Transfer Bonus
Suppose you are sitting on 57,000 Amex Membership Rewards points and eyeing an ANA business-class award that normally prices at 65,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles. At standard transfer parity, you come up short. But if a 30% transfer bonus is running on the Amex MR to Virgin Atlantic corridor, those 57,000 points land as roughly 74,100 Flying Club miles, clearing the 65,000-mile threshold and leaving a small buffer. That single promotion turns a redemption that was out of reach into one worth investigating, assuming award space is actually available on the dates you need.
A few terms get confused with transfer bonuses. A transfer ratio is the baseline conversion rate between two programs (Amex MR to Virgin Atlantic is normally 1:1), and it is permanent, not promotional. A status bonus or earning bonus applies to miles credited when you fly, not when you move bank points. Some programs also run status challenges or mileage purchase bonuses that sound adjacent but involve cash, not transferable currency. Transfer bonuses are strictly promotional overlays on the standard bank-to-partner transfer path.
Mechanically, transfer bonuses are time-limited and partner-specific. The bank (Amex, Chase, Citi, Bilt, Capital One) announces the promotion with a hard end date, and only transfers completed within that window receive the bonus. The bonus percentage typically runs 20 to 40%, and the math compounds directly: a 30% bonus on a 50,000-point transfer produces 65,000 partner miles, not 80,000. Crucially, transfers are irreversible. If you move points expecting to book premium cabin space and that space has already been claimed, you cannot pull the miles back. Saver-level business and first-class awards are capacity-controlled and can disappear in hours. The bonus makes the economics better on paper; it does not create award inventory.
Our team tracks active promotions at /transfer-bonuses and updates the page multiple times per week, because these windows close without much warning and the gap between a 1.5¢ cash-back alternative and a well-timed transfer can meaningfully affect what our conservative CPP valuations say a redemption is actually worth.
Find space first, then transfer.