With potential huge transfer bonuses on the way for some bank programs, it’s important to remember that in general you shouldn’t take advantage. You’re best off only moving them out of the bank when you’re redeeming them.

Banks like to hand out temporary transfer bonuses

The typical transfer ratio from a bank’s points to an individual program’s points is usually 1:1. Transfer in 1,000 American Express MR and get 1,000 Air France miles in return. However, there are times when the ratio will exceed the normal ratio and give you a preferential rate. For example, there might be a 20% bonus whereby 1,000 MR will get you 1,200 Air France miles for a few weeks.

Generally, the frequent flyer community gets in a bit of an uproar over the increased transfer ratio. Online message boards get flooded with questions from people asking if this is a great deal. People want to know if others are also participating.

Banks will toss in a bit of a sweetener because it helps make their program look like it treats members well. They want to create that image that they’re looking out for you and getting you a good deal. Plus, it helps show that the program is relevant and one that you should invest in. Of course that just means they want you to spend your money on their cards.

But should you?

Miles tend to lose value when you transfer them

I think the easiest way to phrase this is that some loyalty programs have a hard expiration on miles. But a bank’s points don’t expire unless you close your credit cards. When miles expire, they become worthless, so it only seems natural that you have to discount points by the non-zero risk of expiration.

If you have a change in plans and are forced to cancel the flight, you’ll get your miles back, but do you have plans to use them before they expire? Will you get as good of a deal as you got the first time around? Will you be forced to purchase something just to use them? You’re not able to transfer the points back to the bank, so there’s also a non-zero risk of changing plans causing a loss of value.

But I think the more interesting scenario is one that is right under our nose. One Mile at a Time lists out his valuations of each type of point currency. What I find particularly interesting to dive into is that his valuation for a bank’s points is always higher than the best value for any program. For example, he values Chase Ultimate Rewards as being 1.7 cents each, but each program that Chase can transfer to ends up being no more than 1.5 cents each.

Is it strange that any transfer from the bank to a loyalty program results immediately results in a loss of value? It’s almost akin to driving a new car off the auto dealer’s lot. Now, maybe you could rationalize this if you tell yourself that with a bank’s points you could transfer points over once you found the optimal award flight at the best price. You’d be correct that this is a driving factor and it’s one you need to consider.

Your bank points are best remaining bank points up until the moment you are ready to use them.

You can’t predict the future

I’m sure everyone remembers the headlines about closed borders and limited travel from the global pandemic. Would it happen again? Hard to say a follow-up would be quite as severe. But now that it has happened once, it’s fair to assign non-zero risk to it happening again. Or if not a pandemic, what about a war?

How about your health or that of your loved ones? If your parents or your children become sick, will you need to be the caretaker until they get better?

And what about the program you’re transferring to? Will they be around when you want to use the miles? Will they be acquired in a merger and their points become less effective? What if that airline leaves its current alliance for a new one?

I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom about the future. But you need to understand that the future is not certain. If you don’t have a defined use for your miles, don’t transfer them to another program.

Can you reliably predict when they will come?

Perhaps a fair question to ask is if the transfer bonus patterns are predictable. In other words, you’re hoping to book a flight but then want to hold out for a transfer bonus before you book. Sure, no one wants to transfer points only to find out that a week later a bonus shows up and you missed out on getting more points.

Generally speaking, it’s difficult to track a regular timing for bonuses. You might see that a certain airline might get a transfer bonus a few times a year, but it’s far from a guarantee that the bonus will happen when you need it to happen.

I’d say the bigger concern for you is missing out on the award flight you needed all because the transfer bonus didn’t come on time. If the flight you need is available now and you need that flight, there’s no shame in not getting that transfer bonus. An award flight in your hand is worth two in the bush.

Remember everything has a value

Let’s assume a program offers a 20% transfer bonus and that you’re considering moving 100,000 points over. Let’s further assume you value the points at 1.5 cents each (for both the bank’s currency and the airline’s). Sure, a 20,000 bonus is worth $300 that you otherwise wouldn’t have received. But you’re spending $1,500 to capture that $300 in extra value. Here, I’m saying spending because the assumption is you don’t have an immediate use for those points.

You might think that the points could retain their value, but what if a program devalues by 25% shortly after you transfer points in? Well your $1,800 became $1,350 (and you would have been better off keeping your $1,500). Don’t think this scenario happens? Well, it did recently happen–Air France had a 20% transfer bonus via Chase in December 2024, then promptly devalued by as much as 25% in January 2025.

If you didn’t have a use for the miles but wanted to capture the bonus, you’d just have lost value by transferring. Don’t be fooled–please don’t take advantage of transfer bonuses unless you have a defined use for the miles.

I’ve been caught up in this before

Dare I say that I’ve been a victim of my own doing? The first time happened when Korean Air was removed as a Chase transfer partner. I moved over a large sum of miles for which I had no planned use. Then as I started to think about how to use the miles, Jenn got pregnant with our second child. Shortly after that, the pandemic hit and closed borders. Korean Air miles have a hard expiry after 10 years, making the looming deadline coming up in 2028. I have regrets with this particular transfer.

Not to be outdone by that, I also transferred miles to Singapore Airlines after its rare transfer bonus as we started getting out of the pandemic. They also sweetened the deal by handing out elite status to go with it if you transferred in large sums of miles. Well, I did that to secure the status on top of the bonus. But I had miles that I needed to use up. While I used up about half of what I transferred in, I still had miles that I needed to extend (and everyone only gets one extension). So I also have a looming deadline here too.

Two programs, caused by the same problem of speculative transfers from bank programs.

The only time it’s acceptable

Now that I’ve given all my reasons on why you shouldn’t do it, let’s talk about when it’s OK. There’s only two possible scenarios where you can benefit from a transfer bonus. So let’s go through them.

1. You have a unicorn scenario where you need to book flights in Program X and it just so happens to have a transfer bonus right when you need it. Congrats! Now go play the lottery.
2. You need to keep your points from expiring and transferring points in helps extend the expiry. You might as well get a few extra bonus points for the transfer.

I hesitate to say there could be any program that offers such a good deal that it’s worth moving bank points over without a use. If a lot of people have that same deal available to them and similarly have an itchy trigger finger, there can be a lot of people who suddenly have a lot of points. You’ll end up competing for the same flights and you might not be the winner of the award space. The longer those points hang around in your account, the more risk you have of being hit with a devaluation.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.