20% bonus on SPG transfers to American Airlines extended to 31st

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• Howard says:

  13 Aug13 August 08:02

  I have a dilemma on this. I have about 900,000 Avios, 40,000 Virgin and 20,000 AA.

  Also hold 40,000 SPG points. We tend to use BA for the 241 and use two for long-haul (First or Business) every year. Next year we have 2 AUH to LHR in Etihad 380 First booked with 80,000 AA with the LHR to Dubai booked with BA.

  I don’t have short term use for AA points but we are thinking of going to Australia in December 2016 so AA points would give us more options BUT I am a little concerned if AA will devalue.

  Also, I am moving our Tesco points to Virgin to give more options.

  Any views please.

  • James says:

    13 Aug13 August 08:38

    I would be wary. There is a chance of the much talked about devaluation before January (when you can book flights for December the following year) and a total of 80,000 AA won’t get you both to Aus one way even in business (as I’m sure you know). I suppose it comes down to wether you can get the 40,000 extra AA for 2 business seats to Aus before January, and do you have a back up plan for the miles you do have if they devalue before then? (First to Abu Dhabi, then onward with avios?).

  • mark2 says:

    13 Aug13 August 09:19

    My (personal) view is that leaving the Tesco points with Tesco would give you more options.

• James says:

  13 Aug13 August 08:03

  I transferred 20k and the 30k American posted within 48 hours 🙂

• Howard says:

  13 Aug13 August 08:56

  My plan was LHR to Dubai or AUH return with a 241 BA (that’s reasonably easy) and then AUH to Sydney (return) which is 240,000 AA for Etihad First or 180,000 Business. My wife has 60,000 Amex Reward which I can move to AA and so I may need to buy 120,000 AA which would cost around £1,600. Don’t mind a day or two in Dubai or AUH either way as a stop over.

  Another concern is Etihad availability for December 2016.. I was very lucky with the AUH to LHR in Etihad 380 First.

  • Jason says:

    13 Aug13 August 09:55

    If you can get through to etihad CS I would see if your ticket, once booked, is valid for 12 months and changeable. If it is book F, Asap in December, and change when the seats become available around March time. It is risky but there again so is a devaluation as I now have 200k etihad miles, which have double in cost, since July, to redeem for the flights weren’t:(
    However if they do devalue most airlines have had a few months grace period so you’ll probably be on.

  • xcalx says:

    13 Aug13 August 10:06

    I booked oneways TXL-AUH Business with AB 37500 Avios then after 3 days in AUH Etihad First to SYD AA 60000. I did consider First with Qantas DUB-LHR-AUH-SYD (low taxes) booked with AA for only 80000 but Etihad had been at the back of my mind for a while now.

    • Howard says:

      13 Aug13 August 10:26

      The Etihad 380 in First is rather tempting
      !!!

      I think I will call Etihad CS.

      • Lady London says:

        13 Aug13 August 12:43

        I think I’d grab what I can use the AA miles for now, at a date I could travel on. You never know if changes to a program will still allow rebooks at the old rate, or not. For me I’d be happy to pay any cancellation fee if it turned out a better opportunity did come along, as the price of having that option, getting the premium class seat and locking in a the current rate. Devalues have been vicious recently so I wouldn’t take that chance.

        I agree with mark2 about leaving points with Tesco however I am watching that one very carefully.

        Avios certainly has more limited uses given the rip-off level of BA’s taxes on many flights. I am looking very seriously at accruing on AA or AS instead in the future and dumping BA. But pointless to jump until AA do whatever they’re rumoured to be going to do sometime soon.

• imbruce says:

  13 Aug13 August 12:16

  Just got the AA credit card duo and have been contemplating closing my premium Diamond Card and using these cards instead. I have 250,000 Avios (the bulk in BAEC) and 43000 Amex reward points. and a small number of HHonors points.
  Is there away of transferring them all to AAdvantage? is this a good idea?
  Any suggestions would be appreciated.
  Many thanks

  • Alan says:

    13 Aug13 August 12:23

    You can’t move Avios to AA (although you can of course use them to book AA flights, but that’s under the BAEC/Avios/Iberia redemption chart). You could move your Amex MR points to SPG and thence to AA as per this article.

    With regards your bmi card – obviously this is a closed card that you now can’t apply for so I’d think carefully before closing it, although given it is (I think) one with a fee I can see why it might be worth doing. I’m fortunate to still have the bmi MasterCard which as no fee but a good earning rate.

  • Rob says:

    13 Aug13 August 13:58

    No, you can’t move them to AA.

    I would be VERY wary of closing your Diamond Club card. The earning rate on that is unmatched by any card currently on the market and deals will get tighter next year as the new fee capping rules on credit cards come in. I cancelled my old ‘0.5 CC points per £1’ Tesco credit card years ago and then regretted it when they halved the earning rate – luckily I still have my Diamond Club MC at 2.5 Avios per £1!

• Howard says:

  13 Aug13 August 13:04

  Re above comments on BA my own view is that the 241 for First (and business) still represents value for long haul travel.

  • Rob says:

    13 Aug13 August 13:56

    Without a doubt it does. Given that I don’t pay a fee for my BAPP card (grandfathered deal some of us have from 2002) I am even willing to use them for CE trips in Europe – it still saves 18,000 – 30,000 Avios.

    • oyster says:

      13 Aug13 August 19:22

      My grandfathered BAPP has always been £30 a year. I wonder why it’s never been free? Never dared contact Amex about it in case they push the £150 fee onto me.

      • Rob says:

        13 Aug13 August 22:22

        Whether it was free or £30 depending on which Amex card you held at the time and when you applied …. no idea what the exact rule was.

• John says:

  13 Aug13 August 17:31

  “10,000 Starwood points will get you 10,000 American miles”.

  Should be 12,000 (20% bonus).

  • Rob says:

    13 Aug13 August 19:21

    True …. badly phrased

• Alex Callahan says:

  15 Aug15 August 08:08

  I have some Amex reward points to transfer – are there any restrictions if I convert them to SPG points and then transfer them into AAdvantage points straight away?

  • Rob says:

    15 Aug15 August 15:03

    No. There is no requirement, for example, to have stayed at an SPG hotel before you can transfer.

    The minimum transfer OUT of SPG is 2,500 points if you have no status but I doubt that is an issue.

• Howard says:

  17 Aug17 August 18:00

  Only problem of converting Amex Reward to SPG is that you only get 1 SPG for every 2 Amex Reward.

  Re my above dilemma I have moved all my families SPG to one account and with a recent referral I have makes 59,500. I have to buy 500 for $17.50 to get to 60,000 and will move these to AA which gives me 90,000 AA points. My wife has 44,000 Amex Reward and these will be moved to AA so that makes 134,000.

  We need 240,000 for AUH to Sydney return and for the balance these you can normally buy for about 1.9 cents per point.

  Its a bit of a gamble.

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