What to do with Etihad and Emirates points

[newcomic]

Hi All,

I am new to this, so apologies if this is not allowed here but I thought I would ask.

Is there a market for exchanging points. I.e. can I sell my points to others?

Thanks

James

 

[moa999]

Most T&Cs prevent sale of points..

I cashed out some Emirates points that were about to expire (ironically I have never flown Emirates, just Sri Lankan) by purchasing a Westfield $50 gift card for combination cash and points - not sure if you can still do this.
Unsure about Etihad.

With the proposed Qantas-Emirates partnership, you will probably be able to redeem Emirates points for Qantas flights.

 

[NM]

Some programs allow "trading" of points through a site called points.com. I am not sure about EY and EK though. generally the exchange rates through points.com are not very attractive but do give an option for orphaned points that would otherwise expire.

 

[mick]

Is there a market for exchanging points. I.e. can I sell my points to others?

I don't know if this helps you at all, but presumably you're trying to offload points for monetary gain? We had about 17,000 miles about to expire in Etihad's program and so we used PointsPay to load up a virtual Visa card to pay a utility bill. There wasn't anything else in Etihad's program that we wanted and so we were happy to use them that way, even though the burn rate ain't fantastic. I'd have to double check but I think it converted to about AUD120 - as I said, not a great burn rate but the points were about to expire and it meant we could spent it on just about anything that can be bought with Visa. There were other currencies that I could load the card up with, too.

I also had them deliver a physical Visa card that I can load up in future so that I can use it at bricks and mortar merchants as well. Quite the innovative product, IMHO. At the moment, Etihad are the only ones who participate in PointsPay, but I can see others will come on board in future.

 

[Moody]

I also had 17000 points with no particular place to go, but Skywards are running a 10% discount promotion on Westfield cards at the moment.

After some juggling with their points plus pay calculator I found that I would have enough for a $50 card (usually 18000 points, but discounted to 16200), but I decided instead to maximise the discount by purchasing a $250 card.

It cost me 16972 points and USD166.50 (the other 28 points did not reduce the cash amount so I decided to keep them). There didn't seem to be a way to pay in AUD so assuming I get screwed over slightly on the exchange rate, I estimate the 17000 points plus the promo will nett me $80 value.


Better than nothing ....

 

[JW1003]

So, should I burn my 44000 points on westfield cards, or wait and hope that Emirates will offer a one off transfer out each program into the other as part of the new agreement so we can all consolidate our accounts?