I have been collecting both Qantas and Velocity points for 10+ years but have recently become frustrated with lack of reward availability. Blew the majority of my Qantas points this year on a Business RTW Award (SYD > MNL > HND > HEL > MXP | ZRH > HEL > JFK > HEL > HND > MEL)
Decided to start collecting bank award points for transfer to another FF program for more award availability. Have now amassed a good amount of Commbank and Amplify Award points and trying to decide the best FF program to transfer to.
Commbank currently have the 30% bonus for transfers to KrisFlyer, Qatar and United, but my only options for Amplify are KrisFlyer and Velocity.
For context, I am now living in London, so will mostly be using points on visits back to Australia, and within Europe.
Qatar feels like a good option for the Commbank points - love the flexibility of the Avios program, particularly living in London. Having access to the BA and Qatar networks would be very convenient. I can also get credit cards here in the UK to earn more Avios points. But then I can’t consolidate the Amplify points!
At this point, the options I’m considering are -
Redeem Commbank points with Qatar (and by extension BA) and redeem Amplify with KrisFlyer
Redeem both Commbank and Amplify points with KrisFlyer
Would appreciate any thoughts or advice! I need to make a call before the end of Nov when the promotion ends.
Both Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways have relatively good availability for their own members/currency (i.e. Krisflyer members and Avios respectively).
Both good options in my opinion but will need to run the numbers to confirm. I’ll let others point you in a more definite direction.
I would not advise to speculatively transfer points over just to take advantage of a bonus. Keep in mind that the transfer rates for each program is slightly different also. I would first LOOK for award availability on the dates you want to travel (and book immediately) in the various programs and then transfer my points there. I wouldn’t worry so much about “orphaning” points in either credit card programs as if you are keeping the cards long term, you will build up a sizeable and flexible balance. There is no need to consolidate now in a restrictive frequent flyer program when the credit card programs offer you much flexibility.
TLDR: Your choice of whether to transfer shouldn’t be driven by a particular bonus, but rather what you can actually redeem in whatever program.
It’s no use to transfer a million points to KrisFlyer only to realise that they have no seats to get you where you want to go! Same for any other program.
I will need to cancel both cards in the next couple of months to avoid the annual fee. Don’t have any plans to use the points at the stage, so just looking for the safest bet to offload!
As I mentioned, I will mostly be using the points for return trips to Australia (likely not for at least another year - so I can’t yet see award availability) so any insight into peoples experience with availability on Qatar/BA vs SA would be helpful.
In terms of value and transfer rates, my calcs show I’m getting better value transferring to Avios than KrisFlyer, but that is all dependent on how much availability there is with Qatar (which you can’t easily search for…)
While we can’t predict the future of award availability, at least we can insure against it. The biggest gripe for me with Singapore Airlines is the hard 3 year expiry on points. Avios is more flexible (extend expiry easily, and can transfer between different adios programs) . Award availability wise, Singapore Airlines is good value for accessing Singapore Airlines reward flights of which there is quite bit due to the sheer frequency in which they serve Europe and Australia. Avios is valuable too considering BA and soon Finnair will have guaranteed award seat releases starting next year, but definitely lacking in that last stretch from Asia/Middle East to Australia. Plus, it seems Qatar is being stingy with award space in the lead up to Paris Olympics and the famed 90K business class to/from Europe flights have all but gone the way of the dodo.
Have you considered Velocity by the way? They are also offering a transfer bonus currently and from memory, should be partner to both CC programs. They do offer decent redemption to/from Europe also.