For the first time ever, at least to the best of my knowledge, American Express Canada is offering a transfer bonus to Etihad Guest. For the month of May when you transfer Membership Rewards points to Etihad Guest miles you’ll receive a 20% bonus.
Normally Membership Rewards points convert at a 1 to 0.75 ratio which means with this bonus you’ll receive 0.9 miles for every Membership Rewards point.
The transfer can potentially make sense for some premium cabin redemptions on Etihad as their own program provides the best availability and options for booking business and first class. Etihad Guest members can book business and first class flights much sooner than say those with Air Canada Aeroplan where availability tends to only be released 30 days prior.
But given Etihad’s some recent changes of award flight mileage requirements (both good and bad) and Amex Canada’s other airline transfer partners like Air Canada, Air France KLM Flying Blue and British Airways, this bonus will be a pass for most. However, for some this may be the ideal promotion to top off your Guest account with a few more miles if you have a reward in mind and need a few more miles to get to it.
I even checked to see if this could be a worthy transfer bonus for using your Etihad Guest miles on Air Canada flights but their access to AC flights is a lot less than booking with Aeroplan – and they charge more for fees. Here’s an example where I thought perhaps I found a decent redemption with Etihad Guest for an Air Canada flight from Toronto to New York JFK:
At first glance 6,000 miles seems like a good deal but then you see the surcharges, taxes and fees are $143. With the 20% transfer bonus this means you would need to transfer 6,700 Membership Rewards points (as transfers have to be in 100 point increments) for this reward and pay the $143.
Here’s the same flight with Aeroplan:
Aeroplan is asking 6,100 points + $80.83 for this flight and this is before taking into account any preferred pricing on award flights that are available to co-brand cardholders and/or elite members. Transfers from American Express to Aeroplan are one to to which means you would need 6,100 Membership Rewards Points and $80.83 to pay for this flight. That’s better than the 6,700 and $143 if you went the Etihad route with the bonus on the transfer.