You are probably thinking, American Express and US Airways are not partners, how is this going to work? And why would you want to transfer them to US Airways — not exactly the best airline in the US? Before we get to why, let’s get to the how.
The How:
- American Express is running a 50% Bonus Promotion to transfer Membership Rewards Points to Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Points. The normal transfer ratio is 3 American Express Membership Rewards Points to 1 SPG point. With the 50% Bonus, its 2 AMEX points to 1 SPG Point. Transfer here.
- US Airways is running a 50% bonus for hotel point transfers to US Airways. SPG transfer to US Airways at 1:1 ratio and give 25% bonus for transfers of 20,000 batches. E.g., if you transfer 20,000 SPG points to US Airways, you will receive 25,000 US Airways miles. US Airways allows up to 79,999 SPG points to be transferred to US Airways at 1:1 ratio and one transactions per day. If you are doing the maximum 79,999 SPG points, do it over 3 days — day 1: 20,000, day 2: 20,000 and day 3: 39,999. Promotion information here.
- Both promotions last until March 31st, 2012. It does take some time to transfer points between program, so do not wait!
The Result:
40,000 American Express Membership Rewards Points = 20,000 SPG points. 20,000 SPG points to US Airways under normal circumstances = 25,000 US Airways miles. 25,000 Miles + 50% Bonus = 37,500 US Airways miles! That’s a 1 Membership Rewards Points to 0.9375 US Airways mile. A 1:0.9375 ratio is good for transferring going through an extra step.
The Why:
So why would we recommend this? Redeeming US Airways for flights with US Airways is not the reason unless it’s off-peak business class award tickets to Europe for 60,000 miles. What we recommend is using the US Airways miles for Star Alliance awards. US Airways is partners with great airlines with Thai Airways, ANA, Singapore, Lufthansa and you can use 120,000 miles to go to Asia in business class with a stopover in Europe if you flew Lufthansa for example! Great deal. We wrote about it last August.
So if you have a lot of American Express Membership Rewards points sitting around, this is a very good promotion! Even better now that Continental has left the Membership Rewards and there aren’t any good Star Alliance partners left.
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