Update: 40% promo ends 09/27.
Originally posted on 08/28/12:
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-Through 09/27/12 you will get 1,400 Avios for every 1,000 Membership Rewards (MR) Points transferred to BA.
-There are currently no fuel surcharges for flights wholly within the western hemisphere. These include flights on American (AA), Alaska, and LAN.
-There are no expedite or close-in fees for booking last minute award tickets with BA Avios.
-You can book one-way tickets for half of the miles listed below!
-British Airways only charges 10% extra miles and no extra money for a lap child flying internationally, even when traveling on AA. AA and other domestic carriers charge a whopping 10% of the full fare.
-You can transfer points from an American Express Membership Rewards account to anyone’s British Airways account, names don’t have to match.
-Points transfer instantly from MR to BA and there are no fees or taxes for transferring points to British Airways.
-You can borrow points by calling up Membership Rewards (800-AXP-EARN) and asking for a points advance. You then have up to 1 year to earn those points from signup bonuses or spending or else they will charge you 2.5 cents per point.
-British Airways charges double miles for business class and triple miles for first class. Beware that on AA’s domestic 2 class planes they charge first class rates for what is really just a poor excuse for business class.
-You can search AA and Alaska award availability on AA.com and looking for sAAver awards. BA can’t book AAnytime awards, but you should be able to find all AA sAAver awards on BA.com. BA.com does not display all available awards on all airlines, so you will have to call if you see a sAAver award on AA.com that’s not showing on BA.com.
Sample uses:
-7,000 MR points will transfer into 9,800 Avios, more than enough for a round-trip short-haul ticket between New York and places like Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, or Toronto or between Miami and the Bahamas, on OneWorld partner American.
-11,000 MR points becomes 15,400 Avios, more than enough for a round-trip flight between New York and Chicago or Florida or from LA to Cabo.
-15,000 MR points becomes 21,000 Avios, more than enough for a round-trip flight between Chicago and LA.
-18,000 MR points becomes 25,200 Avios, more than enough for a round-trip flight between the west coast and Hawaii, New York and the west coast, or New York and Costa Rica. It’s even enough for a round-trip flight between Boston and Dublin or Shannon, Ireland with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus!
-29,000 MR points becomes 40,600 Avios, more than enough for a round-trip flight between Dallas and Hawaii or New York and London (though you’ll be hit with fuel surcharges for crossing the Atlantic on most airlines). It’s also enough for a round-trip flight between NYC or Chicago and Dublin or Shannon, Ireland with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus.
-36,000 MR points becomes 50,400 Avios, more than enough for a round-trip flight between New York and Brazil or Argentina. It’s also more than enough for a round-trip in a lie-flat business class seat between JFK and Vancouver on Cathay Pacific.
Need more Membership Rewards points?
-American Express Consumer Premier Rewards Gold Card
-American Express Consumer Platinum Card
-American Express Business Gold
-American Express Business Platinum Card
-Opening a card like Premier Rewards Gold with no fee for a year will get you at least 27,000 MR points after spending $2,000, which can become 37,800 Avios with this promotion, enough for more than 8 one-way short haul award tickets on American! You can even borrow points when you have a charge card to transfer to British Airways during the promo period and pay them back with future spending or signup bonuses.
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34 Comments On "Get A 40% Bonus When You Transfer American Express Membership Rewards Points Into British Airways Avios!"
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Dan, is the best value for MR points if one intends to use it for domestic flights ?
“BA.com does not display all available awards on all airlines, so you will have to call if you see a sAAver award on AA.com that’s not showing on BA.com.”
Who do you call? BA or AA? I’ve tried both numerous times with no success. Each company directs me to call the other. Dan, have you been able to do this successfully? Please advise on who to call, which department to speak to, and on what exactly should be said. Thanks!
IIRC it is 35,000 each way NYC-HKG, not 50,000 RT
Hi dan i have SPG points can i use these points for this? and if yes how?
welcome back British
Are MR points worth more than 1.5 or 1.6cpm with this offer if one would sell them now during this promotion?
Dan, i currently have 60K Amex points
I do not have any plans of flying using Avios in the near future, however, i was thinking of transfering the points to Avios anyway , just to take advantage of this great promotion.
Is it a smart move, or i should just transfer only if i need to fly using avios in the near futur?
Does any one actually have experience using avios for first class from US to london. It seems there is is very little availability and when it it available there are about $1,000 fees on each ticket.
And advice?
I want to fly last mijnute to florida from nyc. I have 50k ur points. is ba avios the best to use?? I never used my points for travel. Always for cash.
Can I book an aa flight to Israel with avios and avoid ba fuel surcharge? If not why is air lingus different does ba not fly to Ireland?
Dan, Why dont you promote the Amex Platinum “Mercedes” card that offers 50k MR points after 1k in purchases?
also great way to keep activity on your ba account(you lose all your miles with 3 years of no activity)
If you don’t need the Avios points now, is it worth waiting for a better transfer offer. Last May they gave a 50% bonus. What kind of offers do they usually have and is there a set time of year for these offers?
Can I transfer miles from BA avios to Airberlin Avios since they are all part of oneworld?
@Miami00: I just flew from Ohio to London Heathrow last week in Business First using Avios. I was routed through Toronto and paid about $275 in fees.
@Dans
The terms and conditions for AMEX card says that the sign-up bonus is only for people who DO NOT have AMEX platinum card, gold card, or green card in the past 12 months. How can you sign up many cards and get bonus points several times in a year? Or they will not notice it? Because I recently apply two cards, one Business GOLD and one Business Platinum, they assigned both cards to the same MR account number. Does that mean I will only get one signup bonus?
Thanks Dan for keeping us updated!!
it says there is a fee from amex to transfer into miles, is this a new thing?
@Michael:
BA can book you on Air Berlin.
There is no such thing as Air Berlin Avios.
@KidOOO:
There is no fee to transfer AMEX points to British Airways or any foreign airline for that matter.
When an offer will expire 9/27 does the offer work on the 27th or is it gone by the 27th?
@yitz:
It will work on the 27th.
Once i transfer the Amex points to BA avios does it ever expire?
@Dan
For the dates I’m looking at AA.com only has 25k miles each way available.DCA to JFK.
Can I get those for 4500BA or only the 12.5k per way ?
dan, I am not so sure how these things work. I have an american advantage amex card can i transfer those points and get the 40% bonus?
@jack:
They don’t expire as long as you earn or redeem BA Avios once every 36 months.
@gaby:
No, it works for sAAver seats only.
@unsure:
No.
@avi l: YOU CAN, transfer your SPG points to BA, simple and easy?
Thanks. Another question, is there anything else i can do with my aa advantage points i find the tickets to b alot of points and not worth it.
if i will transfer the points now to avios, but don’t end up using them for flights, will i be able to sell it later on?
Dansdeals.com scores for me again! Transferred 115k Amex points into 161k Avios miles, and booked FIVE one ways to TLV (cost to me per flight= 21,428 Amex points!). Israel, here we come this summer!
Now i have 8 months for Dan to find me a good deal on the way back! 🙂
Thanks, Dan!
I got the Premier Rewards Gold Card a few weeks ago and spent $2000, but the statement cycle did not close yet, so I did not yet receive the 25000 + 2000 MR points yet. Since I have not been a MR member for six months yet, I could not get an advance either. Any ideas of how I could take advantage of this promotion today?
@David R:
Keep calling and asking for an advance, eventually one of them will give it to you…
Based on your advice I put all my Membership Rewards points into an Avios acct. Now I find out that to use avios on BA to get to Tel Aviv from NYC costs 130,000 pts. plus $1380 and very few flights are available. Can you now advise me how best to use these Avios because I think I am missing something here. What do I have to do to use fewer points?And if I can’t use them for flights, what do you recommend I do with them?
@Arlene E: You abviosly didn’t Listin right! He said no fuel surcharges in WESTERN HEMASPHERE. They are extremely valuable for travel within America. I am traveling from DCA to ORD for 9k miles round trip! As opposed to te regular 25k or the same flight for $310. I’m also going from IAD to MIA for 15k round trip! Thank you DAN!
Will this promotion come around soon or is it a once a year thing? I missed transferring my AE to BA