It’s time to learn how to redeem those points and miles you’ve earned for travel … and while it might seem scary, this is the fun part! We walk through the basics of redeeming your points – including a step-by-step guide to transferring to partner airlines and hotels, which is (almost) always the best path. Plus, a primer on airline alliances, finding award availability, and some of our best ideas of how to redeem your points for maximum value for your next big trip.
It’s time to learn how to redeem those points and miles you’ve earned for travel … and while it might seem scary, this is the fun part! We walk through the basics of redeeming your points – including a step-by-step guide to transferring to partner airlines and hotels, which is (almost) always the best path. Plus, a primer on airline alliances, finding award availability, and some of our best ideas of how to redeem your points for maximum value for your next big trip.
Starter Kit is sponsored by Thrifty Traveler Premium, the world’s best flight deal service. Get $20 off your first year of Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alerts - use promo code “START” at thriftytraveler.com/premium.
00:00 - Do we still get nervous transferring points?
02:30 - What should you earn: Points or miles?
04:50 - Using credit card points: Travel portals & transfers
09:00 - When it makes sense to transfer your points
12:30 - A primer on finding that all-important award availability
15:50 - Why knowing airline alliances & partnerships is key
20:00 - How to transfer points: A step-by-step guide
21:30 - Sign up for all your airline programs now!
30:05 - Our favorite programs and redemptions to get started
36:30 - How to NOT use your points and miles
42:00 - Your Vol. 3 Flight Plan!
Volume 3 Flight Plan:
Related Episodes:
Ep. 5 - The 10 Commandments of Points & Miles
Ep. 66 - Airline Alliances Episode
Ep. 73 - The Current State of Award Availability in 2026
The Master List of Credit Card Transfer Partners
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar Olson, a reporter for Thrifty Traveler and flight deal analyst for Thrifty Traveler Premium, and joining me for this special series at every episode of the Thrifty Traveler podcast is Thrifty Traveler executive editor and our Points and Miles Professor, it's Kyle Potter. Kyle, how do you like professor? Last week we did coach and the week before that we did sherpa. Do you like professor better? Yeah, but it's a low, low bar. Okay. We're- we're trending in the right direction. There's been consistent improvement through the end of the Starter Kit. I'm curious where we're gonna end up at Episode Five and Six. Me too, me too. My vocabulary is running thin already as is my voice. I'm sorry f- for everybody out there who has to listen to my voice. I had too good of a weekend, as we discussed on our last episode of the Thrifty Traveler podcast. I'm just impressed you're still learning new words. Good for you buddy. I know. I know, at my age. All right, today on the show we're talking about the best ways to actually redeem those miles you've been stacking up. It's a topic we covered in Episode Two of Starter Kit. You've already done the work; you signed up for a credit card, you got your big bonus, you've been using shopping portals to earn extra points. Now it's time to do what you came here to do: We're booking travel for less. This is the fun part of the travel process. I think for a lot of people it's also the stressful part. I wanna ... I'm here to tell you transferring points especially, which we're gonna talk about a lot here, is not that scary. It's also not not scary. Have you, Kyle, ever been nervous transferring points or doing big redemptions like this? Yeah. I think that's part of the fun. You need that little jolt of adrenaline it makes when you actually get that ticket booked confirmed that much more special. You know? Y- you gotta have both sides of the pie in order to, to have joy in life is what they say. And it does... It doesn't get not stressful, it gets less stressful, and that's kinda what I think we're gonna help coach people through is start to do these things, get better at it, get more comfortable at it knowing that it's never gonna be like a stress f- free experience. That's part of th- That's the thrill of the chase I guess. Yeah. Awesome. All right, today on Episode Three of Starter Kit, we're talking about how to redeem your points and miles, about how to understand what points you have in your account, what you can do with them. We're gonna walk through why and when to transfer points. We'll talk through how to find award availability may be the most important part of all this. Uh, we're gonna go through the mechanics of transferring points and we'll discuss some points and miles pitfalls to avoid too. All that and more. Welcome back to Starter Kit from Thrifty Traveler Podcast Okay, we're back. Let's get into it. The most important thing that we touched on last week deserves kind of a revisit here this week, Kyle. So quickly, what is the difference between points and miles? So we use points and miles as shorthand. What we're talking about are credit card points and airline miles and to a lesser extent hotel points. And I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that when you're talking about airline miles as an example or hotel points, those are stuck. Those live with a specific airline. Once you have Delta Sky Miles, once you have American Advantage miles or Alaska Atmos Rewards or United MileagePlus miles or Hilton Honors Points, they live in those accounts. You cannot transfer them or send them to another airline even if you- even if those airlines partner together, you can't turn Delta SkyMiles into Air France KLM Flying Blue miles. There is, of course, one major exception to this Which is, um, all of the airlines overseas that use Avios as miles. So that starts with British Airways as the biggest one, but there's also Iberia, Aer Lingus in Ireland, Qatar Airways uses Avios, and most recently Finnair. And if you have Avios in any one of these five airlines, you can send them to each other, but that is the exception. The rule is airline miles are stuck. You have all of your eggs in one basket, and that's what makes credit card points really shine. Credit card points have so much more flexibility because on the one hand, you can use Chase Ultimate Rewards points from cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred to just book through the Chase Travel portal. Or more importantly, the big thing that we're talking about today is you can transfer them to a dozen different airline or hotel partners. So it's... Chase Ultimate Rewards aren't just stuck with Chase. They can become Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, Air Canada AeroPlan points. Amex points you can transfer to not just a dozen, but nearly 20 different partners. Same thing goes with Capital One and a handful of the other big banks. That is what makes credit card points so much more valuable and more flexible because you have all of these options. You're not just stuck in one place. Yeah. Okay, so let's focus on points and, and you touched on this already, but where can you use credit card points that you've earned? I know you mentioned travel portals. What is a travel portal? So this is the starting point for most people, is they've got this big batch of say, 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points because they opened up a Chase Sapphire Preferred card and earned a big bonus. The easiest way to use them is just to go log into your Chase account, navigate to your travel portal, and search for flights or hotels. And generally speaking, when you're redeeming points directly through Chase, directly through American Express like this, you're getting a flat value of one cent per point. So if you're trying to book a $500 flight, you can book that for 50,000 points. Is that simple? It absolutely is. It's incredibly easy to understand. There's a reason why this is the entry point for most people. It's also not all that valuable. Um, it really limits how much value you can get out of your points. Now, some banks like Chase offer some bonuses for redeeming for select flights and hotels, so you might, instead of getting one cent per point, you might get as much as two cents per point using, you know, Chase calls it Points Boost Redemptions. But these are, you know, I would say generally speaking, not a guarantee, certainly not a slam dunk. Capital One allows you to, instead of just using its travel portal, you can use what they used to call a purchase eraser. So instead of booking through a portal, you just book any travel expense, whether that's a flight, a hotel, an Airbnb, a cruise, whatever, on your Capital One card. Go back a couple of days later and erase it from your statement using your Capital One miles. Again, every mile is worth a single cent, so a $500 flight or a $500 Airbnb is gonna cost you 50,000 Capital One miles Yeah, using these portals is a good way to use your points but I think there's a best way and most often that would be from transferring points. And we're gonna get into all that in one second. But I have one other question here proposed by JTucker30 in our premium Slack group which I think is worth mentioning. He says how do you determine if a flight or hotel is a good value to use my points? Uh, a simple question with a not so simple answer, but how do you determine what's a good deal in award travel Uh, you know what? There is an element of you know it when you see it, and you know it better as you do this more and more. I think that's kind of the ultimate barometer because so many things in travel are ultimately just personal. The best way to use your points is gonna be different for you than it is for me. There is a formula that you can use, uh, cents per mile or cents per point. So you take the total cash cost of whatever it is you're booking. You subtract from that the taxes and fees that you might be paying because every time you're booking a flight using airline miles, you're gonna pay at least $5.60 for a one-way domestic flight, some cases closer to 1,000 or more if you're flying abroad or flying a business class flight f- home from London or something. And then you divide that by the total number of miles that you're using, and that's gonna give you the value of what you're redeeming your miles for. Now, what is good and what's bad? This is the hard part. It varies based upon which airline miles or credit card points or hotel points you're using. So this is why I think we get to... It's better to look at it less about, "Am I getting max value from my points?" and more about are you booking something that you otherwise couldn't afford, or are you using your points to take a trip that you otherwise wouldn't take if not for redeeming those points? I think that's ultimately the best yardstick to determine, is this a good redemption or not? Yeah, that's absolutely been my North Star in this since, since I started in Points and Miles, and I think just, yeah, using your points for something you otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford is always a good redemption if it means that you're traveling, right? Uh, it's just as simple as that. Chasing maximum value, being obsessed with maximum value is how you end up with five million Amex points and you can't figure out how to use them. Having five million Amex points is not cool. Having a TripIt feed full of flights and trips coming up, that's cool. That's the ultimate flex. Um, all right, let's get into transferring points then. Uh, we're gonna go over the mechanics of it. Uh, we're gonna talk about ways to use your points as well. Uh, but first, Kyle, why should you transfer points to airline partners? Why jump through all the hoops that we're about to talk about? Okay, so let's use Chase as an example here. There are a dozen or more different transfer partners that you can send your Chase points to. Finding the best way to redeem those f- points, finding the best partner to send your points to in order to book a flight for fewer points than it would cost during the Chase, using the Chase Travel portal, that is the name of the game here. So it's not a slam dunk. You need to do the research. You need to compare the cost of sending your miles to, say, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club to book a Virgin Atlantic flight or a Delta flight versus just booking directly through the Chase Travel Portal. But if you do the research, if you do the math Probably eight to nine times out of 10 you're gonna come out ahead, and in some cases, come out ahead by a lot by transferring your points. And if the reason why you're getting into this is because you've seen people flying business class and you want to be able to do that yourself, to book that through a travel portal, you know, if that business class flight costs $3,000 each way, that means th- 300,000 points is what you need. You might be able to book that exact same flight by transferring 30,000 points or less to one of these transfer partners instead. That is the real value of transferring points. And the same is true, that same kind of, uh, disparity in how many points you actually need applies to economy too, and premium economy. It's not quite as drastic as it is for business class, but there is still much more value here if you do the work and study up on these transfer partners. Yeah, and that makes it sound really easy. You and I both know it is perhaps not that easy, and that is because of this variable, the most important part of all of this, and that is what's called award availability. Can you explain to me what award availability is? There are two elements to every single time you book an award ticket using airline miles. There is the award rate, the number of miles you need to book that ticket. But the b- the more important point, part, to your point, is award availability. Can you actually book that seat that you want? Can you actually book that flight that you want to take using miles? And that is not always a slam dunk, especially if you want to try to fly premium economy, business class, or first class. So finding out, is the airline that I'm trying to fly actually allowing me to book this seat using my miles through whichever program I have miles with, or transferring credit card points to the place that will give me the lowest award rate, that is the single most important thing in all things points and miles. And I would say it's increasingly becoming harder. It's become harder just since we started doing this podcast a year and change ago, and it's getting harder all the time. So you can't go into this saying, "All right, I've got this. I'm gonna transfer my points. I'm ready to go." You need to figure out how to find this award availability first. Yeah, unlike programs that you may be familiar with, like Delta Sky Miles or Southwest Rapid Rewards where if there's an empty seat on the plane, they will sell you that seat using points and miles, some of the foreign programs that we're talking about here don't do that, right? They have a, a certain number of tickets they're willing to sell people using their points and miles, and then they're sold out. You can't book every seat on the plane using points and miles, especially partner seats. So award availability is everything. So Kyle, how do you find award availability? Loaded question. Uh, I mean, there are a handful of tools that we'll talk about a little bit. There are a handful of services, uh, one of which we run, that do some of this work for you or at least make it easier. The main thing is, is I think to get started you have to do some of the work yourself. You have to search for these award tickets And that means, you know, first you wanna use a web- an airline website that does a good job at identifying when there is award availability, when there is a seat on the flight or the flights that you want to take that is bookable with miles. And nine times out of 10, the best way to search is with one of the major US airline programs. United is the best for finding basically any flight operated by one of the two dozen plus Star Alliance Airlines. So not just United itself, but if you're trying to fly Lufthansa or EVA Air over to Taiwan or Singapore Airlines economy down to Singapore and back, any of these airlines s- starting your search with Uni- at united.com for award tickets is a good place to start. Same applies for, um, the Oneworld alliance, you wanna start with American. So if you're trying to fly Cathay Pacific or Japan Airlines or Qatar Airways searching @americanaa.com is gonna give you the best starting point to identify can I actually book this flight with Miles? And then finally either delta.com if you wanna fly Delta or any of the SkyTeam Airlines. But I would say increasingly Air France's website, airfrance.com is a good site to start to search whatever A- Air, whatever SkyTeam Airline you're trying to fly, starting your search there to identify can I actually book this seat using miles? Because then once you see that seat is available, then you start the search of okay how can I book this with the fewest amount of points possible? Yeah, for sure. So we know kinda where to start if we wanna search within all of those three major alliances. But one mechanical thing I would recommend When you're searching for award space, search for one-way flights. In most of these cases, you're not getting a discount for searching round trip anyway. Uh, booking one ways is flexible but also it's just easier to parse out which dates and which flights are available when you're searching one ways. And then if you wanna book round trip at the end, you can still do the same search and that availability will be there. But searching for one ways is usually the smart tactic, right? Yeah, I, I s- I only search for one ways. And then if in the end I do want to book round trip because in many cases it may save you a couple hundred dollars on taxes and fees that you're gonna wind up paying in addition to your miles especially over to Europe; it's much better to book round trip. But I'm always gonna search for one way availability to start. Okay, so this is a little bit of work obviously which is why travelers who are organized are usually in the driver seat when it comes to this stuff. There are tools out there that can help you search for reward availability. We have one of our own. If you want someone to do all this work for you, we have Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alerts. We have a team that searches for deals from more than two hundred and twenty US and Canadian airports to destinations all over the world whether you wanna fly the cheapest flight possible or use your points and miles to fly business class. If you wanna sign up go to thriftytraveler.com/premium and use our special promo code Start to get $20 off your first year. Um, all right I think it's a good time to talk about airline alliances Kyle. We did a full episode on this. It's Episode 66 titled Airline Alliances: The Key To Booking Flights For Fewer Points. One of our most popular episodes ever and that's because this is crucial. What is an airline alliance or partnership and why should people care? So we already talked about finding award availability and how important that is. This is the other side of the coin, finding the best award rate. And airline alliances and partnerships are what makes that possible. This for me, I think for you, I think for a lot of people who listen to this podcast is the light bulb moment where you have an aha that there's really something here Because you start to realize that you can use these alliances and partnerships, these relationships between airlines that allow you to earn miles with one carrier when flying another carrier but most importantly to redeem miles from one airline to fly another airline. That American Advantage miles aren't just good for flying American, you can use them to fly Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines for fewer miles than any other airline would charge you. Every airline charges a different award rate for a given flight and a different amount of taxes and fees, and so the name of the game, the reason why this is so powerful is that you can find the best workaround possible to book the flight that you want for the fewest amount of miles and the least amount in taxes as- in fees as possible. Just as a quick example, I'm trying to take my sister to London for the first time this winter or spring, and I wanna treat her to business class. Br- British Airways is one of the easiest business class cabins to book to London. British Airways itself charges 88,000 Avios or miles each way plus about $500 in taxes and fees from basically anywhere in the United States over to London. Other airlines within that Avios ecosystem like Finnair, for example, charge the same 88,000 miles but $1,500 in taxes and fees You can book that exact same seat from Chicago to London in this case on the same day as British Airways for 63,000 miles and about $250 using Cathay Pacific. So fewer miles and half the po- half the cash or less. Or that exact same British Airways business class seat on the exact same day from Chicago to London for 42,000 miles through Japan Airlines and about $220 in taxes and fees, which means I can book the exact same British Airways business class seat for two people for fewer miles and w- about half the taxes and fees as it would cost booking through other programs by knowing the right way to utilize these airline alliances and partnerships. This is the craziest piece of everything in points and miles, and what I think really gets people hooked. Yeah, and it's also a quick Google away, right? Like, if, if you know what flight you wanna fly, you know what airline you wanna fly, you say, "Hey, British airways they're gonna charge me way too much." Just a quick Google who... What are British Airways partners? And you'll get to see really easily, uh, what other airline programs maybe you should be searching for, and that's why you need to have an account with all of these airline programs too, which we'll talk about more later. And I will also say, as exciting as this is, as much as this becomes a really fun piece of the puzzle of figuring out the best way to work, this stuff takes a lot of time. You and I have been doing this for going on a decade now, and I still forget these things of which, which airline programs can I use to book that British Airways business class seat? Which one is gonna be the best? What are the taxes and fees gonna be? This is the ultimate case of the more you put in, the more you're gonna get out of it. But you can't pretend like this isn't work. There are things that you can do to make that easier, like our premium service, like using seats.aero or PointsGuy or other tools to help you discover the best way to book, but it's still gonna take time and resources in order to do it. It's just a question of, is it worth it? And I think the answer is unquestionably yes. All right, so we have found that award availability. You have the points. Let's go through the mechanics of how to actually get something like this done. First Kyle, what is a transfer partner So all of the major banks that have these transferable credit card points programs from Amex to Chase to Capital One to Citi to Bilt, Wells Fargo, now US Bank, handful of others, have a list of specific partners that you can transfer those points to. And it varies from bank to bank. There is a lot of overlap so for example, Air France KLM Flying Blue is a transfer partner with basically all of these. ANA Mileage Club, one of, I would say arguably the single most valuable airline mileage programs in the world over in Japan has just one, American Express Membership Rewards. So you need to kind of know the list or maybe n- more importantly you need a resource of where you can send your points to and how they vary f- based upon which bank you have points with. We have a master list of all of the credit card transfer partners that I reference basically on a weekly basis because I too forget this stuff all the time. There's so much of this stuff to keep track of. Besides Google Flights, that master list of credit card transfer partners might be my most visited webpage on my, uh, my bookmarks. It y- It is the ultimate must bookmark resource. Y- I turn to it all the time. Yeah, we'll definitely link it in our show notes for you all here. Um, here's a question from Robin in our Thrifty Traveler Premium Facebook Group. Robin asked us, "Do I need to create accounts on all airlines and travel systems to take advantage of points deals?" Uh, my answer Robin, yes and ASAP. Do it as soon as you can. You don't have to do every single program but if you foresee that you might want to use a program or, uh, you know that there's a deal out there that you wanna book eventually, I would just recommend go through as many airline programs as you could possibly use to book. Spend an afternoon, go through and make an account with all of them because one, they're all free It doesn't hurt you at all to have them. And two, having an account that is some days old really matters in a lot of cases including that Avios... You know, you mentioned earlier you can transfer points between Aer Lingus and British Airways Avios, and Finnair Avios, and Qatar Avios. In order to do that your accounts have to be 30-days old. It's kind of an arbitrary, uh, rule that they have but you have to have a few days, at least a month open in all of your accounts in order to make that work. And we've also seen programs like Virgin Atlantic where if your account is too new sometimes the first transfer you wanna make takes a little longer. From Chase or from American Express or whatever. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's the biggest one, and so what I would do is, you know, if I have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card and I don't have any of these airline accounts or many of them set up, I would go through the list of Chase transfer partners and just create all of the free transfer partner accounts because then you're ready if and when that next deal comes up or you stumble upon some amazing redemption of Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles and you've never used or even gone to Singapore Air site before. If you have that account set up the risk of transferring points that then get caught in limbo because your account is too new and maybe the airline is worried about fraud with these brand new accounts as long as you've got somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, a week or more sometimes less an old account than you're gonna be good to go in almost every single case. Yep. Go setup your accounts it can't hurt. All right, so you've already done that; you took our advice. You have the points how do you actually do a transfer? What does that look like? You log into your credit card account be it with Chase or Amex or Capital One or wherever. You navigate to the corresponding area to transfer your points. You select that partner that you want to send your points to. If you haven't done so already you'll enter your corresponding frequent flyer number with that airline or the hotel loyalty number with that hotel chain. You select the number of points that you wanna send over and you do the scariest thing of all: you hit submit to send that through Um, I think one important word of warning here is that when you transfer points it is a one-way street. Right? You cannot get those points back once you send them into a program so that may be why it's one of the most nerve wracking moments because once you hit that transfer button those points are now gone And this is why it's so, so important to check award availability first. That's why we covered that before this because that is... Because this is a one way street, you need to check to make sure that flight you want to book is actually bookable and if you're using one of these work arounds to use an airline partner to book a flight for less, you need to check a couple of times. You need to check, you know, for my British Airways example; I checked britishairways.com to see is that flight actually available but then because I'm actually going to book through Japan Airlines using my Capital One miles which I can transfer to Japan Airlines, I check on Japan Airline's flights for that exact same British Airways operated from Chicago to London on February 23rd and make sure that it's there and make sure that the two seats that I want to book are there because if Japan Airlines doesn't have it and you send those Capital One miles over to JAL and that flight isn't there your miles are stuck Yeah um while we're talking about I guess the risks of some of this stuff, here's a question from Eva in our premium Facebook group. Eva asked "What happens to transferred miles if you decide to cancel the flight?" Your miles are stuck with that airline. It, it is a one-way street so if you decide to cancel or the airline cancels, those miles live in that airline account which means you gotta find a different way to use them. You know, there are very few times when I have transferred m-miles to an account. I would say there are zero times. I have canceled plenty of flights but I have never gotten in a p- to a point where the miles are stuck there, I can't use them, I can't find another use. The miles that I, or the points that I transfer to different airline partners, I am sending to airlines where there are multiple ways to use them. It's not just a needle in a haystack redemption that I'm never gonna find something again. Okay, so we've, we've gone through the risks. Let's get back to the exciting and happy part. So you've pressed transfer to send your points over. This is the part where maybe everyone's a little nerve-wracked. How long does it typically take for points to get to your account? Like how long should you be worried? Y- n- basically not at all with a handful of exceptions. Um, you know, I would say the vast, vast majority of these transfers are instant. One of the things we do in that master list of credit card partners, which we'll link in the show notes here, is we don't just say, you know, which, which airline partners Chase has, which hotel partners they have, what the transfer ratio is, so how many points you get when sending 1,000 Chase points to Virgin Atlantic or World of Hyatt, but also the transfer time, and we test these things pretty regularly. And, you know, 90-plus percent of them are instant. Yeah, sometimes it's, you know, instant as in the second I click the button my points are there, sometimes it's like one minute or two minutes or up to five minutes in some cases, but even so, your points are gonna end up there, and there is a situation in which they don't, right? It's called having your points stuck in limbo. What do you do if your points just don't show up? Well, the first thing I do regardless of whether I'm worried about them being stuck in limbo or not is log out of the airline account and log back in because in many cases that's all it takes to see those miles actually active and live in your account What tends to happen, the, the mistake that a lot of people make is they're really scared about transferring their points for the first time. And so they say, "All right, well I'm gonna transfer 1,000 points," just to be sure that they're gonna go through. And so they send their thousand Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic, they see them there and they say, "All right, I'm gonna transfer the 28,000 more that I need to book that Virgin Atlantic business class flight to London." And then they are stuck with 1,000 points because what happens is airlines flag that for fraud, these multiple attempts, and that's when they get stuck in limbo. Lesson learned, don't do two transfers, don't test a transfer. Send the points you need once you've confirmed that the flight you want is bookable. I promise it's gonna go through as long as you listen to all of our other, you know, important words of advice, namely setting up accounts sooner rather than later. Yeah, absolutely. Um, all right, quickly, what happens if you just don't have the points to make something happen? Say, you know, I wanted to book that flight you were talking about, that 29,000 mile, uh, Virgin Atlantic flight. I only have 26- or 27,000 Chase points, but I really wanna make that work and I'm so close. What's your advice then? I mean, first of all, look into other bank transfer partners where there might be overlap. So with Virgin Atlantic, for example, another one where basically every credit card program on the planet partners with Virgin Atlantic, so if you have 27,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards and you send those to your Virgin Atlantic account, you can send another 2,000 from American Express. Generally speaking, that kind of a one-two transfer from different banks isn't gonna throw up that flag and have those final 2,000 points stuck in limbo. And this is one of those situations where it can really make sense where if you've exhausted all your options might be worth buying a couple of thousand miles. Most of these airlines and hotel chains will sell you miles. The deal isn't great, you know, in a lotta cases you're paying pretty exorbitant prices but when paying, you know, $60, $90 sometimes even more often less to, to buy the th- the final 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 miles you need that can well worth it because if that's the difference in making that redemption happen it is well, well worth it. Okay, so you've got the points, you've transferred them and made them miles, you've booked the flights that you want through that airline partner and viola, you got the seat that you want. So hopefully that walkthrough demystified some of the points transferring and everything. So now that we know that this is all possible let's talk through what programs or redemptions we love the best 'cause there are dozens of options out there; the possibilities might seem a little overwhelming so let's, uh, let's go through a couple of our favorites. I'll start with, with one. Um, I guess it's two. It's, uh, Air France KLM Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club are both really, really great options to book Delta flights and I think this is the redemption that I do the most often. I think I book Delta flights —more Delta flights through Air France KLM Flying Blue than I do through Delta. Um, you can transfer to both Flying Blue and Virgin from almost any bank. It means that I'm constantly earning these points, sometimes on accident like we talked about in our last episode. So here's a few examples. I took a quick trip to Michigan last month. It was 11,000 total Flying Blue miles roundtrip. Uh, Delta wanted $500 per person or something like 40,000 SkyMiles roundtrip which was just not doable for me. It woulda made the trip not possible so 11,000 miles it is. I was coming back from Italy in May. There's a nonstop flight from Rome to MSP I paid 30,000 Virgin miles for that Delta nonstop. Delta wanted $1,000 per person or over 100,000 SkyMiles each way. And then I booked Honolulu round trip a few years ago, MSP to Honolulu nonstop for 51,000 Flying Blue Miles. Uh, Delta wanted 1,200 bucks for that exact same flight. I have... This is also by far my most frequent redemption. We both are, of course, based in Minneapolis, so having a way to book Delta flights for less is great. For people who live elsewhere, there are ways to recreate this if you need to fly United or American. You know, the one that comes to mind for me is using either Japan Airlines miles or Alaska Atmos rewards to fly airlines like American Airlines because they're all members of the Oneworld alliance, which you c- which means you can use JAL miles or Alaska points to fly American Airline. Alaska charges as low as 4,500 miles each way for a domestic flight, whether it's operated by Alaska itself or American Airlines, even when American might be charging significantly more Advantage miles for that same flight. That is an amazing workaround to do this that I've used myself. Uh, maybe my favorite one right now, though, is Japan Airlines because it's great for those shorter, especially roundtrip domestic flights on American because Japan Airlines doesn't measure, uh, doesn't add up the cost of o- a one-way flight and a one-way flight back and say, you know, "If it's 5,000 miles for each flight, that's 10,000 miles round trip." In some cases, you can save by booking the round trip, not just on American, but going as far as Europe where a one-way business class flight may cost you 60,000 miles each way Booking round trip, it's not 120,000 miles. It's 85,000 miles total round trip even on an airline like Emirates flying from JFK to Milan. There are some of the best deals in the world using Japan Airlines miles, no question. Yeah, and they're easier than ever to get for, uh, US travelers now 'cause you can transfer from Capital One Built and Rove Miles to Japan Airlines. Um, some other shouts that I like, uh, Avianca Lifemiles is a strange one. Do you really like them? I- I like their rates, uh, but there are some drawbacks for Avianca Lifemiles. They have some, uh, questionable customer service that has led to some, some strange stories and some, uh, Thrifty Traveler podcast lore of the time my last name was added to my boarding pass three different times as two middle names and one last name. Lifemiles was the program that kinda started this all for me because the first redemption that I made that blew my mind was flying TAP Air Portugal business class to, from JFK to Lisbon. At the time, it was bookable for 35,000 Lifemiles each way, which I can't tell you how many worse ways I've spent 35,000 miles than that flight. Uh, it was my first business class flight ever. It was amazing. That redemption is now dead unfortunately. You can still book from 63,000 Lifemiles each way. Now, uh, Lifemiles has really stingy change and cancellation fees, like 200 bucks or more in most cases, so it's not e- not for everybody. You gotta have, uh, a little bit of a stomach for it, but man, they charge really cheap rates for Star Alliance flights I think that's the reason those stingy cancellation fees and the pain of canceling, and calling in, and changing your reservation or dumping it is the reason why American Advantage is so, so important because they don't charge change or cancellation fees period on any award tickets. And they also have some amazing rates like being able to fly Japan Airlines from anywhere in the United States, uh, in business class to Tokyo for 60,000 miles each way. Finding the availability to book that is getting a little bit harder, but if you're flexible or if you use a service like ours or use tools like seats.aero to find those seats, that is one of the best deals in all of award travel. Yeah, for sure. I also love... I booked Aer Lingus business class to Dublin and onto Rome with them for 57,500 AA advantage miles, and you can make these bookings just stress-free, completely flexible, free to cancel for all your points and your taxes and fees. And they are now easier to earn than ever 'cause their, uh, transfer partner with Citi, so you can pick up one of those Citi credit cards, earn those bonus points, and send them all to AA Advantage. Um, it's a really great one. Any other shouts for, uh, programs that you like to use or redemptions you love? You know, I have shouted out A&A Mileage Club a handful of times, transferable from American Express, albeit with that 48 hour or more delay in sending points, but that is worth it because of some deals like being able to fly to Japan for as low as 40,000 miles round trip in economy from the United States. You are not gonna find those flights at a cheaper rate through any other airline program. United would probably charge you at least 80,000 miles to book those exact same flights. Um, flying business class from anywhere in the United States over to Europe for 50,000 miles each way. Um, round trip in business class to either South Africa or all the way to Australia. These are some of the longest journeys in the world for as low as 130,000 miles. There is just so much value here at rates that you will not find through any other carrier, period. Yeah. Okay, so I hope that gave you a little bit of an idea of what's possible out there and some of the redemptions that we like to use ourselves. Um, we've gone through what a transfer looks like, a successful one. We went through what a points booking can look like, and I think that we agree that transferring is usually the best course of action. What are some pitfalls you see with points redemptions? What should you not be doing with your points? I think it's a mixed bag, but most of the time doing a combination of miles and cash in that situation where you're a few thousand miles short. It's rarely a good deal. There are exceptions to this I think especially using Avios from British Airways or Iberia in particular; it can be worth it. You have to do the math on this, and if you do the math most times you will see you are getting a far worse value from your miles than if you just bought that $100 or more worth of miles that you need to get to that 50, 60,000 mile threshold to have all of the miles in your account. I would steer clear of that one in most cases. If the airlines are offering it to you as an easy option, it's usually good to double check because they want it to be as easy as possible for you so you take the bad deal. Um, another thing I would caution people not to do, these paid miles transfers. So let's say I have Delta Sky Miles sitting in my account and my wife also has Delta Sky Miles sitting in her account and we want to combine those to book something together. Paying to transfer miles between users accounts typically costs a lot and is also a terrible, terrible deal. Um Airlines like United and Air Canada allow some points pooling if you create, like a pool of people. Uh, I believe, uh, Avios all- allows you to do that with friends and family as well, but it's a little bit of a complicated process, but- It's getting a little more common across the entire airline industry. It's not, certainly not everywhere just yet, but it is more common than it was pre-pandemic for sure. Yeah, but if they want money for that transfer don't do it. It's usually not a good deal unless it's your only option to get the flight booked. Well, and I would say, you know, f- a lot of people say, " Well, we need to book these flights together." So in this situation of you and your wife or the two- two people who have miles in their own account, just book your own tickets separately. Or if you're traveling with two kids, for example, as a family of four, have one adult book themself and one child, and then have one adult book themself and the other child. There's no reason that you all necessarily need to be on the exact same reservation especially when transferring those 30 some thousand points that you need is gonna cost you, in some cases that would cost you $1,000. That is not worth it. Yeah, and- and another important shout there is, you know, let's say your, uh, your- your idiot nephew wants to go on a trip to, uh, to PCB for spring break. Don't transfer him the miles so that he can make the booking. Just book it yourself out of your program. It doesn't change the flight for him in any way. Like it- it's all just fine. The wanting to transfer miles is... I understand why people think that way, but it's almost never a good deal. You can book tick- award tickets in others' names without any problem. A handful of foreign airlines, especially like over in Japan, have restrictions around who you can book tickets for. Qatar Airways started doing this earlier this year as well. But in most cases, there's nothing stopping you from booking a ticket either in your own name or in a friend or family member's name. No- no problem with that whatsoever. I think one last shout is, especially for credit card programs, you know, having those transferable points, you can in many cases combine them on the front end. So if you and your spouse both have a Chase Sapphire card, you can call up Chase and combine those points together or send points from your card to your spouse's card or vice versa to have them all in one place. So then you can transfer them to whichever airline you want. Capital One makes this incredibly easy as well. Yeah. Uh, another shout of something I would probably try to avoid just value wise is turning your points into a statement credit. Um, you're typically not getting a great value on that. I mean look, do what you gotta do financially. If you need to make a payment and you've got some points to do it, you don't have planned for those other points, please. I mean, this is your choice financially. But as far as getting value from travel, statement credits with the With the exception of using Capital One miles to cover the cost of a travel purchase, uh, is usually not a good deal. And then finally, I think the number one thing that we always harp on, Kyle, is the, the absolute worst use of your points is not using them. Hoarding points is never a good idea. We call this points paralysis sometimes where people are so obsessed with getting maximum value for their redemptions that they're just holding on and waiting for that very perfect moment, and the problem is that, uh, have you ever seen a points program get more valuable over time? I can't remember it. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't happen often, and the inverse happens literally every single day. Whatever points you have, they are getting less valuable by the week. So I would much, much, much rather somebody listening to this book a trip, book it now, go on an amazing trip using those points, and then learn from that redemption and be like, "Okay. Well, it turns out I could have booked something else with these points," or, "I could have booked this flight in a different way and saved a couple of thousand miles." We've all made those mistakes. You're going to make those mistakes. I would much rather you learn by making those small mistakes than make a much, much bigger mistake which is sit on your points and miles because you sit on them too long, you fall victim to that points paralysis. Those points are going to be worth far less than they were when you earned them. Yep. Three million points isn't cool. Having 15 points left in your account after you booked six trips is very cool. Uh, let's go over our flight plan. At the end of every one of these episodes, we're gonna give you a flight plan, a to-do list of the big takeaways from the episode, and the things you should get going on right now to start your award travel journey, and I'll start with this top one, Kyle. Go set up all of your loyalty accounts as soon as possible. If you have transferable points, go look at all the transfer partners, go set up your accounts right now so those accounts can start to age. Do your homework. Um, start researching award availability. Enlist the help of some tools if you need or want them in order to help find it. Check out and do the math between booking through a travel portal with Chase or Capital One or wherever and what you could book those same flights through by transferring your points to a partner airline. Great. Next one I would say get to know your transfer partners, your alliances and partnerships. I think we showed wh- how valuable this knowledge is, but start to wrap your mind around what you wanna book and who are all the partner options that you can book with Next, uh, take the advice we gave you in episode one of Starter Kit. Follow the flight first rule. This is m- maybe the most important thing especially for booking award travel. Booking flights and hotels with points and miles. Be as flexible as you can. Start with the deal and then go from there Absolutely. And finally earn and burn your points. Points almost never go up in value. Don't sit on them. Book them and travel more for less. All right Kyle, I think our listeners are well on their way to becoming certified sickos like us. What should we cover next week? Next week we are gonna dive into how we get organized; all of the tools, the services, the websites, and the apps that we use to go next level with reward travel All right, that episode will be in your feed next Tuesday. For now thank you so much for listening to this episode of Starter Kit from the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Please rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube. Send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation too. And if you have questions that have come about from listening to the series so far please send us a note: podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We would love to hear from you there. I wanna hear what questions you still have, what questions have come up, what have we said that has steered you right or wrong. Give me all the feedback. I'm ready for it at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. Kyle tell us about the t- This episode was produced by your favorite host who is not going to drink 75 beers ahead of next week's Starter Kit episode, Gunnar Olson. It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See ya next Tuesday.