American Express just announced a 40% bonus when transferring Amex Membership Rewards Points to British Airways Avios until January 31, 2015.  If you happen to be one of my loyal readers (read: Mrs. Guru), you may already be somewhat familiar with why this is a big deal.  I’ve posted a few times in the past few months about how useful British Airways Avios can be, but here’s the spoiler: for folks in North Carolina, you could fly anywhere within 650 miles of Charlotte (including Freeport, Bahamas) for less than 6,500 points roundtrip!  If this makes no sense to you, I’ve given a quick overview below.

Quick Overview

British Airways is part of the OneWorld Alliance, so you can redeem British Airways points (called Avios) for free flights on other airlines that are part of the OneWorld Alliance.  The 2 most relevant OneWorld members here in the US are American Airlines and US Airways.  So this means that you can redeem British Airways Avios for flights on American and US Airways.  Why would you want to do that?  Great question!  Read on…

Most airlines based in the United States have traditional region-based points programs, where there is a flat number of points/miles required for travel within or between certain regions.  For example, flights within the Continental US start at 25,000 miles, flights from the Continental US to Hawaii or the Caribbean start at 35,000 miles, flights from the Continental US to Europe start at 60,000 miles, and so on.  British Airways, however, has a distance-based points program, which means that the number of points/miles required for a free flight is solely based on the distance that you fly, regardless of whether or not you’re crossing from one region to another.

Here is the British Airways Distance-Based Award Chart:

As you can see above, the first “tier” of distances is from 0-649 miles, which requires 4,500 Avios (points) each way in Coach, or only 9,000 Avios roundtrip.

How Does American Express Fit In?

American Express has its own internal point system called Membership Rewards Points, and these Membership Rewards Points can be transferred to a number of different travel partners.  The transfer ratio varies depending on the partner, but for British Airways, the transfer ratio is typically 1:1.  In other words, 1000 Amex Membership Rewards Points would transfer to 1000 British Airways Avios.  Over the years, I’ve transferred many, many Amex Membership Rewards Points into British Airways Avios.

With this 40% bonus, however, 1,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points will transfer to 1,400 British Airways Avios.  So 7,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points will turn into 9,800 British Airways Avios.  The one downside is that you’re limited to transferring in increments of 1,000 (otherwise, you could ideally transfer 6,429 Amex Membership Rewards Points to get the exact number of Avios needed – 9,000 – for the first tier of awards in the chart above…but Amex keeps numbers even by requiring increments of 1,000 in order to avoid messy partial points, since 6,429 x 1.4 = 9,000.6)

Where Can I Fly With British Airways Avios?

Since British Airways is partners with American Airlines and US Airways, you can redeem British Airways Avios on any American or US Airways flight with available award seats (in other words, if you can find an award seat at the “Low” or “Saver” level on the American or US Airways website), then you can book it on the British Airways website using the Amex Membership Rewards Points that you transferred.

The Mrs. Guru and I have taken some awesome trips using British Airways Avios, so here’s some inspiration:

Charlotte to Freeport, Bahamas (Roundtrip): 9,000 Avios Per Person

Boston to Dublin, Ireland in Business Class (Roundtrip): 50,000 Avios Per Person

Raleigh to Chicago (Roundtrip): 9,000 Avios Per Person

Greensboro to New York City (Roundtrip): 9,000 Avios Per Person

Factoring in the 40% bonus for transferring points, these deals would have been even sweeter!  Two roundtrip tickets to the Bahamas for 18,000 total points is a fantastic deal (the normal 9,000 Avios roundtrip per person), but two roundtrip tickets to the Bahamas for only 13,000 total points?!  Or two roundtrip tickets to Turks and Caicos for only 21,000 total points?!  I think we may have another weekend getaway to plan…