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Getting To Israel Using AMEX Membership Rewards Points!
As you probably know, the Starwood card is generally my favorite card for spending. The points you get from it are just so much more valuable than other point currencies. Of course it’s still worth getting triple AMEX points when booking travel (or double for gas and groceries) by using the Premier Gold AMEX card if you have one handy, but generally Starwood is my go-to card.
Getting to Israel using Starpoints must be one of the most common questions on this site, maybe this will settle it once and for all?
Of course there are many other uses for Starpoints than just transferring them into miles. I just helped a friend book a Hawaiian vacation over the peak December holiday season when rooms for going for $600/night using Starwood Cash and Points and his rooms were as little as $60+4,000 Starpoints! Those points were worth their weight in gold (well, closer to 13.5 cents per point, but you catch my drift) And that’s besides for other awards like 5th night free.
If you are transferring points you may also want to consider Starwood’s Nights & Flights option where you can save 8,000 points on a mileage transfer and any future 5 night stay in a category 3 or 4 hotel.
And of course you have to consider other opportunities like the Southwest option now, or any of the past bonus offers that have come up, including bonuses from 25% to a whopping 312% for transfers to AA, Delta, and USAirways.
Still ready to transfer points to go to Israel? Great! Here’s how to do it for a little points as possible.
To make a transfer just login to your Starwood account at SPG.com. If you have never made an account at SPG.com you may need to set one up. Locate your SPG number on the Starwood AMEX statement where it lists how many points you earned in the past month and for the year. Then you can setup for SPG.com account. Click here to transfer Starpoints into airline miles. Transfers don’t happen instantly. They can take between 1-20 days. On average figure on about 3-7 days though.
While these aren’t nearly all of the possible transfer options, this should cover many of the good ones. If I’m missing any good Starwood transfer methods or if there any mistakes please post a comment!
The rates in this chart are for flights from NYC to Tel Aviv. Rates from other cities should be similar, but may differ depending on the airline. Remember to try to do your own research online when searching for award flights. With enough time and effort you should be able to easily book something over the phone. Remember the phone agents just want to get you off the phone as quickly as possible and aren’t likely to want to try to find any creative routings to get you your free flight.
Confused about which airlines charge a fuel surcharge on award travel? The good news if that generally US based carriers never do, but I’ve been compiling a chart of the policies of 44 airlines on the Dansdeals Forums where you can read more about the murky policies of fuel surcharges.
I wish the offending airlines would just call them what they really are: Mileage co-pays. It has nothing to with fuel and everything to do with a deceitful cash grab that will ultimately kill the mileage cash cow that is the most (only?) profitable segment of the airline industry! The airline that books your reward ticket (not the operating carrier) decides whether to charge a fuel surcharge or not. On principle I avoid accumulating miles with airlines that resort to charging them. For a trip like NYC-TLV a fuel surcharge may range from $250 to as much as $500 per ticket! I’ve noted which airlines below charge them.
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Airlines that fly nonstop from North America to Israel:
-Air Canada from Toronto (bookable via Star Alliance miles)
-Continental/United from Newark (bookable via Star Alliance miles)
-Delta from Atlanta and JFK (bookable via Skyteam miles)
-El Al from JFK, Los Angeles, Newark, and Toronto. (bookable via AA, connections to Eilat for the same mileage available)
-USAirways from Philadelphia (bookable via Star Alliance miles)
As none of these carriers offer First Class seating to Israel, I’ve only included the rates for Coach and Business Class. (El Al does offer First Class, but you can only use AA miles to redeem for Coach or Business Class on El Al). It is of course possible to redeem for First Class seating (good routings would be with Oneworld on BA via London, or with Star Alliance with Swiss via Zurich, or Lufthansa via Frankfurt or Munich) but that is beyond the scope of this article.
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Star Alliance:
With 28 airlines (not even counting that most airlines have even more non-Star Alliance partners), Star Alliance offers the best availability for flights to Israel by leaps and bounds.
Using ANA miles.
-If there is availability on Continental or USAirways for your dates: Transfer enough points to ANA to have 60,000 miles per ticket for coach or 90,000 miles per ticket for business.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 ANA miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 48,000 Starpoints in coach or 72,000 Starpoints in business.
Notes:
-Fuel Surcharges: ANA does not charge fuel surcharges for travel on Continental, United, USAirways, and Virgin Atlantic, but they do charge fuel surcharges for travel on other airlines.
-Check availability for Continental rewards on Continental.com and USAirways awards on USAirways.com.
-It takes a number of days for Starpoints to transfer into ANA miles and there is no way to have ANA hold a ticket if have no miles in your account.
-ANA miles expire after 3 years, regardless of account activity.
-ANA partner flights must be booked 7 days in advance.
-ANA does not charge for date changes.
-ANA allows a ticket to be canceled and the miles to be redeposited for a fee of just 3,000 miles.
-You can book alliance travel on on ANA’s website once you have miles in your account, although you may need to call them to book travel for flights not found on their website.
Using USAirways miles.
-If there is Star Alliance availability besides for Continental and USAirways, transfer enough points to USAirways to have 80,000 miles per ticket for coach or 120,000 miles per ticket for business.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 USAirways miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 64,000 Starpoints in coach or 96,000 Starpoints in business.
Notes:
-Fuel Surcharges: USAirways never charges fuel surcharges, although they do have a modest $50 award ticketing fee offset by the fact that they waive the phone booking fee for Star Alliance tickets.
-While you can check availability for Star Alliance rewards on Continental.com and Aeroplan.com, many partner airlines will not show up. You must call USAirways to check availability and to book flights on many partner airlines. You may be able to check Star Alliance availability on ANA’s website and then call Continental to book. See this forum thread for info on using ANA to search Star Alliance availability and workarounds to use ANA’s website even if you don’t have any ANA miles.
-USAirways charges $150 for date and route changes and $75 for tickets booked within 14 days of departure. See this post for a roundup of award fees that US-based airline charge.
-USAirways does not allow for changes after you take any flight on a Star Alliance itinerary.
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OneWorld:
Oneworld availability to Israel can be tough. Flights to Israel include BA from London, Iberia from Madrid and Barcelona, Royal Jordanian from Amman, and Malev from Budapest.
El Al does have decent avaialbility. While AA is partners with El Al, they are a non-alliance partner so you can book travel on El Al with AA miles, but not with other OneWorld mileage.
Using AA miles
-If there is OneWorld or El Al availability, transfer enough points to AA to have 80,000 miles per ticket (for coach via Europe during off-peak travel times) or 90,000 miles per ticket (for coach nonstop on El Al or via Europe during peak travel times) or 135,000 miles per ticket for business nonstop on El Al or via Europe).
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 AA miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 64,000 or 72,000 Starpoints in coach or 108,000 Starpoints in business.
Notes:
-Fuel Surcharges: There are fuel surcharges if you want to travel on BA, but not for travel on AA or on any other partner airlines.
-You can check AA availability on AA.com. You can check OneWorld availability on BA.com or Qantas.com. (BA or Qantas frequent flyer account required) You can check El Al availability on elal.com (Matmid account required). You can also check availability by calling AA. Tickets must also be booked by calling AA.
The best shot at availability without paying fuel surcharges would be to take AA to London and then El Al from London to Tel Aviv. This route would be 80,000 miles between October-May or the same 90,000 miles as the nonstop El Al flight from the US during the summer.
-AA allows for free date changes and routing changes on award tickets.
Using BA miles
-If there is OneWorld availability for your dates: Transfer enough points to BA to have 65,000 miles per ticket for coach or 130,000 miles per ticket for business.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 BA miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 52,000 or 104,000 Starpoints in coach or 108,000 Starpoints in business.
Notes:
-Fuel Surcharges: BA has recently started charging fuel surcharges on most partner airline flights. They do not charge a surcharge for travel on LAN. They also do not charge a surcharge for travel on AA if booked online. If you book over the phone they charge a surcharge even for AA travel if it involves flights outside of North America.
-You can only search partner flights on BA.com after searching for BA availability. If there is no BA availability you will then see the option to include partners in the search. This search is far from perfect, you should call BA to check more partner availability, but beware that calling will subject you to fuel surcharges on AA travel.
-Oneworld availability can also be searched by creating an account and searching on Qantas.com.
Using JAL miles
-If there is BA availability, transfer enough points to JAL to have 40,000 miles per ticket (for coach between 10/15-05/15) or 60,000 miles per ticket (for coach between 05/16-10/14) or 80,000 miles per ticket for business.
-If there is OneWorld availability, transfer enough points to JAL to have 60,000 miles per ticket for coach or 90,000 miles per ticket for business.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 JAL miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 32,000 Starpoints for off-peak coach on BA, 48,000 Starpoints for other coach travel, 64,000 Starpoints for business on BA, or 72,000 Starpoints in business on other partner airlines.
-Fuel Surcharges: JAL seems to always charges a fuel surcharge.
Using LAN kilometers
-If there is availability on Royal Jordanian, transfer enough points to LAN to have 112,000 kilometers per ticket for coach or 224,000 kilometers per ticket for business.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=50,000 LAN kilometers. At a 1:2.5 ratio this means 44,800 Starpoints in coach or 89,600 Starpoints in business.
Notes:
-Fuel Surcharges: LAN does not charge any fuel surcharges
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Skyteam:
Skyteam has by far the worst availability of the 3 alliances. You can try searching some Skyteam availability on Delta.com.
Using Alitalia miles
-If there is Skyteam availability transfer enough points to Alitalia to have 50,000 miles per ticket to Alitalia for coach or 80,000 miles per ticket for business,
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 Alitalia miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 40,000 Starpoints in coach or 64,600 Starpoints in business.
-Fuel Surcharges: Alitalia charges a fuel surcharge for travel on all airlines, although it tends to be less than that Flying Blue charges.
Using Flying Blue (Air France/KLM) miles.
-If there is a promo award available on Flying Blue for your dates and you’re ready to work hard to get them to honor it and cut through red tape: Transfer enough points to Flying blue to have 25,000 miles per ticket for coach or 50,000 miles per ticket for business, plus expect to pay fuel surcharges.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 Flying Blue miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 20,000 Starpoints in coach or 40,000 Starpoints in business.
Flying Blue charges a larger fuel surcharge than Alitalia, so transfer to Alitalia if you don’t want the hassle of booking a promo award.
-Fuel Surcharges: Flying Blue charges a fuel surcharge for travel on all airlines.
Using Delta miles, from 80,000 AMEX points.
-You can also transfer to Delta Skypesos to avoid fuel surcharges for travel originating in the US (Delta charges fuel surcharges for travel originating outside of the US), but their mileage rates are variable. Coach can be between 80,000 and 190,000 and business can be between 120,000 and 370,000.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 Delta miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 64,000-152,000 Starpoints in coach or 96,000-296,000 Starpoints in business.
-Fuel Surcharges: Delta does not charge a fuel surcharge for round-trip travel originating from the US on Delta but does charge fuel surcharges on select partners.
Delta always charges a fuel surcharge for round-trip travel originating from outside the US on all airlines.
Wow! Dan, thank you so much!
Is there any way to swap AMEX MR points into Star Points?
How about Priority Club Points? Are they good for getting to Israel? I have 80K of ’em.
Dan you write:
Using ANA miles.
-If there is availability on Continental or USAirways for your dates: Transfer enough points to ANA to have 60,000 miles per ticket for coach or 90,000 miles per ticket for business.
Transfer Ratio: 20,000 Starpoints=25,000 ANA miles. At a 1:1.25 ratio this means 48,000 Starpoints in coach or 72,000 Starpoints in business.
I think you are making a mistake. For 48,000 starwood you only get 58,000 points. And for 72,000 you only get 87,000 points. You need to transfer 50,000 starwood in order to get 60,000 points and 75,000 starwood in order to get 90,000 points. This is due to the bonus being only on pots of 20,000.
Thanks Dan, Amazing compilation.
If us airways is showing opening of only economy high which needs 80000 points, will that still be only 60000 ana miles
you seem to be saying that star alliance would be the best to transfer to,however starwood does not transfer to star alliance so what is next best to transfer to. thanx dan your awesome
what about the HAS advantage credit card 56,000 points is redeemable for El al voucher 1400 matmid points?
Booking a category 5 hotel with 12000 star pionts, is it smarter to use cash and pionts 4000 piont and $90?
@mess: I THINK SO TOO
THANKS FOR THE GREAT ROUND UP
Similarly, can you transfer to ANA and fly to South Africa for 65000 miles? Or am i calculating it wrong?
@Cholentfresser:
Glad to help!
@Yosef:
Membership Rewards can transfer to Starpoints, but not at good ratios.
@mess:
It’s not a mistake, but I admit to using using funny math.
The points I posted aren’t the points needed for 1 ticket per se. It’s just the miles required divided by the ratio when points are transferred in 20,000 point blocks to maximize their value.
Let’s say a family was 5 was looking for tickets to Israel and found availability on Continental. They can transfer 48,000 Strpoints per ticket for a total of 240,000 Starpoints and get 300,000 ANA miles, which is enough for those 5 tickets.
So yes, if you just need 1 ticket on ANA you would need to transfer 50,000 Starpoints, but I was just posting the optimized number based on the optimized ratio, as you would attain with 5 tickets in this case. (or you could attain this with 2 business tickets and 2 coach tickets, 90+90+60+60=300K ANA which is 240,000 Starpoints.
Make sense?
@yitz:
No, partners can always only book the low level.
US and Delta are evil for adding in more than just a high and low level like everyone else has.
@pitchah:
Of course they do. I posted 2 Star Alliance transfer options in the post and there are actually 11 Star Alliance carriers that you can transfer Starpoints to.
@bc:
Sure, but you need to pay $30 to become an El Al member, and you need to pay a fuel surcharge for the ticket of some $350, and there is an expedite fee for booking made close to the travel date (I don’t know of any other airline that always charges even just 2 of those fees, let alone all 3 of those fees.
Plus with most airlines, like Star Alliance, you can search the availability of dozens of airlines, so the odds are that one will have availability.
With El Al you only have the option of redeeming on El Al, so you are limited to just their award availability. Good luck finding that during Sukkos or Pesach!
Also El Al charges extremely high rates for business or first class redemption.
As for the credit card itself, it carries none of the great protections like the Starwood AMEX gives you, like AMEX’s excellent dispute resolution, return protection, purchase protection, extended warranty, etc.
For those reasons and more I don’t recommend that card.
@Yl:
Absolutely.
Will opening multiple different cards and transfering all the points onto one card, and closing the others would effect your credit score?
Dan First off all thanx for all your help!
What is the best way to get to israel with one pass points?
This might be the same answer as mentioned to yitz. I see a biz low season as 105,000 r/t on contl. is it true i can transfer into ana 72,000 spg (to get me 90000 ana) and that would be enough to book on ana and fly contl metal ?
also, if i see that open seat i cant book it on ana for contl online so i would have to call into ana to book it. correct? thanks for all the work.
@Ariel:
I do it all the time and have a great score.
@moishmoish:
Look at the related link for AMEX points to Israel where I describe the process with Continental miles.
@Jeff:
Yes, that would be enough to get that flight (assuming you’re going from Newark-Tel Aviv nonstop) and there won’t be any fuel surcharges as long as the flights are on Continental.
Once you have the ANA miles in your account you should be able to book the Continental flight on ANA’s website.
What about Priority club points? I have 80K of them. Are they usable for anything? Can they help in my quest to go to Israel?
Dan- I took your advice last year and transferred starwood points into ANA for a trip to Israel- BIG MISTAKE. I started working on it a few months ahead of my trip, I couldnt check available flighte before transferring points and then once my points cleared, ANA had no availability for direct flights to Israel for months and months. They also told me that the 60000 points for a flight to Israel is NOT on a continental direct flight- for that you need 90,000, and she didnt have those available either. IN FACT, THE OPERATOR MENTIONED THAT SHE HAD NO IDEA WHY SO MANY PEOPLE CONSTANTLY CALLED TO GET TICKETS TO ISRAEL THROUGH ANA AS THEIR FLIGHTS TO ISRAEL ARE EXTREMELY LIMITED. THEY DO CHARGE FOR TAX AS WELL, AND IF YOU FLY WITH A STOPOVER, TAXES CAN RUN UP TO $500!!
I spent a LOOOOONG time online and on the phone trying to figure out a way to get there, turns out the only flight was through Germany and the dates were absolutely terrible. Since I was going for a wedding and have a job and family, I couldnt leave for three weeks which was the only option they had.
Now I have 60,000 points that I cant transfer out of ANA and I have no idea what to do with them, its a little frustrating…
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the post.
Wanted to know, what is my best option for bookking a hotel in Jerusalem with mileage? i know that starwood does not currently have any hotels in Jerusalem?
@Dan:I am not sure what you are reffering to. I am assuming i can not redeem through star alliance it must be continental. Which means i can not use ANA. Correct? Are you able to post a link of wherei can see the details or copy and paste a screen shot.
thank You!!!!!!!!!
Hey Dan, based on your opinion, which airline is the best to use miles to get to israel? ANA then booking on continental etc.?
@Yosef:
You can use them in hotels all around Israel. I wouldn’t waste them transferring to miles as the ratios aren’t good.
@D:
The operator is wrong, and I’d be happy to prove it.
Notice how I say transfer to ANA ONLY IF THERE ARE CONTINENTAL, USAIRWAYS, UNITED, OR VIRGIN flights available.
Otherwise, you will get slammed with fuel surcharges.
Anyway login to your ANA account online, search for EWR-TLV departing Sunday February 6th returning Monday February 14th.
Both of those dates have availability on the nonstop Continental flight.
Select the 2 Continental flights and you will see for yourself that the total is 60,000 miles and there are no crazy fuel surcharges. You can do the same thing with USAirways to Israel.
Next time you may want to read more carefully what I write before making such a transfer.
@Joe K:
There’s a Ramada and a Crowne Plaza, but both are far from the old city. I was able to book the Crowne Plaza last year for $30 using Priority Club Points Breaks.
There is a Hilton Waldorf Astoria opening sometime across from the David Citadel (the former Hilton Jerusalem hotel), but it will cost an absolute boatload of points.
Not too many good options in J’lem since the Sheraton Plaza was kicked out of SPG unfortunately.
@moishmoish:
ANA or USAir can book for you a ticket on Continental as they are all Star Alliance partners.
@Sholom:
It’s fairly simple. If there is availability for your dates on Continental or USAirways then transfer to ANA as they don’t charge fuel surcharges for travel on those airlines and you’ll only pay 60K in coach or 90K in buisness.
Otherwise Continental or USAirways charges more miles but you’ll have many more flight options with them without having to pay fuel surcharges.
dan- there was a continental ticket available! this happened last june. I ended up using my starwoods directly and booking a continental flight.
@D:
The rep misinformed you.
Feel free to test it out now with the flights I gave you from your ANA account.
The whole thing can be done online, not sure why you even needed to call.
@Dan: Dan maybe i am not being clear enough. I only have one pass points, does that mean i can only book through continental and pay 75000 points or is there a way for me to book through ana? and only use 60000 points?
Dan-just checked< i have 57,000 ANA points and would like to fly from NY area to Florida in April. I checked that the seats are available when I need them. How can I use these points to book tickets for my family?
consider a step by step instruction on how to use Starwood points through ANA. Hoping to save enough to save enough to take my son for his bar mitzvah (have a couple years)
ANA does not seem to show flights avaialble until you have miles in your account.
Also how doe US Airways low(80)/mid(120)/high(160) rates translate when getting a ticket through ANA?
Thanks for your extremely helpful blog/site
@moishmoish:
No, if you have onepass miles you need to pay 75,000.
But Onepass miles are much more flexible than ANA miles and they don’t expire.
@D:
You should be able to book online.
@opinions:
The same Saverpass flights that you see on Continental.com can be booked by ANA.
You can check ANA mileage avaialbility from their site even if you don’t have miles, but it requires a workaround detailed on the DansDeals Forums.
ANA would only be able to book the USAir low level.
DAN- same thing just happened again on ANA. There APPEARS to be seats available online at ANA. BUT when you try to book them, they DO NOT allow you to use points. I tried repeatedly for a trip in three months from now. Nothing worked. I did call them today to try to book seats and they said that using your points is extremely limited with them. That is why I find it hard to believe that you can book tickets through ANA for Israel- yes it looks like they have them available until you try to actually book it for the times you need. I would love to hear your feedback as well as people who have actually flown to Israel on Continental using their ANA points
Thanks
Dan
What Starwood Hotels are there now in Israel? What is the daily cost in Starwood points? and what are the chances of finding a room using Starwood points?
@D:
I don’t buy it one bit. If its available on Continental.com at the Saverpass rate, then ANA can book it. Did you try the dates I told you about? If you have 60K miles it can be booked online or over the phone without fuel surcharges.
Not just I, but plenty of others have booked Continental and USAirways trips via ANA for 60,000 points in coach or 90,000 in BusinessFirst/Envoy.
Feel free to email me and I’d be happy to put try it out your account.
@Meir:
As long as Starwood is selling a room for cash you can use points. There are no blackout dates.
Search on SPG.com for Israel.