There are two types of points and miles that you can earn – transferable and not transferable.
Transferable points and miles are just like they sound – generally they can be transferred from one time from the location they were earned to another location (we will come back to this). In the case of points and miles, that means having the ability to move your points and miles from the bank in which they sit to an airline or hotel program. Transferable points and miles include:
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- American Express Membership Rewards
- Capital One Miles
- Citi Thank You Points
Not transferable points and miles are earned, but can never move from the location that they were earned. All the major banks listed above, plus others such as Barclays and Wells Fargo, offer co-branded airline and hotel credit cards, that will earn you points and miles that can only be used for the brand associated with the card. These cards are offered by the same exact banks that have transferable point credit cards. Some examples of co-branded cards that earn non-transferable points and miles include:
- Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card
- Hilton Aspire credit card
- World of Hyatt credit card
- Delta SkyMiles credit card
Why does the distinction matter? When you earn transferable points and miles, you typically will have the ability to spend those points and miles in the bank travel portal or to transfer those points and miles from the bank to one of their airline or hotel partners. The second option is highly recommended for a variety of reasons:
- Instead of having points or miles that are only good with one airline or hotel, you have points or miles that are good with 15+ airlines or hotels! This is valuable when searching for the best redemption and protecting against devaluations.
- Oftentimes the airline and hotel partners have their own network of partners that you will gain access to if you transfer your points to that program!
- You should expect to earn (far) more than 1 cent per point (typical bank travel portal redemption rate) if you transfer your points or miles to a partner program.
- Banks regularly run transfer bonuses throughout the year. While these are unpredictable, it is not uncommon to see bonus offers of 20-30%! For example, if a bonus offered 20% for a transfer to Airline A and you transferred 10,000 points, you would get 10,000 points plus a 2,000 point bonus deposited in your Airline A account.
With non-transferable points, you won’t get any of the benefits outlined above. You will earn points or miles for the brand listed on your credit card and those points and miles will stay with that airline or hotel until you use them or lose them (not common, but some airlines do zero out your points after extended periods of inactivity, such as American Airlines). That said, I do keep room in my wallet for a few co-branded cards. Some airlines are very hard to earn points and miles on, thus co-branded cards come in clutch. In these instances, I usually try to have a plan to use these points and miles fairly quickly, so I don’t get caught holding the bag if there is a devaluation!
While transferable points and miles are the clear favorite, there are a few things to keep in mind when using them:
- While termed transferable points/miles, it’s a slight misnomer because these points/miles are not eligible for unlimited transfers. To play it safe, always assume that your transferable points can only go in one direction, one time – from the bank to one airline or hotel. As a rule, you can never move points out of a bank and then back to the bank.
| Possible (with Transferable Points) | Not Possible (with Transferable Points) |
|---|---|
| Move points from Chase to Southwest | Move points from Chase to Southwest back to Chase |
| Move points from American Express to Delta | Move points from American Express to Delta back to American Express |
| Move points from Capital One to Air Canada | Move points from Southwest to Delta |
- Remember, if you earned points or miles from a co-branded credit card, those points and miles are not transferable. Just because Delta and American Express have a partnership to offer you a Delta SkyMiles credit card doesn’t mean that card is earning you American Express Membership Rewards – it is not, you are earning Delta SkyMiles.
- Some banks require that you have a specific card in order to access their transfer partners. For example, Chase will not grant you access to their transfer partners unless you either the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or their business counterparts (Chase Ink Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business). Usually this is not a problem, but if you run into a situation where you have what you believe should be transferable points and miles, but you can’t access transfer partners, this is a good place to start searching.
- Before you transfer points or miles to an airline or hotel, you will need to be signed up for the corresponding membership rewards program. After you enroll (this should always be free), you will get a personalized account number that you will use to transfer points from the bank to your program of choice.
- If you have a P2, this can get a bit complicated, as some banks, hotels and airlines will allow you to pool points and miles across friends and family, but most will not or will charge a fee to do so. It’s usually simpler to combine your points at the bank level, then try to navigate pooling points within an airline or hotel, but it seems like every bank, airline, and hotel has their own set of rules and quirks. There is no way I can remember all these rules and quirks, so Google is my best friend anytime there is the potential for pooling points.
The last thing that is critical to understand is who exactly are the transfer partners for any given bank and to understand that each terminal partner likely has their own partners as well.
- Each bank has their own unique list of transfer partners, transfer rates, and from time to time, transfer bonuses. Below is a grid of transfer partners for each major bank as of October 2025, also available to download (note: although not common, these do change over time). An up-to-date list of transfer partners, transfer rates, and any current transfer bonuses will be found in your credit card portal.
- Because the airlines and hotels below have their own partnerships, the options available to you are actually far more than you see below. For example, you might want to book a flight on Lufthansa (but do remember flexibility is key!), but you notice Lufthansa isn’t listed below. Not all is lost! Lufthansa is a member of the Star Alliance, which is a group of airlines that regularly share resources. Other airlines in the Star Alliance include Air Canada and United. If you go to either the Air Canada or United booking portal and run a search that includes partner airlines, you will likely see flights for Lufthansa if its an applicable route! Simply run a dummy booking or use Google to quickly determine airline alliance relationship, and then you can go backwards to determine what cards could transfer points to an airline with the right relationship.
- A last word of caution – keep in mind that your transfer from a bank to an airline or hotel is one time and one direction only. You should identify that your flight has the quantity of award seats you require and calculate the points and miles needed for the booking before making a transfer.
