If you’ve earned credit card or bank “flexible” points (like AmEx Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, etc.), one of the most powerful tricks is to wait for a transfer bonus before moving your points to an airline or hotel partner. A “transfer bonus” simply means you get extra miles or points when you transfer to specified partner; e.g. a “20 % bonus” means every 1,000 bank points becomes 1,200 in the partner program.

Why I love this:

✅ You need fewer points to book a flight or hotel
✅ Your points stretch further – especially nice for family travel, where the total adds up fast
✅ You can book dream travel opportunities you might otherwise pass by (hello business class!)

Current Transfer Bonuses (as of early October 2025)

A few notes:

• These bonuses are time-limited and may change without much notice
• Some are “targeted” (only for specific cardholders)
• Always confirm that the bonus is live for your account before transferring
• Transfers are usually instantaneous or within 1–3 days, but check the partner’s transfer timing
• Sometimes new bonuses will be added mid-month. So keep checking back!

How I’m Using Transfer Bonus to Save BIG

Next summer, I’ll be taking our family to Paris and used the AmEx → Air France (Flying Blue) transfer bonus to save major $ and points.

• Cash cost for 4 one-way, nonstop flights Denver → Paris (economy): $5,312
• Standard Flying Blue redemption for adults: 25,000 points each → 4 adults = 100,000
• But kids 11 & under get a 25% discount on award flights: so for our two kids, we only needed 18,750 each
• So in total, we needed 87,500 Flying Blue miles in the airline program
• Because of a 20% AmEx → Flying Blue transfer bonus, we only had to send 73,000 AmEx Membership Rewards points
• We still had to pay ~$413 in taxes & fees
• That means our “cost per point” redemption value was roughly:

In this instance, booking with points + a transfer bonus saved me $4,899 AND 14,500 points! Just writing this out is blowing my mind!!

Now you can see how utilizing a transfer bonus can be especially valuable for families with multiple seats to book. These bonuses can make your points and miles stretch even further saving you even more money.