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You’ve probably been sung the praises of prominent travel credit cards such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card. They come with excellent benefits that complement the travel style of just about anyone. But their main draw is the transferable travel rewards points they collect.
Transferable points give you the ability to earn one reward currency without pigeonholing yourself into one single loyalty program since you can transfer points to a variety of different airline and hotel loyalty programs.
Let’s take a look at why that’s important — and show you how to earn them.
Kyle Olsen/CNN Underscored
Transferable rewards are bank-issued points you can convert into airline miles and hotel points, depending on which brands partner with your credit card issuer. Points currencies such as Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards are popular examples of transferable rewards.
Here’s a quick rundown of each transferable rewards program’s partners.
View this interactive content on CNN.com
You can earn these points with cards such as:
Dozens of travel rewards credit cards accrue the above transferable points. The ease with which you can earn them adds to their appeal.
In contrast, a cobranded airline or hotel credit card earns only the rewards that belong to the loyalty program stamped on its forehead. So if you’ve got the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card, you’ll earn Delta miles — and that’s it.
Still, cobranded credit cards are worth having if you use a particular travel program often. For example, airline credit cards come with benefits like a free checked bag, priority boarding, fast tracks to elite status and more — all perks that transferable rewards-earning cards (typically) don’t offer.
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There are a few key reasons why transferable points should be integral to your travel strategy.
Airlines and hotels have a finite amount of “award inventory.” Just because a flight has seats available for purchase doesn’t mean you can redeem miles for it.
The ability to transfer your points to multiple airlines and hotels gives you more options if your first choice isn’t available. As an example, if you collect Bilt Rewards and you want to fly from Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Seattle (SEA), you can use your points with Alaska Airlines, Virgin Atlantic (which you can use to book Delta flights) and United Airlines. If United Airlines doesn’t have any seats available — or if the times are inconvenient — you can check Alaska Airlines, and so on.
This can be the difference between booking a (nearly) free flight and paying out the nose.
On a similar note, the ability to redeem your points with multiple airline programs means you’ve got the luxury of finding the best award price across multiple programs.
Airlines charge different prices for award flights. You could easily pay tens of thousands of miles more for the exact same seat. For example, here’s an Economy flight on Delta between Cincinnati (CVG) and San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU) using Air France-KLM Flying Blue miles. You’ll pay 20,500 Flying Blue miles for standard economy.
But the same seat starts at just 7,500 miles in basic economy or 12,000 miles in standard economy when booked through Delta.
The ability to book awards through different airline websites means you can shop for the best price instead of being held to one airline program’s rates.
It’s not uncommon for airlines and hotels to devalue their loyalty programs by raising award prices, severing ties with valuable partners, etc. Flexible rewards can help you diversify and mitigate devaluations by allowing you to ditch an airline once they’re no longer competitive.
For example, let’s say you collect airline miles with one airline loyalty program. If that airline then decides to double its prices, the value of your stash of rewards is chopped in half. But if you collect transferable rewards, you can simply transfer to a different airline program.
If all else fails and you can’t find awards for the flights or hotels you need, transferable points can be used to “buy” travel. Each rewards currency offers an online travel portal to exchange points for airfare, accommodation, rental cars and more.
You’ll likely get a meager return when using your points this way (often around 1 cent per point), but it’s a good option to have just in case. Most airline miles and hotel points can’t be used toward cash prices; that is, if there isn’t any award availability, they’re virtually worthless. At least transferable rewards offer an option even when there isn’t award space.
For ultimate flexibility, focus on earning transferable rewards. They can help you to get the biggest return for your points and have more choice in which flights and hotels you use. They can even insulate you from aggravating devaluations.
Click here for rates and fees of the Delta Gold card.
Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.
Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.
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