Amex Membership Rewards points transfer to Avianca LifeMiles with a 15% bonus through July 15, 2026: 1,000 points become 1,150 miles. The catch is that the bonus never shows in Amex's transfer screen, because Avianca pays it on their side. Here is the math and the one-way warning.
Amex is quietly running a 15% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles, and it wraps up tomorrow: transfers have to be initiated by July 15, 2026. We say quietly because of the one detail that trips almost everyone up. You will not see this bonus anywhere in your Amex account. More on that in a second.
Here is the whole deal in one table:
| Detail | What it is |
|---|---|
| Transfer ratio | 1:1 (1,000 Membership Rewards points = 1,000 LifeMiles) |
| Bonus | 15%, paid by Avianca |
| Effective rate | 1,000 points = 1,150 LifeMiles |
| Minimum transfer | 1,000 points |
| Registration | None needed |
| Deadline | Transfers initiated by July 15, 2026 (Avianca lists 11:59pm GMT-6) |
This bonus is run on Avianca's side, not Amex's. When you go to transfer, the Amex screen shows the normal 1:1 rate with no banner, no badge, nothing about 15%. You transfer like normal, the miles land at 1:1, and then Avianca deposits the extra 15% into your LifeMiles account, usually within a day.
So if you checked your Amex account, saw nothing, and assumed the deal was dead: it is not. That is just how Avianca runs these.
Say you move 60,000 Membership Rewards points. You get 69,000 LifeMiles instead of 60,000. Our transfer tracker values LifeMiles at about 1.6 cents each in award bookings, which makes those extra 9,000 miles worth roughly $144 of award value for the same points you were transferring anyway.
Smaller transfers scale the same way: 10,000 points becomes 11,500 miles, 25,000 becomes 28,750.
Only if you have a specific award in mind. Transfers are one way. Once your points become LifeMiles, they are LifeMiles forever, and points sitting in an airline program you do not use are worth less than points sitting flexible in Amex.
Avianca is a Star Alliance program, so LifeMiles book partner awards across the alliance, which is the main reason people move points there. If you have been eyeing a specific Star Alliance award and the price works, the 15% is a nice discount on it. If nothing is on your radar, let this one go. Transfer bonuses come back around: this is one of seven running this month, and we ranked all of them in our July transfer bonus roundup.
Because Amex is not the one paying it. The promotion is Avianca's, so the Amex transfer screen shows the standard 1:1 rate the whole time. The extra 15% shows up on the LifeMiles side after the transfer, usually within 24 hours.
No. Any transfer of at least 1,000 points initiated by July 15, 2026 gets the bonus automatically.
You get the standard 1:1 rate with no bonus. There is no partial grace period, which is why the "initiated by" wording matters: start the transfer before the deadline and you are in.
Sources verified July 14, 2026: American Express Membership Rewards transfer partners page and Avianca LifeMiles promotion terms, cross-checked against our live transfer-bonus tracker.