What is a Transfer Bonus?
Essentially - it's free points or miles!
Essentially - it's free points or miles!
Transfer bonuses are a limited time promotion where bank/partner programs will offer extra points to transfer your flexible bank points to a specific hotel or loyalty program. Banks frequently (sometimes monthly, sometimes sporadically) announce transfer bonuses, which means if you transfer points from the bank to the partner with the bonus, you’ll get more points for free with that partner, just for transferring!
In order to take advantage of these bonuses, you need to transfer your flexible bank points to the travel partner with the bonus. Not familiar with how to transfer points or which hotels/airlines partner with which banks? You can learn how to transfer points here, Chase Transfer Partners here, American Express transfer partners here and Capital One's here.
Keep in mind... once you transfer points, you cannot transfer them back to your bank. They are then "stuck" in whichever airline/hotel partner you transferred to. Transfers from banks to airline or hotel partners are irreversible.
It is NOT recommended to transfer points from a bank to a travel partner, just because there's a bonus. It's generally best to keep your points flexible until you're ready to book travel, at which point you then transfer out of the bank.
Current Transfer Bonuses
(As of 2/27/2026; these are subject to change/additional bonuses added)
American Express
- No Transfer Bonuses at this time
Capital One
- Japan Airlines: 30% bonus through 9:59PM ET, February 28th, 2026
Chase
- Marriott Hotels: 50% bonus through 11:59PM ET, February 28th, 2026
- Virgin Atlantic: 40% bonus through 11:59PM ET, February 28th, 2026 (Don't want or need to fly Virgin Atlantic? Keep in mind Airline Alliances. With this transfer bonus, you may be able to book flights on other airlines in the same OneWorld Alliance as Virgin Atlantic, such as Delta and/or Air France/KLM. Although booking with Virgin Atlantic does usually come with higher taxes/fees)
How Many Points to Transfer
To figure out how many points you NEED to transfer, you take the amount of points needs to book your flight/hotel and divide that number by the transfer bonus (in numerical form, the percent plus 1). So say you want to book a 50,000 point flight and there's a 20% transfer bonus. You would calculate 50,000 / (1.2) to figure out how many points you need to actually transfer. In this case, it calculates out to 41,667 points.
Most programs require you transfer points in 1,000 point increments, which means for our example, with a 20% transfer bonus, you'd transfer 42,000 points to book your 50,000 point travel.
Transfer Bonus Calculator
Instead of having to figure out the math; I've created a calculator that does the work for you!
JustcallmeHaHa's Transfer Bonus Calculator
Number of Points Required: this is how many points you need to book your travel; the points price shown on the airline or hotel’s website where you will book
Transfer Ratio: most commonly this is 1:1. Meaning if you transfer 1,000 bank points to a travel partner, you'll get 1,000 points in the airline or hotel loyalty program.
However, some banks and travel partners don't have a 1:1 ratio. You can find the specific bank to transfer partner ratio when you are in the bank's Transfer to Partners/Transfer Rewards page. For example, for Capital One to Accor hotels, it shows 1,000 Capital One miles is equal to 500 Accor points. So for the Transfer Ration menu in the calculator you would select the "1:.5" option to align.
Summary
Have you taken advantage of transfer bonuses before? While I don't wait for a transfer bonus (when I have something I want to book, I book it!), but it sure is nice when a transfer bonus aligns with something that I need to book.
Save this page to use this calculator whenever you have a transfer bonus you want to utilize. I hope it helps you save some brain cells and some points!
____________________________________________Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.
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