American Express 40% Transfer Bonus to British Airways

Feb. 02, 2011

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3 min read

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Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

American Express just announced a 40% transfer bonus to British Airways until March 31, 2011, which is a pretty phenomenal deal. The T&C say you can only receive the bonus once, but I'm not sure if thats true since the bonus is hard-coded on membershiprewards.com, so every time you transfer it has a ratio of 1,400 BA miles = 1,000 Amex. This isn't a promo that you need to register for and wait for the miles to appear - the 40% bonus is included in the transfer. A Flyertalker reported transferring twice at the increased ratio and both transfers going through. Granted, I suppose Amex/BA could go back and take away the bonuses for any repeat transfers, but I think that would be unlikely. If you don't have one already, you can get a Platinum card with 50,000 point sign up bonus when you spend $1,000 in three months.

BA has a pretty good award program that lets you redeem on all Oneworld carriers (like American, Qantas, LAN, Cathay Pacific, and JAL) and BA also allows one-way awards for half the price of a round-trip, with very flexible routing and stopovers.

The only thing that kills me about BA is the insane surcharges and fees. I booked clients from Toronto to Nairobi in First/Business and fees were about $1,250 per person. Granted, thats still better than paying the $15,000 asking price for the tickets, but BA is definitely on the high side when it comes to award fees. Also, BA's Executive Club customer service is a bit annoying since there are usually 20 minute waits for the US line and it isn't open 24/7.

Overall, I think this transfer bonus is a really good value, especially if you get to redeem for one of my favorite first class products- BA New First

Terms & Conditions:

Tip of the Hat to View from the Wing blog for finding this promo.

Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.
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