Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Forums Payment cards American Express Gifted Amex Membership Rewards points

  • executiveclubber 530 posts

    A family member has generously offered to transfer their Amex points to me via any family account. Apart from Avios, what would your choice be?

    Could Marriott in their name & ask them to book / use their login be the best scenario to then potentially transfer and use on SQ, or can you not use household accounts on SQ?

    Experience gladly welcome!

    Froggee 1,206 posts

    You can book for up to five redemption nominees on SQ although they don’t offer household accounts like BA. Although they do charge a fee to change nominees once you are full up! Also for some Asian routes you should get okay availability and better value via Virgin Atlantic. They can also transfer you Virgin miles for only £10.

    But if you want SQ then going direct from MR is slightly better value than via Bonvoy

    Direct 40,000 MR = 26,667 whereas via Bonvoy would only be 25,000.

    Does the family member want to shut the MR card or can you wait until you know what would be helpful? Bonvoy might do another 30% bonus. You never know!

    If they do want to close it then transferring to Bonvoy as a holding mechanism might make sense.

    I think you can also transfer 100,000 Bonvoy each year free of charge.

    Hilton would also be simple but not good value.

    My wish would be to get > 1p per MR.

    If the family member just wanted to close the account then I would either take Avios (even with the £50 charge, 60,000 Avios would be okay value, Virgin, or Bonvoy to keep optionality.

    But if the family member is keeping the MR card open then leave them there!

    How many are you talking about as this also impacts the answer.

    NorthernLass 10,511 posts

    Most hotel programs allow points transfers between members now (some charge a fee though) so this should be fairly straightforward. The initial MR transfer will need to exactly match details on the recipient account, however.

    executiveclubber 530 posts

    Thank you Froggee, honoured that you of all posters took the time to reply — always love your trip reports!

    They have around 100k, so it’s enough for a few nights somewhere or to top up our SQ balance. Marriott seems the best option here.

    (We have enough Avios and I want to burn not earn Avios!)

    Froggee 1,206 posts

    You’re very welcome- that’s £10 please.

    I’ve lost track of whether the Marriott transfer tool is still not working though.

    memesweeper 1,548 posts

    You’re very welcome- that’s £10 please.

    I’ve lost track of whether the Marriott transfer tool is still not working though.

    sometimes it does, other times it doesn’t 🤷

    If you have no plans to spend on SQ immediately I’d “park” the points in Marriott just in case a hotel (or another airline) ends up being the better spend.

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