Should You Transfer Points or Book With Bank Portals?

Written by Jason Foley
Updated on Fri, 02 Jan 2026

Each bank has a portal where you can book travel, buy gift cards, or offset purchases. You can also transfer points to airline and hotel award programs and book directly through those partner systems (for example, Chase points transferred to Hyatt).

That naturally raises the question: Which option is better, and when should you use one over the other? Below are the main considerations.

Generally, you can get 50% or more additional value by transferring points to partners. The tradeoff is that it requires more work to find where that value actually exists.

Know your transfer options. Our transfer charts show every partner alongside a clear retained value percentage, so you can quickly tell whether a transfer keeps the value of your points or quietly erodes it.

Topping off or using up points. If you already have a few thousand points in a specific loyalty program, that can tip the scales toward a less-than-ideal transfer in order to use up points you already have.
(Tip: it’s usually best to burn partner points before using more flexible bank points.)

Compare in real time. Run a quick search across your available options and choose the result that gives you what you want for the fewest points. In some cases, the bank portal is actually the best value—or the only practical option.

The best mainstream transfer values to consider

• Chase: Hyatt, and a tier down, Southwest and United
• Amex: Air Canada, ANA, and Flying Blue
• Citi: American Airlines and Choice Hotels
• Capital One: Air Canada, Flying Blue, and Avianca

When portals and “pay with points” make more sense than transfers

• When you have a portal credit from one of your cards
• When you can’t find a better deal through a partner or with cash
• For purchases that are difficult to book with points, such as cruises and car rentals. Though we still generally prefer cash unless we’re sitting on a large points balance

The worst value of points

Since most transferable points can be cashed out at one cent each, any transfer that requires more points than paying cash is usually a bad deal (for example, using 20,000 transferable points for a hotel room that costs under $200). We generally shoot for at least 1.5 cents per transferable points at a minimum.

Common offenders include Marriott, IHG, Hilton, Qatar, Emirates, and Etihad. These programs can still be valuable with their own co-branded cards—just not as transfer partners.

For more detail, check out our bank summaries below, which break down the best transfer options and include step-by-step guides for booking through each portal.

View our interactive transfer tool.