Flexible points are worth more than most people realize. The catch is that the extra value only shows up when you move them to an airline or hotel program. That move is called a transfer, and it is the step where a lot of good point balances go to waste.
A transfer is simple in theory. You hold points with a card issuer. You send them to a loyalty program. You book an award seat or a hotel night with the partner's currency instead of paying cash.
In practice there are rules, and they differ by issuer and by partner. This guide covers what the four flexible programs actually publish: who you can transfer to, at what rate, in what block sizes, and how long it takes.
Transfers are one way, and that is the whole risk
Start with the rule that matters most. A transfer cannot be undone.
Bilt states it plainly in its own support documentation:
"Once points are transferred, they cannot be reversed. Transferred points are no longer Bilt Points and are subject to the Terms and Conditions of our partners' specific programs."
Every issuer works this way. Once your points land in an airline account, they follow that airline's rules. If the airline devalues its chart next month, your points devalue with it. If the award seat you wanted disappears while the transfer is in flight, you are holding an airline currency you did not plan to hold.
This is why the order of operations matters. Find the award space first. Confirm it is bookable. Then transfer. Never transfer a balance because a partner looks appealing in the abstract.
The four flexible currencies, and how many partners each has
Four US issuers run flexible point programs with published partner lists. Here is what each one publishes.
American Express Membership Rewards lists 20 partners on its public transfer page. The page's own filters break it down as 16 airline partners and 4 hotel partners.
Citi ThankYou Rewards shows 18 partners on its public listing page. Each partner tile expands to show the rate.
Bilt Rewards publishes 25 partners in its support center: 18 airlines and 7 hotels.
Wells Fargo Rewards announces partners one at a time through its newsroom rather than listing them on one page. Each release names the partner and states the rate.
Chase and Capital One also run transfer programs. We cover Capital One's list separately in our Capital One transfer partners guide, and Amex's full list in our American Express transfer partners guide.
Not every transfer is one to one
The most common mistake is assuming a 1:1 rate. Most transfers are 1:1. Plenty are not, and the exceptions run in both directions.
Where you gain points
Two published rates give you more of the partner's currency than you started with.
Amex sends 1,000 Membership Rewards points to Hilton Honors as 2,000 Hilton points. That is a 1:2 rate. Amex also sends 1,000 points to Aeromexico Rewards as 1,600 Aeromexico points.
Wells Fargo transfers to Wyndham Rewards at 1:2. Its own release calls that rate out as unusual:
"Starting today, Wells Fargo credit cardholders can link their Wyndham Rewards account to eligible Wells Fargo credit cards and transfer points at a 1:2 transfer ratio."
Bilt sends points to I Prefer Hotel Rewards at 1:2 as well.
A higher rate is not automatically a better deal. Hilton and Wyndham points are each worth less per point than an airline mile, which is exactly why the rate is higher. The rate tells you nothing on its own. What matters is the cost of the specific award you want.
Where you lose points
Several rates run below 1:1, and these are easy to miss.
On Amex, Cathay Pacific and Emirates Skywards both take 1,000 points and give 800 miles. JetBlue works out the same way, though Amex prints it differently: 250 points becomes 200 TrueBlue points.
The steepest published rate is The Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club. Amex sends 1,000 points and returns 250 Leaders Club points.
On Citi, Accor takes 1,000 ThankYou Points and returns 500 ALL Reward points. Leaders Club returns 200.
Bilt sends points to Accor Live Limitless at 3:2, meaning three Bilt points become two ALL points.
The Citi rate depends on which card you hold
Citi is the only one of the four where your card changes the rate. Its listing shows two figures for every partner.
Cardholders of the Citi Strata Elite, Citi Strata Premier, Prestige and AT&T Access More get the full rate. Cardholders of the Citi ThankYou Preferred, Citi Strata Card, Citi Double Cash, Citi Custom Cash and several AT&T cards get 70% of it.
The effect is large. A partner at 1,000 points for the premium group is 700 points for the base group. On Choice Privileges the split is 1,500 versus 1,050. On Preferred Hotels it is 2,000 versus 1,400.
If you hold only a Double Cash or a Custom Cash, every transfer costs you 30% against what the premium cards get. That is the argument for pairing a cash-back Citi card with a premium one before you transfer anything.
Minimums and block sizes
You cannot transfer any number you like. Each issuer sets a floor and a block size.
Amex requires 1,000 points for almost every partner, in 1,000 point blocks. Two partners differ. JetBlue moves in blocks of 250. Qantas moves in blocks of 500.
Citi requires 1,000 points, in 1,000 point blocks, for every travel partner.
Bilt sets its floor by status. Its support page states it directly:
"There is a minimum point transfer of 2,000 Bilt Points for members who are Blue Status and a minimum point transfer of 1,000 Bilt Points for members who are Silver, Gold, or Platinum Bilt Status. All transfers must be done in 1,000 point increments."
Wells Fargo published something different when it added JetBlue:
"There is no minimum balance required and no waiting period to redeem."
It said the same thing again when it added Wyndham and Cathay Pacific.
Block sizes matter more than they look. If an award costs 57,000 miles and you transfer in blocks of 1,000, you will end up with 3,000 miles stranded in that airline account. Budget for the rounding.
Amex also publishes a ceiling. Most partners cap at 999,000 points per transfer. Avianca and Qatar cap at 750,000. Hilton allows 3,000,000 and Choice allows 9,999,000.
How long transfers take
Speed varies more than most people expect, and it is the reason you should never transfer against a seat you have not confirmed.
Amex publishes an estimated time for each partner. Most say 48 hours. Hilton says 24 hours. Avianca and Leading Hotels say 72 hours. ANA Mileage Club says four days.
That ANA figure is worth remembering. ANA is one of the better partners for premium cabin awards, and four days is long enough for award space to vanish. Our ANA Mileage Club guide covers how that program prices its awards.
Citi is vaguer, and its own help pages say so:
"For some travel partners, points may appear in your loyalty program account within 24 hours. For others, it may take up to fourteen (14) days for the ThankYou Points to post to your participating airline loyalty program member accounts."
Fourteen days is a long time to be exposed. Citi also notes that your ThankYou Points leave your account immediately, whatever the partner does at the other end.
Bilt is the fastest of the four on paper:
"In most cases, transfers will be immediate, but please allow up to 48 hours for the transfer to be completed. For Southwest transfer, please allow up to 72 hours for the transfer to be completed."
A worked example, with the arithmetic shown
Rates are easier to judge against a real number. Say an award seat prices at 60,000 miles in the partner's own booking engine.
If you hold Amex points and the partner takes 1,000 for 1,000, you need 60,000 points. Straightforward.
If the partner is Cathay Pacific, Amex gives 800 Asia Miles per 1,000 points. To land 60,000 Asia Miles you need 75,000 Membership Rewards points. The same seat costs you 25% more of your own currency.
If you hold Citi points and sit in the base card group, the 70% rate applies. A partner quoted at 1,000 gives you 700. To reach 60,000 miles you need roughly 85,715 points, and because Citi moves in 1,000 point blocks you transfer 86,000. That leaves a small remainder stranded with the airline.
Now put both together. The same seat is 60,000 points through a 1:1 partner, 75,000 through Cathay on Amex, and 86,000 from a Citi base card. None of those rates is hidden. All three are printed on the issuer's own page. The difference only becomes visible when you do the division.
The same partner often appears on more than one list
Several programs take transfers from three of the four issuers. That gives you a choice about which balance to spend.
Flying Blue, Avianca LifeMiles, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Privilege Club, Emirates Skywards and Virgin Atlantic all appear on multiple lists. So do Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy.
The rates are not the same across issuers. Emirates takes 1,000 Amex points for 800 Skywards miles. Bilt sends to Emirates at 1:1. Cathay is 1,000 for 800 on Amex and 1:1 on Bilt.
Where a partner sits on two of your balances, check both rates before you move anything. The cheaper route is often not the balance you were planning to spend.
Four things the fine print will tell you
A few rules only appear once you read past the rate table.
Partner lists change without notice. Amex says participating partners "are subject to change without notice." Bilt says participating partners "are subject to change." Citi's current listing no longer includes Aeromexico, British Airways or Japan Airlines, all of which were partners in the past.
Account linking can be limited. Amex flags Emirates Skywards with a warning icon. The note explains that account linkages follow the Emirates program terms, "which may affect the number of times you can link your Rewards Account per calendar year."
Your card type can restrict the partner list. Amex publishes a notice for checking customers: if Rewards Checking or Business Checking are your only Membership Rewards products, "your points transfer options will be limited to a selection of participating hotel and travel partners."
Promotions move the rate temporarily. Citi's Leaders Club tile currently shows a 25% bonus, printing 250 with 200 struck through. Transfer bonuses are common and usually last a few weeks. If you are not in a hurry, waiting for one is often worth more than picking a different partner.
How to run a transfer without losing money
Here is the order that protects you.
Find the seat first. Search the partner's own site for award space on your dates. If you cannot see a bookable award, you have nothing to transfer against.
Check the exact price in the partner's currency. Not an estimate. The number the booking page shows.
Work backwards through the rate. If the award costs 60,000 miles and your rate is 1:1, you need 60,000 points. If your rate is 1,000 for 800, you need 75,000. If you are in Citi's base group, add 30%.
Round up to the block size. Then decide whether you are willing to strand the difference.
Check the estimated time. If the partner takes four days and the seat is the last one, the risk may not be worth it.
Then transfer. And book as soon as the points land.
This sequence is the difference between transfers being the best use of your points and the most expensive. Our guide to how airline miles work covers the award side in more detail, and portal bookings versus transfer partners covers when transferring is not the better move at all.
Where the sources are
Every rate in this guide comes from the issuer's own page. You can check them yourself.
Amex publishes its full list at its transfer partner page, with a details toggle on each partner that shows the minimum, maximum, block size and estimated time.
Citi publishes its list at thankyou.com. Each tile expands to show both card group rates.
Bilt publishes its list in its support center rather than on its marketing pages, which is easy to miss.
Wells Fargo publishes each addition as a newsroom release, one per partner, each stating the rate.
Rates and partner lists change. Check the source page before you move a balance, not after.
The bottom line
Transfers reward preparation and punish improvisation. The rate is only one input, and often not the most important one. The block size decides how many points you strand. The transfer time decides how much risk you carry. The one way rule decides how much a mistake costs.
Get the seat first and the rest is arithmetic. Get it backwards and you own an airline currency you did not want.
If you are choosing where to put your spending, the cards that feed these four currencies are the Platinum Card from American Express and the American Express Gold Card for Membership Rewards, the Bilt Mastercard for Bilt Points, and the Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Card for Wells Fargo Rewards. Which one suits you depends on where you spend and which partners you actually want.
Our guide to maximizing frequent flyer miles goes further on the redemption side, and the Turkish Miles and Smiles guide and Flying Blue guide cover two programs where transfers regularly beat paying cash.
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Sources
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