Updated 25 August 2026
Almost every points guide assumes you have a six-figure balance and want to fly business class. Most people have twenty to eighty thousand points from a single welcome bonus and no idea what to do with them. This is the list for that person.
It is free and public, because gating it would contradict the rest of this site. Give us your email only if you want to know when it changes — and it changes constantly, which is the second half of why this page exists.
Read the prices as prices, not as seats. Every number below comes from a published award chart. A chart price is not an available seat, and availability — not the chart — is the real constraint on all of this. We publish what a redemption costs when you can find it.
Ranked by how little you need and how many currencies can reach it.
Amex · Chase · Capital One · Bilt, all 1:1. Not Citi.
Aeroplan zones count Canada, the US, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Hawaii as one region, which is what makes the short bands useful. These fixed prices apply to partner airlines; Air Canada’s own flights are priced dynamically. Air Canada Flight Reward Chart, version 2026-08.
Amex · Chase · Capital One · Bilt, all 1:1.
The June 2025 chart raised business class about 19% and left off-peak economy slightly cheaper than before. Amex is running a 30% transfer bonus to Avios through 27 September 2026, which brings the East Coast one-way to roughly 12,300 Membership Rewards points.
Amex · Chase · Capital One · Bilt, all 1:1.
Same Avios currency as Iberia and British Airways, and the same 30% Amex bonus applies through 27 September 2026 — about 10,000 Membership Rewards points for a one-way to Dublin.
Bilt only, 1:1. No Amex, Chase, Citi or Capital One.
The cheapest published short-haul price we found anywhere, but reachable only if you hold Bilt points. If you do not, the Aeroplan chart above is the fallback.
Air France and KLM discount a rotating set of routes by roughly 25% every month. In August 2026 that meant one-way economy to Europe from Dallas, Phoenix and Seattle at 18,750 miles. Next month it will be different cities, which is why the useful thing to know is that the promotion exists and refreshes monthly, not which routes were on it when this page was written. Flying Blue takes transfers from all five major currencies at 1:1 — the most reachable program on this page.
One date to know: from 8 September 2026, Air France and KLM award tickets split into Light, Standard and Flex. Promo Rewards price as Light, which means no checked bag and a change fee. The headline mileage number does not move, so the change is easy to miss — you get less for the same miles. Partner awards are unaffected.
Two programs are worth your attention at this balance. The rest are not, and we say why below.
Chase 1:1 on Sapphire Reserve, 4:3 on Sapphire Preferred and Ink Preferred. Bilt 1:1.
Hyatt went from three pricing tiers to five on 20 May 2026. The middle rose about 25% and the top about 48%, but the Lowest column fell about 6% — Category 1 actually dropped from 3,500 to 3,000. A small balance lives entirely in that column. Chart effective 20 May 2026.
Chase · Citi · Capital One · Bilt, all 1:1. The widest issuer coverage of any hotel program.
One of the last flat rates in the industry. From 15 September 2026 the tiers become 5,000 / 15,000 / 30,000 / 45,000. Wyndham has not said how many properties move up versus down, so treat the new bottom tier as an opportunity to verify rather than a promise.
This section is the reason to check back. Sweet spots do not get a farewell post — they change overnight, and the guides that recommended them are rarely updated. Everything here is still being recommended somewhere.
10,000 miles became 25,000, with no advance notice. This was the single most-cited small-balance sweet spot of 2023 and 2024. US domestic went 10,000 to 15,000 the same day.
Replaced by dynamic pricing on Virgin’s own flights. The same London route has been observed at 12,000 points on one date and 59,000 on another, with identical surcharges. Reduced Saver surcharges were removed for US departures in June 2025.
Roughly 10,000 became roughly 12,100, and US to Europe economy went from about 40,000 to about 48,400. That was the third devaluation in about fifteen months, all without notice, and LifeMiles publishes no award chart at all.
12,000 became 13,500, part of an 8 to 14% rise across the chart. Aeroplan’s 6,000 now beats it outright for the same kind of flight.
10,000 points became 11,500. Roundups published as recently as May 2026 still quote the old number.
The partnership ended entirely. It still appears in circulating sweet-spot lists, four years later.
Nobody writes this section, because there is no commission in it.
Hilton has devalued roughly 15% in each of the last two years, and the maximum standard-room price is now 250,000 points a night. Forty thousand Hilton points is frequently not one night at a mid-tier property. Amex transfers to Hilton at 1:2, which sounds generous and is not: a 20,000-point Membership Rewards bonus becomes 40,000 Hilton points, and that is worth less than almost anything else you could have done with those 20,000.
Marriott and Hilton both discount long award stays, and both require five award nights to trigger it. At even 15,000 points a night that is 60,000 points before the benefit applies. These get listed as small-balance tips constantly. They are not.
The transfer ratio drops from 1:1 to 4:3 for Sapphire Preferred and Ink Preferred holders — 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points will yield 30,000 Hyatt points instead of 40,000. Sapphire Reserve keeps 1:1. If you hold the Preferred, this is worth knowing before October, because for an average Hyatt booking it can make Chase’s own travel portal the better option — which is the opposite of the advice this niche has given for a decade.
Every mileage and points figure on this page comes from a published award chart or a programme announcement, and each was checked against at least two sources before it was included. Where two sources disagreed, we left the entry out rather than pick one. Several redemptions that would have made this list shorter and more impressive were cut for exactly that reason.
We have deliberately not printed cents-per-point figures for individual redemptions here. Doing that honestly requires a live cash fare for a specific date, and a number built on an estimated fare band would look more precise than it is. Our published valuations for all 57 programmes, and the method behind them, are at /valuations.
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Most points advice assumes a six-figure balance. This is the other list — what a normal balance actually gets you, rebuilt every month. No card recommendations, because we do not sell them.