The best time to transfer miles out of your card

Best time to transfer miles to airlines programs

My basic rule of thumb is to leave the points as it is until I have a firm redemption in mind or when the points are nearing expiry (< 6 months). To be clear, when I say a firm redemption in mind, I mean to be sure of my travel plans and also of the award availability. No point having firm plans but no award availability. The award has to be AVAILABLE. Waitlist doesn’t count as there’s no way to know when, if ever, it will clear. The key is to be flexible here!

Read this to find out which cards have long/no expiry!

Not transferring preemptively helps to keep my options open especially for HSBC and CITI which have a wide variety of transfer partners (both hotels and airlines). This means having the option of getting from A to B using different airlines and sometimes, at better value. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be caught off guard in case of unannounced/short notice devaluations by the airlines/hotels.

Transferring only after I have a firm redemption in mind also helps to ensure that I don’t make the mistake of transferring more than once since each transfer costs a minimum of $25 before GST except for HSBC who are offering free transfers till end of Jan 2025!

Refer to the second slide for my thought process! It can be very enticing to transfer miles preemptively especially when programs introduce a transfer bonus. Qatar, Cathay and a few others run such promotions occasionally. But if you have no short terms plan on any award redemption that you might be better of keeping the points as a devaluation could be right around the corner 👀

At the end of the day, if you do not have a redemption you want to make for whatever reason, at least your miles/points can be cashed out for other rewards with the bank instead of letting it expire or go to a bad value redemption. Some rewards are better than no rewards 🤓

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