Best (non Avios) airline transfer partner for Membership Reward points
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Have around 350k membership reward points. 200k in my account 150k in wife’s. Ideally want to transfer to one airline partner and book a wow flight redemption in a really good business class product / first class to far east and cancel our amex cards. First thoughts were Singapore/ Emirates / Etihad / Turkish.
Do I need a airline scheme that let’s me pool these Miles in a family account first for the redemption?
I have seatspy but only Etihad of these shows me rough pricing and availability. Looking for best bang for my membership points buck.Given that the obvious addition to this list of decent business airlines flying east with ability to family pool is Qatar, is there a reason you’ve excluded Avios?
Go somewhere you want to go to not just because of some ‘best bang foe the buck’ valuation.
A complication is that not all airline transfers from MR are on 1 to 1 basis.
With Emirates it’s 4 MR for every 3 EK point and with Singapore it’s 3 for 2. You mention Turkish but they don’t seem to be a MR partner.
Yeah. Non avios because I earn large stash of avios via my business cap on tap which doesn’t convert to other airline schemes.
Just want to try out a once in lifetime type redemption which is really special. Hence Singapore/ Emirates as the cash fares are enormous
You really need to do this sort of thing on a trip by trip basis. Decide where you want to go and see which programme works best for that particular route, and of course has the availability. There’s no ‘one size fits all answer’ and the 36 month ‘hard expiry’ rule for Singapore (and the ‘must fly them once a year to stop expiry’ rule for Etihad) means you definitely don’t want to move points there without a firm plan.
@Rob chances of Emirates launching a UK credit card scheme in 2025? If they did think that would make it clear choice. Because of the sheer volume of destinations they fly to.
Unlikey given the reasons they ended the previous card havn’t changed
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/03/01/earn-emirates-skywards-miles-from-uk-credit-cards/
it used to have two UK credit cards, issued by MBNA. The cards (image below) were withdrawn in mid 2018 as they were no longer seen as economic when the Government capped the charges that Visa and Mastercard could levy on shops
Have around 350k membership reward points. 200k in my account 150k in wife’s. Ideally want to transfer to one airline partner and book a wow flight redemption in a really good business class product / first class to far east and cancel our amex cards. First thoughts were Singapore/ Emirates / Etihad / Turkish.
Do I need a airline scheme that let’s me pool these Miles in a family account first for the redemption?
I have seatspy but only Etihad of these shows me rough pricing and availability. Looking for best bang for my membership points buck.On Singapore in Business you might need Krisflyer 450k return. They have no pooling for couples AFAIK and the membership rewards transfer ratio is unattractive. I’ve found availability to be good if you can flex a few days, or prepared to do the waitlist thing. Also booking/changing/using/cancelling Singapore redemptions is a walk in the park compared to so many other airlines, which combined with decent availability in Business, makes it attractive. I’ve never tried to find a First seat so that might be impossible! As Rob says, the hard expiry is a real problem unless you know you are going to use the points within a few years — I had nearly 500k with Singapore when COVID lockdowns were in full swing, spending them pre-expiry was hard!
Given you have plenty of Avios, Singapore/Etihad outbound Qatar/BA/Cathay/JAL back or vice versa might work better for you. You’d need to book separate reservations for you and your wife on Singapore.
A couple of times when I’ve needed to clear out membership rewards account with no plans to use the points immediately, I’ve sent them to Marriott. From there you can forward to many, many, airlines — albeit with loss of value — if you cannot find a use for them in a hotel. Marriott do let you transfer from one member to another too.
@Rob chances of Emirates launching a UK credit card scheme in 2025? If they did think that would make it clear choice. Because of the sheer volume of destinations they fly to.
No. I believe they were talking to Tymit but, as per our recent article, Tymit has decided to walk away from cards entirely.
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