TFCanswers. Can I move my points between loyalty programs?
"Hi Matteo, sorry for the question. can I move my Flying Blue miles to my Miles&More account?". This is the question [...]
"Hi Matteo, sorry for the question. can I move my Flying Blue miles to my Miles&More account?".
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This is the typical question I receive almost daily from TFC readers and by those who are approaching the world of loyalty programs for the first time. With my ominous Matteo Forti we also did a couple of guides "for dummies" That is, for beginners. We explained how loyalty programs work and how to manage points.
The "million-dollar" question, however, keep coming up again like peppers on Sunday night, little bad the column TFCanswers serves the very purpose of dissecting all the issues and answering doubts.
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Is it possible to move points from one program to another?
The answer is no, you cannot move points from one program to another directly. It doesn't matter if they are part of the same alliance, and it doesn't matter if they were earned by flying with company X or Y, once points are credited to a card they stay there forever, or at least until they expire.
There is one exception
There is one exception that confirms this rule and it concerns the partnership between British Airways, Iberia and Qatar airlines. The points of these three carriers can be moved from one account to another, combined and used indifferently on one of three different loyalty programs. Starting From spring 2024, Finnair will also be added to the trio which will open communicating vessels with the programs of the other three oneWorld companies and thus allow points to be moved or received according to the user's will.
Is there any contrivance?
The answer is yes., technically there is the possibility of moving points between programs by taking advantage of triangulations, but these are account-draining operations that need to be done only in very rare cases. It is possible to take advantage of the partnership between some frequent flyer programs and those of hotel chains and vice versa. So you will be able to move, for example, from Krisflyer points to Marriott Bonvoy and then from Bonvoy to Flying Blue, but to see how little sense it makes here is an example of a conversion.
10 thousand Krisflyer points become 5000 Bonvoy points, Marriott loyalty program points Can be transferred to numerous loyalty programs, wanting to complete the triangulation you can turn them into Flying Blue points with a conversion rate of 3:1, so the 5k Bonvoy will become 1,666 FB points.
When does it make sense to use this strategy? practically never. Of course when points are expiring it can be a good parachute, but it is definitely better to stop at the first step and go no further.
Of course, I did not mention Membership Rewards points, which have different rules and which I have explained in detail in several articles.