.
Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to British Airways Avios with a 30% Transfer Bonus, reducing the cost of frequent flyer award tickets booked with British Airways Executive Club. Here are the offer details, followed by an example of award flights we recently booked thanks to this transfer bonus.
- Must first link your Chase Ultimate Rewards account with your British Airways Executive Club account
- Complete the transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards to British Airways Executive Club no later than 11:59pm ET on 9/26/21
- Minimum transfer is 1000 Ultimate Rewards points, which will become 1300 Avios
.
Best and Worst Uses of British Airways Avios
Because British Airways Executive Club has a distance based award chart, and charges hefty premiums for first class and business class (as well as hefty fuel surcharges on British Airways awards), it's not ideal for long haul first class awards, especially on British Airways metal. For example, you'll pay 144,250 Avios for Cathay Pacific First Class from Los Angeles LAX to Hong Kong, whereas the same award, if available, would be 70,000 Alaska Mileage Plan miles, fewer than half as many miles. That said, Cathay Pacific generally only releases one first class award seat in advance to oneworld partners, and the British Airways Executive Club award calendar opens 354 days in advance while the Alaska Mileage Plan calendar opens just 330 days in advance, so Avios do give you a 24 day lead in securing award seats.
Avios, with the transfer bonus, can provide a good value for Iberia Business Class awards. We just reserved Iberia Business Class for clients from Europe to LAX for 62,500 Avios + $280 per ticket. That's more than what American AAdvantage charges, which is 57,500 + $171, but with the 30% transfer bonus, it works out to 48,077 Chase Ultimate Rewards points + $280, which is better value than the AA award, particularly when you consider how much easier it is to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points from credit card spend, with 2X, 3X and 5X category bonuses from various Chase cards, compared to earning AA miles via credit card spend.
Other good uses of Avios are short haul economy flights in the U.S. or from the U.S. to the Caribbean on American, intra-Europe on British Airways, intra-Japan on JAL, and intra-Asia on Cathay Pacific or JAL (although it will be awhile until U.S. travelers are traveling much intra-Asia).
Recommended Posts
British Airways Avios Award Seat Guarantee
British Airways Class Action on COVID-19 Refunds Can Proceed
You Can Charter a British Airways First Class Cabin
If you enjoyed this, join 200,000+ readers: follow TravelSort on Twitter or like us on Facebook to be alerted to new posts.
Subscribe to TravelSort on YouTube for travel inspiration.
Become a TravelSort Client and Book 5-Star Hotels with Virtuoso or Four Seasons Preferred Partner Benefits