doesn't necessarily excite me. But then on the flip side, another positive is that if you need to top up an account, you can go out and spend some money today and you'll have those points to transfer

in just a couple of days. So you don't have to wait for your statement to come. So that's another bonus on the Capital One side. But again, yeah, I would probably hold out for Turkish or something like that. Assuming Turkish becomes useful. Okay. All right.

So that's the post-drust. We're all done with post-drust, right? Yes. I don't have anything. Okay. Then I have a question of the week. And this week's question of the week is one that comes from Grant.

And it came from our Ask Us Anything. We finally did one of our live Ask Us Anythings the other day. So if you watched this, you already saw the answer. But I know that not everybody who listens to the podcast has seen the Ask Us Anything. So I'm going to ask you what Grant asked, Greg. What are you excited about in September? I am excited about our global upgrade certificate trip. So a while ago, I posted about a post called Passing the Guck, which is how we refer to global upgrade certificates from Delta.

And basically, the deal is that Nick wanted my global upgrade certificates from Delta. I said, sure, you can have them, but Delta doesn't actually let me give you global upgrade certificates without flying with you. So the deal is there's four global upgrade certificates. Nick had to plan the whole thing, laid out a bunch of challenges for him to see, you know, could he cross both oceans and fly us in suites? And also things unrelated to flying, like challenges like, could he get great

value from our hotel points? Could he get great value from points for activities and whatnot? So we're referring to this as the Guck trip and to be launched very, very soon. In fact, probably by the time a lot of people are listening to this, we might be on our way. We'll see. All right.

So that's a sneak preview as to what's coming because I have a feeling the next week's show may have some more details about that, but I figured a little teaser wouldn't hurt. So that's a good idea. Next week's show will almost certainly be a Gucky, Gucky, Gucky, Gucky show. All right. So then if you've enjoyed what you've been hearing about today and you want to get all of our posts in your inbox right away, as soon as they're published, you want to go to

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And we will see you again soon. Thanks. Bye, everybody.