American Express offered a 25% bonus on transfers of Membership Rewards points to Alitalia Millemiglia in October.
Now through December 31 they’re offering a 40% bonus on transfers.
They really should offer a 100% bonus, since Alitalia doubled the cost of partner awards overnight last month. They call their program changes the ‘New Miles Revolution’.
However they tell me they won’t increase the price of Alitalia flight awards until the start of 2018.
You can book US-Italy business class roundtrips for 80,000 miles — or with this promo, just 58,000 Membership Rewards points.
Alitalia does add fuel surcharges to award tickets, but also may be improperly disclosing taxes and fees. Someone adventurous may wish to pursue that. (Update: Alitalia tells me they have “opened an investigation to Sabre to fix the issue with the tax label.”)
This promo sounds great for flights on AZ metal, but i’d be wary. I believe a few months ago, they had a transfer bonus, and then right after it ended, the devalued the crap out of their partner awards. Seems kind of bait and switch-y to incentivize people to transfer points into their program and then raise rates (not unlike when AS had a big mile sale and then dropped an A-bomb on Emirates awards with no notice).
I believe their current program for AZ flights expires Dec 31, though am not 100% sure on that. Who knows what the new rates will be Jan 1. Caveat Emptor, everyone.
So much for giving notice. Award r/t flights to Italy were pries at 80,000 miles yesterday. Today, they raised it to 96,000 miles…without giving any notice whatsoever!