Credit Card Transfer Bonuses: Airline & Hotel (February 2025)

Do you ever see influencers share amazing deals they get on flights or hotels based on their credit card points?

It’ll be something like – “I got this $5,000 business class flight for just $200” or something similarly crazy?

It’s usually two things:

• They got a huge sign up bonus for a credit card
• They took advantage of a transfer bonus (more on this) and/or sale

The key part of the deal is the transfer bonus – that’s when you transfer points from a general rewards program (American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, etc.) and transfer them to a specific airline or hotel but get a percentage bonus added on because of a promotion.

Here’s how it works:

🔃 Updated February 2025 with the latest airline and hotel point transfer bonuses. Not a lot of bonuses this month, hopefully that changes but we’ll have to see.

How Does This Work?

Every credit card that lets you earn reward points will let you transfer those points to an airline or hotel partner on a 1 to 1 basis.

1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to an airline partner on a 1 to 1 basis, meaning it can become 1,000 Southwest Rapid Reward points.

Sometimes, the program will allow you to transfer them with a bonus. This can be a limited time offer or it can be a longer term standing offer based on the amount of points and/the type of card you have.

For example, with Chase Ultimate Rewards, if you have a Chase Aeroplan credit card, you can get a 10% transfer bonus after transferring 50,000 or more Ultimate Rewards points in a single transaction to their Aeroplan account. (Maximum of 25,000 bonus points per calendar year)

The key to all this is knowing when the promotions are active and ensuring you transfer during a promotional window (so you get extra points or miles).

Here are the promotions currently available:

American Express Membership Rewards

If you have AMEX Membership Rewards programs, there is a 15% bonus on LifeMiles but you won’t see them promoted on American Express. You actually log into your LifeMiles account and will see the bonus listed there. You must transfer a minimum of 1,000 LifeMiles.

Capital One Rewards

Capital One Rewards has no active transfer bonuses. 🙁

Capital One had one active bonus offer, you can get a 20% bonus when you transfer your Capital One miles to Avios. For every 1,000 Capital One miles, you get 1,200 Avios points. That offer expired on December 1st, 2024.

Chase Ultimate Rewards

Chase has one transfer bonus active for February.

You can get a 30% bonus when converting your points over to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points would get you 1,300 Virgin points and it’s valid from February 3 through the 17th.

Citi ThankYou Rewards

Citi ThankYou Rewards has no active transfer bonuses. 🙁

Citi ThankYou Rewards had two transfer bonuses that expired on the November 16, 2024 – get a 30% bonus when transferring points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or Virgin Red and a 20% bonus for transfers to Wyndham Rewards.

Marriott Bonvoy

Marriott Bonvoy has no active transfer bonuses. 🙁

The Marriott Bonvoy program had a 15% transfer bonus to Air Canada’s Aeroplan program. The transfer ratio is usually 3 Marriott Bonvoy points to 1 Aeroplan point and there is normally a 5,000 point bonus for every 60,000 Marriot points you transfer. With the 15% bonus, you’re now getting a 8,000 bonus points (3,000 on top of the normal 5,000 bonus) for every 60,000 Marriot points.

When Should You Transfer Points?

There are a lot of factors to consider before you transfer points. It’s not always the best way.

First, it’s rarely a good idea to transfer points without a specific use in mind. It’s hard to know whether a percentage bonus is good because the value of each of those points varies so much.

The Points Guy maintains a valuation list for points. That’s a good start but even that is not enough to blindly transfer points.

Sometimes you are better off booking travel through the travel portal. For example, you may get a better rate going through Chase Ultimate Rewards if you have a card that gets you a bonus on your spend there. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you get a 25% discount when you redeem points in the Chase Travel portal. With a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you get a 50% discount.

These could trump any bonuses you otherwise get.