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It appears to be the season for 30% Avios bonuses. First we have Chase offering a 30% bonus on Ultimate Rewards Point transfers to various Avios-issuing airlines and now we have British Airways offering a 30% bonus on transfers from IHG Rewards Club and Radisson Rewards. But is this promotion any good?
The Promotion
- Convert hotel points to Avios and get a 30% bonus
- The participating hotel programs are:
- IHG Rewards Club
- Radisson Rewards
- Promotion runs through 9 December 2020
The Math
IHG Rewards Club
IHG Rewards Club Points convert over to British Airways Avios in batches of 10,000 (you have to have at least 10,000 points in your account to initiate a transfer) and 10,000 IHG Rewards Club Points will, ordinarily, net you 2,000 Avios. In this promotion, with a 30% bonus on offer, 10,000 IHG Rewards Club Points will net you 2,600 Avios.
A little annoyingly there’s no way to initiate the transfer online. IHG says that you should contact your regional office if you want to transfer points to Avios.
Still, inconveniences aside, is this a good deal?
I value IHG Rewards Club Points at 0.4 cents each while I value Avios at 1.0 cents each so, effectively, this promotion is offering me the opportunity to convert $40 of IHG points to $26 of Avios. You don’t need to be a budding Einstein to see that this isn’t looking promising.
Radisson Rewards
Radisson Rewards has a somewhat strange and rather rigid formula for points transfers:
- 2,000 points = 200 Avios (260 Avios in this promotion)
- 50,000 points = 5,000 Avios (6,500 Avios in this promotion)
- 100,000 points = 10,000 Avios (13,000 Avios in this promotion)
These are the only increments in which you can transfer Radisson Rewards Points to Avios but, regardless of which option you choose, the transfer ratio in this promotion is 10 points to 1.3 Avios.
As I value Radisson Rewards Points at 0.3 cents each and Avios at 1.0 cents each this promotion is effectively offering me the chance to convert 3.0 cents of Radisson Points into 1.3 cents of Avios. That’s not particularly tempting is it?
Is It All Bad?
Mostly, yes. On the whole, converting IHG or Radisson points to Avios is a poor use of the points (as the math shows) but that doesn’t mean that this is an entirely useless promotion.
If you have enough IHG or Radisson points to book an award night or if you think you’ll earn enough points in the future to book an award night then this is a promotion to avoid. Hotel points are almost always most valuable when used for hotel stays.
If, however, you have a low number of points in your account and there isn’t much hope that you’ll have enough points in your account to book an award night, moving your points across to Avios may be a good idea. Orpahned points and miles (points and miles that sit dormant in accounts with little hope of ever being used) don’t really have any value so there isn’t much to lose by transferring them into a program where the currency you generate is more likely to be used.
If you’re unlikely to have a use for your IHG Rewards Club Points or your Radisson Rewards Points in the short or medium term and you find yourself using Avios reasonably often, this is the sort of transfer bonus you should be looking for to get as much value out of your orphaned points as possible. Transfer away!
Bottom Line
British Airways is offering a 30% bonus on transfers from IHG Rewards Club and Radisson rewards through 9 December 2020. For most people this will be a promotion to avoid, but for anyone with orphaned points in an IHG or Radisson Rewards account this could be an opportunity to extract a little more value than is normally on offer.
