My Experience Transferring Points From my Credit Card to British Airways for the First Time

I have a credit card that gives me points towards travel by either transferring it to an airline partner, or deducting the points directly towards my purchase. I always just deduct the points directly from my travel purchases because it's easier. But it seems I get a better value by transferring my points to an airline partner as opposed to deducting it straight from my purchase. If I deduct the points from my purchase, it’s at a value of 100pts = $1. But I’ve read and watched numerous online posts and videos on how to maximize my points. And, they all make it seem like I can fly first class around the world by following some simple steps. Well, it's not simple, and after years of trying, I still think it’s BS. I even wrote about that here.

But, last month, as I was planning for my Europe trip, I thought I would try one last time. And this time, I was able to actually make it work! However, not without hiccups and a lot of stress. While doing this, I had so many questions and doubts.

How long would it take to transfer the points?

What if it took too long for the points to transfer and by the time I went to book the award flight, the flight was gone?

What if the amount of points changed by the time my points transferred?

What if the points are no longer eligible for the flight I want and I need to transfer more points for a similar flight?

There’s too many things that can go wrong. Plus, I was trying to figure out ahead of time what the total fees would be in addition to the points prior to transferring. Because the flight isn’t completely free even if you are paying with points. There are additional fees airlines tack on that you’ll still have to pay for.

Today I’ll break down my experience transferring points from my credit card to British Airways for the first time.

Step 1: Click on "Book a flight with Avios" without logging in (I created an account prior to this).

Step 2: Plug in the necessary information to search for flights. Since I don't have enough points for roundtrip, I am only searching one-way.

Step 3: Select the option that works best for me. Since I'm using points, I want to fly Business Class, otherwise, why use points?

Step 4: I click on Business Class and am taken to another screen showing me how many points I need plus fees I need to pay.

Step 5: I go to my credit card and follow the steps in transferring my points to BA. This part is nerve wracking because I've never done it, and don't want to make a mistake. Once I complete this task with my credit card, I log back onto my BA account. It looks like the points have been transferred. The points are transferred within minutes.

Step 6: I log into BA and go back to steps 1 and 2. But this time, something has changed. When I search for the flights from step 2 and click "Search", a new window pops up. It tells me to use the Reward Flight Finder. Now I'm panicking because I already transferred my points and need to make sure I can use it on the date I need to use it.

Step 7: I enter the information in Reward Flight Finder. I get the same message. I do this a third time, and decide to add additional cities to see if anything pulls up. I then log off BA and restart my computer (isn't that what all tech support people tell you to do when there's a problem?).

Step 8: I log back into BA and redo steps 1 and 2 again. This time, after step 2, I am able to see the screen shot from step 3. I click on Business Class. After I click on Business Class, I get an error message. The original flight I wanted now needs a minimum of 120 minutes between connections!!

Step 9: I broaden my search to see if there's any flights with a minimum of 120 minutes between connecting flights.

Step 10: I select a flight with the longest layover. A new window pops up. Now it went from 120 minutes layover to 180 minutes layover!!

Step 11: I tried one more time and this window pops up. I had about lost it at this time!

Step 12: I logged off BA and went to search for reward flights as a guest to see what comes up. And sure enough, steps 1-4 all come up when I'm not logged in. Once I get to step 4, I log in to see if I can reserve the reward flight again.

And success! I was able to book the original flight. However, when I'm not logged in, the Avios plus fees were 121,000 points + $545.74 fees (See screen shot from Step 4). Now that I'm logged in, it's 121,000 points + $639.00 in fees. What changed?!

I finally booked my award flight in business class with the higher fees.

Was it worth it? When I search for the exact same flight without points, it would cost me $3,874.

I transferred 121,000 points, which is equivalent to $1,210 plus I paid out of pocket $639. So, on paper yes, but if this didn't work out, I would have lost $1,210 or needed to find another way to use my BA Avios points in a way I didn't want to.

In the end, I would say be careful when you hear about how amazing it is to book flights with your points. In the end, if you want to book business class seats, I would go with non-legacy carriers and have either longer layovers, an additional layovers, or do a short connecting flight to a different airport prior to boarding your business class flight.

Having credit cards to offset your flight is great, but simpler is better. And this was not simple. I really hope people read this and understand the difficulty of playing the points game. I'm sure it takes practice, but is the time it takes to practice this, and potentially lose money really worth the savings?