American Express and British Airways run a promo like this every few months, it seems, but don’t let that take away from the value it presents. The pair are offering a 40% bonus for US customers transferring Membership Rewards points to Avios running through September 27, 2012.
This promotion doesn’t suddenly make Avios an awesome redemption value across the board. That said, they do have their purpose in the points ecosystem (we discussed them in episode 6) and getting 40% more of them for free is not such a bad deal.
Another advantage of this promotion is that the bonus points are built in to the transfer ratio rather than credited at some point after the fact. Combine that with the instant transfer timing from AmEx to Avios and it means actually booking an award with the bonus points is pretty easy to do.