As we’ve previewed a few days back, United’s conversion bonus offer is live. What we didn’t know is the bonus is tiered, and you need to earn 40K miles in the promotional period to get 30% bonus.
Meanwhile, there are two airlines that have just started offering similar deals.
[Air Canada]
If you convert Marriott points to Air Canada’s Aeroplan program by October 31, you’ll earn 15% bonus on your Aeroplan points.
Unlike United, Air Canada has given a very clear example: if you transfer 60,000 Marriott points, you’ll earn 20,000 + 3,000 points + 5,000 points = 28,000 points in total, i.e. the ordinary 5,000 bonus points will not attract an additional bonus.
Aeroplan is one of my favourite airline programs and I’ve written a post about it. If you are not based in North America it’s usually not easy to accrue their points, making this Marriott offer a rare good opportunity.
[Etihad]
Also in October, you’ll get bonus miles when converting from select partners to Etihad Guest:
- 1,000 – 9,999 miles: 20% bonus
- 10,000 – 49,999 miles: 30% bonus
- 50,000 miles and above: 40% bonus
Unlike United, the bonus is determined by the amount of each transaction, rather than the cumulative amount in the whole period.
Some participating partners are:
- Accor
- IHG
- Shangri-la
- Citibank
- Ping An
The hotel ones have poor transfer ratio even with 40% bonus. Citibank on the other hand could be a viable option if you are based in the United States.
Ping An, a Chinese program, is actually the most interesting option as you could effectively buy Etihad miles at 0.81p under this promotion. Unfortunately you must have a Chinese mobile number and speak Chinese to take advantage of it!
Honestly I’ve lost track of Etihad’s Guest program since their revamping and can’t comment whether there are still good-value redemptions. The pricing for Air Serbia however seems to have remain unchanged, and could be a cheap way to travel to Belgrade.
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