✈️ The most underrated transfer bonus of the year

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 9 seconds

☀️ Good morning from northern Heilongjiang, where my phone and internet can’t decide if I’m in China or Russia, which is basically the biggest red flag for every single website on earth. 

Hopefully this email eventually makes it to your inbox despite the crap connectivity:

✈️ The most underrated transfer bonus of the year
👨‍🏫 Join us for Miles & Points 101 next week
💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

✈️ The most underrated transfer bonus of the year

There’s a new underrated transfer bonus that I think I should tell you about… 

But it needs some explaining, because I suspect 99.999999999% of you have never used this airline program before. 

There’s a current 30% transfer bonus from Capital One Miles to EVA Air. 

If you’ve never heard of EVA Air, it’s a lovely airline based in Taiwan with flights all over the world. 

They fly all around Asia, Europe, North America, and even Australia. 

I’ve flown their business class multiple times and it’s always been a really good experience (both on the ground and in the air). 

EVA Air is part of Star Alliance, meaning they partner with airlines like Air Canada and United. 

The sad part about EVA Air is that their business-class seats are often hard to book with points through partner programs. 

But that’s why this transfer bonus is exciting… 

EVA Air has MUCH more points availability when booking through their own program. 

Crunching the numbers 

The typical transfer ratio from Capital One to EVA Air is 2:1.5. That means 2,000 Capital One miles will give you 1,500 EVA Air miles. 

With this bonus, the ratio becomes just under 1:1. 

So, how many miles do you need for a flight? 

EVA Air has an excellent award chart. With the normal transfer ratio, it’s hard to justify…

 With this bonus? It’s a no-brainer.

 As you can see below, flights between the U.S. and Asia top out at just 75,000 or 80,000 miles in business class. 👇 

Those are some excellent rates, especially when you factor in the widespread availability and quality of the airline. 

How to actually book flights 

In order to transfer points to EVA Air, you’ll need to make a frequent flyer account with them. 

You can do that here, and it takes just a few minutes. Make sure to save your membership number (it’s hard to recover if you lose it). 

Once that’s done, log into your account and do the following:

• Click on the tab for “Infinity MileageLands”

• Under “Mileage Award Program,” click “Mileage Redemption”

• Scroll down and click “award ticket”

• Scroll down more and click “Select Itinerary” 

Now you will (finally) be on the page where you can search for award flights. 

And let me just say… much like every airline website these days, EVA Air does not make it easy. 

They ask for constant OTPs, the language is weird, you need to click through a hundred pages for everything, certain browsers don’t work, and the website is straight out of the 1990’s. 

I recommend doing a 10-minute meditation prior to attempting to book a flight. 🧘🏼‍♂️

But, if you can survive the booking process, you will reap the rewards. 

This is a great deal

 Much like the multiple transfer bonuses we saw to Japan Airlines recently, this is an excellent deal with some great points pricing to get you between the U.S. and Asia. 

For reference, here are all of the routes that EVA Air flies from their hub in Taipei: 

In other words, they have a huge route network, great pricing, and wonderful seats and lounges.

How I’m using this deal right now 

I need to get from Jakarta back to Beijing later this month and have been looking around for deals to do so in business class. 

I found EVA Air availability through both Aeroplan and Lufthansa Miles & More, which were charging 52,500 points and 37,500 miles, respectively. 

EVA Air, however, charges just 25,000 miles for the same 9 hours in business class, which is the best deal for long-haul, intra-Asia business class I’ve ever seen (especially when both flights are in lie-flat seats). 

I was able to transfer 26,000 Capital One Miles to EVA Air (which gave me 25,350 EVA miles) and successfully book the flights in just a few minutes online.

Honestly, it’s one of the best redemptions I’ve made in a while! Yay!

Anyway, here’s the bottom line: 

If you want to travel to Asia anytime soon, I’d recommend making an account, searching for some flights, and transferring miles before the bonus ends on July 31.

👨‍🏫 Join us for Miles & Points 101 next week

Now that transfer bonus to EVA Air is pretty cool… but some of you might have read it and thought “Wow, it sounds great, but… I’m already confused and overwhelmed.” 

If that sounds like you, you’re not alone. This stuff can be really challenging to get a handle on. 

But the best way to take advantage of complicated programs like that one is by mastering the basics of miles and points. 

And that’s exactly why we host regular Miles & Points 101 live classes here at Daily Drop – like the one happening next week on July 14 at 3 pm Eastern Time. 

You can register at the link below:

Feel free to join even if you feel like you have a good grip on points, but just need a little refresher or want to ask some questions. 🤝

That’s it for this week, folks. Next week, I’ll be back home in Indonesia to hang out in my pajamas and hibernate after 7 weeks of marathon travel. 

Until then,

6.9175° S, 107.6191° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony and Katie Begnoche.