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This is a question I get asked a lot—and for good reason. Credit card companies make it easy for users to book flights through their travel portals, whereas the process of transferring points to airlines isn’t as obvious (though in reality it’s pretty simple). On top of that, it takes more effort to find the best flights bookable with points through an airline program. So why not just book what’s right there on the travel portal?
Say it with me: Travel portals rarely give you good value for your points.
In most situations, each credit card point is worth one cent (1¢) through a travel portal. It works kind of like cash-back: If you pay off the $2,000 on your credit card bill, you get $20 in cash back, at a rate of one cent earned per dollar paid off (yes, 1¢ multiplied by 2000 is just $20; I triple-checked). So if you have 100,000 credit card points, valued at 1¢ each in a travel portal, you have $1,000 you can use to purchase flights, lodging, or other travel experiences.
That said, you can stretch and multiply the value of that same 100,000 points if you transfer points to an airline and book travel directly with that airline or one of its partners.
This is because the “cash price” of a seat on a flight typically doesn’t have a direct relationship to how an airline prices it with points. Whereas ticket prices for flights can fluctuate depending on the date and season, the price for a flight in points could be the same all year. You can take advantage of this pricing with a little bit of research and patience.
Here’s how it works:
To explain how all this theoretical stuff works in practice, here’s a specific example: Buying a roundtrip flight in business class from New York to Madrid. Let’s break down what that trip would cost if you paid for it in one of four ways: with cash, with cash through a travel portal, with points through a travel portal, and by transferring points to an airline.
The cash price directly through an airline: $2,903.65
A quick search on Google Flights for a roundtrip between New York and Madrid, departing February 11 and returning February 21, led me to a nonstop option in business class on Iberia (Spain’s national airline) for $2,903.65. That comes with a lie-flat seat, priority check-in and boarding, lounge access, two checked bags with a higher weight limit—the works!
The cash price through a travel portal: $2,903.65
I went to the major credit card travel portals (that’s Chase, American Express, Capital One, and Citibank) and searched for this same trip with Iberia—same dates, same airports, same flights, roundtrip. In all the travel portals, the flights are priced at $2,903.65.
The points price through a travel portal: 290,365 points
If you purchase those flights through the American Express, Capital One, or Citibank travel portals, your credit card points have a valuation of one cent (1¢) per point when redeemed for travel. So through Amex, Capital One, and Citi, the trip costs 290,365 points.
*With the Chase travel portal, the math gets a bit trickier. We’ll get to that in a minute.
The points price directly with the airline: 68,000 points
Meanwhile, this trip would cost you fewer points if you transferred them directly to Iberia. Through Iberia Plus, the airline’s loyalty program, that nonstop roundtrip between New York and Madrid would cost only 68,000 miles and about $279 in taxes and fees. That’s just 23%—less than a quarter—of the points price in the portals!
If you have credit card points with Chase and American Express, this is your best option. Chase and Amex points are transferable directly to Iberia Plus at a one-to-one (1:1) ratio, which means that 1,000 Amex points transferred to Iberia Plus would become 1,000 Avios (that’s the name of Iberia Plus’s miles currency).
If you have points with Capital One and/or Citibank, this is also your best option. Capital One points are transferable to British Airways at a 1:1 ratio, and Citi points are transferable to Qatar Airways also at a 1:1 ratio. Both British and Qatar use Avios as their miles currency, which means you can transfer points from Capital One or Citibank to British or Qatar, respectively; then move those points to your Iberia Plus account. The only caveat is that your airline loyalty program accounts must be at least 30 days old for this to work.
(A little complicated, I know, but transferring points from your credit cards to airlines is actually super easy. We have guides for how to do that with Chase, American Express, and Capital One. A guide for Citibank is coming soon.)
So rather than spend roughly 290,000 points through the Chase, Amex, Capital One, or Citi travel portals to book this trip, you could transfer your points to an airline loyalty program and spend just 68,000 points. Rather than redeem your points for 1¢ each, you’d instead get a value of about 3.8¢ per point!
In this example, this is the best possible deal regardless of what kind of credit card points you have. That said, the math shakes out differently if you have Chase credit cards . . .
Redeeming points through the Chase travel portal could be worth it if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
Remember when I said that “the Chase travel portal sometimes offers good value”? This depends on the type of Chase credit card you have.
In both scenarios, you still come out ahead if you transfer points to Iberia (or any airline that uses Avios as its miles currency) and pay 68,000 points/miles/Avios to score that sweet, sweet transatlantic business class flight.
It’s worth doing this comparison when you book economy class flights too.
For what it’s worth, these considerations—comparing points price if you redeem them in the travel portals vs. directly with airlines—still apply when you’re flying in economy too. For example, Going recently sent an alert to Elite members about a points deal for travel to France: nonstop from the US to Paris on Air France—a ticket that could cost as much as $1,700 in peak season—for as low as 24,000 points. That’s a value of roughly 7¢ per point!
So whether your goal with points is to travel in the front of the plane, or to fly as often as possible and as cheaply as possible, it’s always worth it to consider how much farther your points can take you if you transfer your points directly to airlines, rather than settling for the 1¢ per point value offered by travel portals.
That said, here’s an example where you should redeem points in a travel portal:
Let’s try buying a roundtrip flight in economy from Los Angeles to Bali, and look at what that trip would cost if we paid for it in one of four ways: with cash, with cash through a travel portal, with points through a travel portal, and by transferring points to an airline.
The cash price directly through an airline: $1,099.25
For a roundtrip ticket between Los Angeles and Bali, departing September 25 and returning October 4, Google Flights gave me a one-stop option on Singapore Airlines for $1,099.25 in economy.
The cash price through a travel portal: $1,152.25
I searched for this same trip on Singapore Airlines in the credit card travel portals and found that the flights are priced at $1,152.25.
The points price through a travel portal: 115,225 points
Credit card points have a valuation of 1¢ per point when redeemed for travel through credit card travel portals, and that means the trip costs 115,225 points through the Amex, Capital One, and Citi portals.
With the Chase travel portal, the math will shake out quite differently. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
The points price directly with the airline: 84,000 points
Searching for this roundtrip between Los Angeles and Bali through Krisflyer, Singapore Airlines’s loyalty program, the same flight is available for only 84,000 miles and about $53 in taxes and fees.
So rather than spend roughly 115,000 points through the Amex, Capital One, or Citi travel portals to book this trip, you could transfer your points directly to the airline and spend just 84,000 points—that’s 28% off the points price in the portals.
If you have credit card points with American Express, Capital One, and/or Citibank, this is your best option. All those points are transferable to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer at a 1:1 ratio, which means that 1,000 Amex points transferred to Krisflyer would become 1,000 Krisflyer miles.
But what about the Chase travel portal?
The short answer: It’s often better to transfer your points to an airline.
Still, not all credit card points transfer to all airlines, and there won’t always be available flights bookable with points for your travel dates. Sometimes, you really just need to pay for the trip in cash or with points through a travel portal. That’s OK. The point(!) is that you start to make a habit of checking what the cost would be if you booked a flight with points directly with an airline (or with a partner airline).
Imagine a dream trip. Do a few searches. Look at the costs in dollars—and the costs in points. Your next getaway could come sooner than you think.
Going has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Going and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses, and recommendations are the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
