American Express adds British Airways as Membership Rewards transfer partner

EXCLUSIVE | Australian members of American Express Membership Rewards can now convert their points directly into Avios with British Airways. Using a competitive 2:1 transfer rate, this puts points conversions to BA on-par with most of Amex’s other points partners.

The move comes at an interesting time for British Airways. The airline is relaunching British Airways Executive Club as The British Airways Club. While that overhaul brings changes to tier qualification, there’s no impact on spending Avios on flights.

Why might you convert to Avios, you ask? At off-peak times, you could fly British Airways First from Sydney to Singapore for 68,000 Avios (plus ~$361 AUD). You could also book Qantas Business from Melbourne to Perth for 22,000 Avios (plus ~$51), or Qantas Business from Sydney to Auckland for 22,000 Avios (plus ~$186).

As you might have twigged, these redemption rates – and many others – are more competitive than when spending Qantas Points through Qantas Frequent Flyer. The trade-off has always been that British Airways Avios are much harder to earn in Australia compared to Qantas Points, thus needing fewer of them when booking reward flights in our region. However, with this new deal between British Airways and American Express, the program’s appeal to Australian travellers has improved significantly.

Here’s what you need to know about this new opportunity, including how to transfer Membership Rewards points.

Converting Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways

Already have points in your Membership Rewards account? Head to the American Express MR website and look for British Airways among the transfer options. Once you’ve spotted it, you’ll need to link your American Express account to your British Airways loyalty account. For that, you’ll need your BA membership number handy.

Once you’ve requested your accounts to be linked, it can ‘officially’ take a couple of days to sync up. But you’ll likely be ready to roll in just a few minutes – especially if you log out of Amex and back in. With your accounts linked (or ‘enrolled’, as Amex calls it), you can transfer from Membership Rewards.

Conversions begin at 2,000 MR Points (1,000 Avios) when converting points from American Express to British Airways. Above that, you can convert practically any even number of MR points into Avios. (Okay, if you have literally 100 million MR points or higher, you’ll need to make multiple transfers, for which you receive no sympathy from us!)

Once a transfer has been requested, it’ll usually be processed immediately. Failing that, Avios will land in your account within 24 hours. British Airways is a transfer option for Membership Rewards users at the Gateway, Ascent, Ascent Premium, Business Ascent and New Corporate Ascent tiers. This covers most MR-earning cards available in Australia, including all personal American Express Cards attached to Membership Rewards, which are currently accepting new applications.

Summing up

British Airways is now the second UK-based partner for the Australian edition of American Express Membership Rewards. The other British partner, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, also has a 2:1 conversion rate when transferring points from Amex.

The Membership Rewards program has continued to expand in recent years. Back in 2023, Amex added both HawaiianMiles and Qatar Airways Privilege Club to its ranks. In fact, Qatar Airways presented a strategic way of shifting Amex points to BA before inking BA as a direct Amex transfer partner. That’s because Avios in Qatar Airways Privilege Club can be on-converted to British Airways at a 1:1 rate. However, those desiring Avios in BA’s program no longer need to ship them via Qatar, as the direct conversion to British Airways provides the same value.

Similarly, it’s also possible to indirectly transfer points from Membership Rewards to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. That’s become possible following the merger between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. Amex Card Members can already convert points to HawaiianMiles at a 2:1 rate. From there, Hawaiian allows onward transfers to Mileage Plan at a 1:1 rate. Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines are currently working on creating a single, unified frequent flyer program. Time will tell whether Amex’s transfers to HawaiianMiles will migrate to the program.

Overall, it’s handy having British Airways as a direct transfer option, particularly since two of Amex’s more prominent transfer partners – Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and Emirates Skywards – saw a devaluation in their conversion rates from Amex back in 2023. At that time, transfers migrated from the common 2:1 transfer rate to a less favourable 3:1 conversion.

Also read: How to get an upgrade on Hawaiian Airlines with Amex Membership Rewards

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