Our comprehensive guide to transferable credit card rewards helps you maximize value and choose the best rewards programs and travel partners for you.
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Among people well versed in rewards credit cards, there's a bit of common knowledge: Not all rewards are created equal. That's because even though many cards offer "points" or "miles" for every dollar you spend, they can be worth very different values.
Each bank and frequent flyer program has its own reward currency that can be used in various ways. That makes it complicated when it's time to choose a credit card. Two cards could offer double points on purchases, but those points could be good for very different things — and one set of rewards could be a lot more valuable than the other.
Some credit cards allow you to transfer the points you earn through your everyday spending to airline and hotel partners. These rewards are called transferable points.
Several banks and rewards programs offer transferable points: Chase Ultimate Rewards® and American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, Capital One Miles, Bilt Rewards, and Wells Fargo Autograph Rewards. We'll explore each of these programs in more depth below.
If you're using Chase cards that earn the bank's Ultimate Rewards points, you can transfer those points to any of 11 airline frequent flyer programs and three hotel loyalty programs. The Ultimate Rewards program's airline partners include carriers in all three major airline alliances, which means you can book frequent flyer tickets — also known as "award flights" — on most airlines.
The current rewards ecosystem has six major players: American Express, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo. Here's what you'll want to know about each program.
Amex Membership Rewards are incredibly valuable for their flexibility. Points earned on cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express, the American Express® Gold Card, and The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express can be transferred to airline and hotel partners such as Delta Air Lines or Marriott for luxury travel experiences or used for a variety of other redemption opportunities.
While Bilt Rewards is a relative newcomer in the rewards currency world, this fintech company has quickly established itself as one of the best programs for transferrable points. Bilt offers some of the most valuable travel rewards you can earn because it partners with more than a dozen airlines and hotel brands, including the elusive Alaska Airlines — a carrier that doesn't partner with any other transferrable point card issuers.
Since Bilt only offers the Bilt Mastercard® and a few non-card earning opportunities, saving for high-end travel rewards can be more challenging with this issuer than from those that offer multiple cards. But Bilt offers fun challenges for cardholders and Bilt members such as Bilt Rent Day, when most purchases earn double points on the first day of the month. And Bilt Points offer valuable redemptions and an easy learning curve for experienced travelers and newbies alike.
The Capital One Miles program has been around for a long time, as evidenced by the TV commercials we've all seen for years. But the reward program got a massive bump in value in the late 2010s, thanks to nearly two dozen partnerships with airlines and hotel chains and generous transfer ratios. As a result, Capital One cardholders have some of the best redemption opportunities in the ecosystem, thanks to a lot of flexibility when earning and redeeming Capital One Miles.
Capital One Miles members can pool points between family and friends at no additional cost, making it easy to earn together toward a common goal. In addition to the standard options of redeeming travel through the issuer's proprietary Capital One travel portal or transferring to travel partners, cardholders can also use Capital One rewards to "erase" travel expenses from their statement credit. This perk is particularly valuable for savvy travelers who want to earn full credit by purchasing flights or hotel stays directly for elite status or benefits, then reimburse themselves from their stash of rewards.
Like Amex Membership Rewards, the Chase Ultimate Rewards® program is one of the best-known and most robust loyalty rewards systems in the game. Many of the best Chase credit cards earn Ultimate Rewards points, which transfer to many of the best airlines and hotel chains in the travel world, including Southwest and United Airlines on the flight front, or Marriott and Hyatt on the hotel front.
Citi is another credit card issuer that's been in the loyalty rewards game for a long time. Citi ThankYou Points can be earned on many of the best Citi credit cards including the newly revamped Citi Strata Premier℠ Card as well as no-annual-fee options such as the Citi® Double Cash Card and the Citi Rewards+® Card. Redemptions are also easy and flexible, since Citi has well over a dozen airline and transfer partners.
Wells Fargo is the newest addition to this roster of transferrable rewards competitors. Freshly announced in 2024, Wells Fargo Autograph program partners with just six airlines and hotel chains so far, but most experts believe more will follow with time.
Now that we've established the major players, it's time to learn how to use those rewards for maximum value. When transferring points to an airline or hotel chain, the transfer ratio, or value of your rewards relative to the travel company's loyalty program, is of paramount importance.
In many cases, booking flights through an airline's frequent flyer program can be better (read: cheaper) than choosing cash back for buying plane tickets or exchanging your points for a statement credit to "erase" travel purchases.
Cash prices for flights change constantly thanks to complicated airline pricing algorithms. When you exchange points for cash or as a statement credit, the best return you can generally get is 1 cent for each point applied toward the ticket price when you booked it.
But when you transfer points or miles to partner airlines, you can often get double, triple, or even 10x the average value of each point when you book a first- or business-class international flight worth tens of thousands of dollars for as little as 15,000 points one way.
Award ticket pricing differs from airline to airline and even between regions. Every airline's system varies significantly. Let's use the example of United Airlines — a partner of Chase's Ultimate Rewards program — and the way that its MileagePlus frequent flyer program works.
If you wanted to travel round-trip from Chicago to Munich, that international ticket could cost more than $1,200 in economy class, depending on when you travel.
If you exchanged your Chase Ultimate Rewards points for cash to purchase the ticket, or if you wanted to use fixed-value points worth 1 cent each — such as miles you can earn with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card — you would need 120,000 points or miles to cover the whole trip.
But if you transferred your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to United, you might be able to book the same flight for half as many points because some United flights can be booked on points for as few as 30,000 United MileagePlus miles one way, or 60,000 round-trip.
To use the same United Airlines example between Chicago and Munich, a business-class ticket on this route starts at around $4,600 round-trip. That would cost 460,000 fixed-value points, or points exchanged for cash back, if you wanted to use them to "erase" the purchase from your statement.
However, a business-class saver ticket (if you can find saver availability — it's typically scarce) starts at 60,000 miles each way, or 120,000 miles round-trip for the same exact flight — a fraction of the miles or points you would have needed with cash back or a statement credit.
The catch is that most airlines only make a few saver-level tickets available for each flight — and they make them available at various points before traveling — so you may not be able to find saver seats right away. Also, it's possible there will be a time when the cash price of a coach ticket in the example above drops below $600.
In that case, transferring your points to United and getting a saver-level round-trip for 60,000 miles is actually not the best deal. Fortunately, all of the issuers listed above offer an alternative option to redeem your rewards for top value.
Chase operates a travel-booking service as part of its website, known as Chase Travel℠. If you book flights or hotels through Chase Travel℠, either online or by phone, you get 1 cent per point in value when you have no-annual-fee cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® or Chase Freedom Unlimited®.
However, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card enjoy an additional 25% bonus in value. This means that each point redeemed through these cards is worth 1.25 cents apiece instead of 1 cent apiece. So if you were looking at a $600 flight from Chicago to Munich, you would only need 48,000 Chase points, fewer than you would need through United if you transferred the points to that airline.
Best yet, the same ticket above would only cost 40,000 points if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card, where points are worth 1.5 cents each (50% bonus) when you redeem them through Chase Travel℠.
American Express doesn't offer fixed bonuses when using points to book travel through the Amex Travel portal, but many issuers occasionally offer limited-time promotions or transfer bonuses at different times.
The best transferable-point credit card for you depends on what credit card rewards program is most appealing. Make sure to research the transfer partners and redemption options available with each. Below, you'll find some of the top options with each major program.
American Express issues personal and small-business cards that earn Membership Rewards points. Here are the personal options:
Card | Welcome bonus offer | Review |
The Platinum Card® from American Express | 80,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $8,000 on eligible purchases on your new card in your first six months of card membership | Amex Platinum card review |
American Express® Gold Card | 60,000 Membership Rewards® points after spending $6,000 on purchases on the card in the first six months of card membership | Amex Gold card review |
American Express® Green Card | 60,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first six months of card membership and earn 20% back on eligible travel and transit purchases, up to a total of $200 back, made during your first six months of card membership | Amex Green card review |
Amex EveryDay® Credit Card | 10,000 Membership Rewards® Points when you spend $1,000 in the first 3 months. | Amex EveryDay card review |
Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card | 15,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first six months of account opening | Amex EveryDay Preferred card review |
And these small-business cards earn Membership Rewards points:
Card | Welcome bonus offer | Review |
The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express | 15,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $3,000 in eligible purchases on the card within your first three months of card membership | Amex Blue Business Plus card review |
The Business Platinum Card® from American Express | 150,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $20,000 in eligible purchases on the card within the first three months of card membership | Amex Business Platinum card review |
American Express® Business Gold Card | 70,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $10,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months of card membership | Amex Business Gold card review |
Similarly, Chase issues a number of personal and small-business cards that earn transferable points.
If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, or the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, you can augment your stash of rewards by combining points from your no-annual-fee Chase cards (including the Chase Freedom Flex®, Chase Freedom Unlimited®, Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card, and Ink Business Cash® Credit Card). From there, you can transfer all of your rewards to airline and hotel partners, or redeem them at a higher rate through the Chase Travel Portal.
The Citi Strata Premier℠ Card allows you to transfer points to Citi's airline and hotel partners, and offers an excellent welcome bonus of 75,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first three months of account opening (worth around 120000 in travel, based on our valuation of Citi points).
You can also transfer points to partners with the Citi Prestige® Card, but it's no longer taking applications.
As with other issuers, if you have either of the cards listed above and also have no-annual-fee Citi ThankYou cards such as the Citi® Double Cash Card, Citi Custom Cash℠ Card, or Citi Rewards+® Card, you can pool your points in your Citi Strata Premier℠ Card or Citi Prestige® Card account, then transfer them to partners.
There are multiple personal and small-business Capital One credit cards that earn flexible miles:
Note: If you have one of the cards mentioned in the tables above, you can convert cash back earned from Capital One cash-back cards, like the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card† or Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Credit Card, into Capital One miles through the "Share My Rewards" feature in your online account. You'll get 1 Capital One mile for every 1 cent you transfer.
Flexible rewards that transfer to airline and hotel partners can help you score first- and business-class flights worth thousands of dollars, usually for far less points or miles than it would cost you if purchased through your credit card's rewards portal.
No, the transfer is typically irreversible once points or miles have been converted to a loyalty program. It's usually a good idea to keep your rewards in your credit card account until you have a specific redemption in mind.
If you have multiple options for redeeming the flight you want, consider additional factors such as the transfer ratio, the aircraft and route you'd fly, and any ongoing promotions that might increase the value of your transferred points.
Some credit card programs may charge a nominal fee for transfers to certain travel partners, while the transaction is free on many others.
You can usually transfer points as frequently as you need, as long as you meet the minimum transfer amounts set by the credit card issuer and the partner programs.
