Currencies
Portal vs Transfer Calculator
Before you transfer, there's a simpler option sitting in front of you: redeem your points through the issuer's own travel portal at a fixed rate. This finds the cash fare where transferring stops being the better move — the crossover no portal or transfer-partner page publishes.
The points sitting in your account right now.
What your issuer's portal pays per point. Look yours up— it varies by card and changes without notice. See below.
The partner you'd transfer to instead of using the portal. We do not check whether this route exists.
1:1 → 1. 4:3 → 0.75.
What the specific trip costs in cash.
Taxes and fees charged at award booking.
$11.20 + (50,000 × 1¢ ÷ 100)
$511.20crossover fare
Transferring wins at $650.00, by $138.80.
- Portal gets you
- $500.00
- Transfer gets you
- $638.80
- Partner points needed
- 50,000
That redemption prices at 1.28¢ per Air Canada Aeroplan point — below every published baseline (1.50¢).
The crossover fare doesn't depend on the transfer ratio. A worse ratio means these bank points buy fewer partner points, not that this award is worth less once you have enough of them. Change the ratio above and watch the crossover fare hold while “partner points needed” moves instead.
A transfer is irreversible; a portal redemption usually isn't. If this is close, that asymmetry can matter more than the dollar gap above.
Informational only, not professional advice. This tool performs arithmetic on figures you supply. It does not know your portal's actual rate, whether your transfer route exists, or whether award space is available for the ticket you're pricing.
Methodology
portal value = bank points × portal rate ÷ 100 transfer value = cash fare − cash paid on the award transfer points = bank points × ratio × (1 + bonus) crossover fare = cash paid + portal value
The crossover fare is the number that matters— the cash price of the award ticket at which redeeming through the portal and transferring to a partner return exactly the same dollar value for the same bank points. Below it, the portal's fixed rate is the better deal. Above it, the specific award you're pricing is worth more than the portal would have returned, and transferring wins.
It doesn't depend on the transfer ratio
Look at the formula again: the ratio never appears in it. That's not an omission — portal value and transfer value are both priced in the bank points you actually hold, and the ratio only decides how many partner points those bank points become. A worse ratio means you need more bank points to reach the same award; it doesn't change what that award is worth once you have enough points for it. The calculator still asks for the ratio, because it determines “partner points needed” — whether your balance can actually reach the award at all — just not whether the award beats the portal.
The worked example
50,000 Capital One Miles points, transferred 1:1 to Air Canada Aeroplan— a real, documented ratio — against a $650 award with $11.20 in fees (the same round-trip TSA security-fee figure cited on the cents-per-point calculator). Capital One's portal pays a flat 1.00¢ per point regardless of card, so those 50,000 points are worth $500.00 there. The award is worth $638.80 in cash avoided. The crossover fare is $511.20: this $650 booking clears it, so transferring wins here — by $138.80. Drop the fare below $511.20 and the portal takes over, with no change to the ratio at all.
Why the portal rate is an input
Same reasoning as the transfer ratio on the transfer partner calculator, the offer terms on the welcome-offer calculator, and the excise-tax rate on the buy-points calculator — this site has made the call four times now, and it isn't re-litigated per tool. Portal rates are card-dependent (Capital One pays a flat 1¢ regardless of card; Chase Sapphire Reserve moved to a variable “Points Boost” model that changes per search) and are not published anywhere a check could verify automatically. A stored table would be wrong for a large share of readers and undetectably stale for the rest.
The term this comparison doesn't price
Flights booked through a card's travel portal are ticketed as paid, revenue fares — add your frequent-flyer number and you generally earn the airline's miles and elite-qualifying credit, the same as booking directly with cash. An award ticket booked with transferred miles typically earns neither; Delta states outright that Award Tickets “are not eligible to earn miles,” the same limitation this site already documents on the award vs cash calculator. That tilts every comparison on this page further toward the portal than the dollar figures alone show, and by an amount this tool doesn't attempt to price: it depends on your airline, fare class, and how much you value the miles and status you'd earn. Stated here instead of quietly folded into the arithmetic as an assumption you didn't choose.
What this tool does not do
- It does not price the earning gap above. The portal path's revenue-ticket miles and elite credit are real value this tool leaves out, always in the portal's favour.
- It does not know whether the transfer route exists or whether your card's portal actually covers the flight you're pricing.
- It ignores award availability, minimums and rounding on the transfer side, and any booking fees the portal itself charges.
- It treats a transfer as reversible-adjacent for comparison purposes, but it isn't. A transfer is final; most portal redemptions can be cancelled or changed. Close calls should weigh that asymmetry, not just the dollar gap.
Sources
- Capital One — transfer partners guide. Source for the flat 1¢-per-point portal redemption rate (unlike most issuers, it doesn't vary by card) and the 1:1 ratio to Air Canada Aeroplan used in the worked example.
- The Points Guy — Capital One Travel portal guide. Source for flights booked through the portal earning frequent-flyer miles and elite-qualifying credit as paid tickets, when a loyalty number is added at booking.
- Delta Air Lines — SkyMiles program rules state Award Tickets “are not eligible to earn miles.” Cited previously on the award vs cash calculator; repeated here because it is the other half of the earning gap named above.
- 49 CFR § 1510.5 — the $5.60 per one-way-trip September 11th Security Fee, doubled to $11.20 for the round-trip worked example. Same figure the cents-per-point calculator cites.
- On the portal-rate and ratio citations: these are secondary sources illustrating why the fields exist, not defaults the arithmetic depends on. Issuers publish current portal rates and transfer ratios only to signed-in cardholders, so enter your own from your account.
Last reviewed: July 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is the crossover fare?
The cash price of the specific award ticket at which redeeming your bank points through your card's travel portal and transferring them to a partner instead deliver exactly the same dollar value. Below the crossover fare, the portal wins — you're better off paying its fixed rate than transferring for a cheap ticket. Above it, transferring wins, because the award you're pricing is worth more in cash than the portal's fixed rate returns. Neither a portal page nor a transfer-partner page publishes this number; both only publish their own side.
Why doesn't the crossover fare change when I change the transfer ratio?
Because the crossover fare compares two dollar amounts for the same starting bank points: what the portal's fixed rate returns, and what the specific award ticket is worth in cash. The transfer ratio only decides how many partner points those bank points become — not what a fixed-price award is worth once you have enough of them. A worse ratio means you'd need more bank points to reach that exact award; it doesn't change whether the award beats the portal. Change the ratio in the calculator and watch the crossover fare hold steady while "partner points needed" moves instead — that split is the whole point of the tool.
Why do I have to enter the portal rate myself?
For the same reason the transfer ratio is an input on the transfer-partner calculator: there is no single correct value to store. Portal rates are card-dependent — Capital One pays a flat 1¢ per point on any card, but Chase Sapphire Reserve moved to a variable "Points Boost" model that changes per search, and Amex's rate depends on which card you hold. They also aren't published anywhere a check could verify automatically. A stored table would be wrong for a large share of readers and undetectably stale for the rest, so this asks you to look your own rate up — the same call this site has made for the transfer ratio, the offer terms, and the excise tax rate on three earlier tools.
Does the portal path secretly earn more than this calculator shows?
Often, yes, and it's a real gap this tool doesn't price. Flights booked through a card's travel portal are ticketed as paid, revenue fares — you generally earn the airline's frequent-flyer miles and elite-qualifying credit on them, same as booking directly with the airline. An award ticket booked with transferred miles typically earns neither. That tilts the true comparison further toward the portal than the dollar figures above show, and it's the reason this tool states the finding rather than quietly ignoring it — see the methodology section for the citation and why it isn't folded into the arithmetic.
Related tools
Every tracked program with each publisher's valuation shown separately, its as-of date, and the spread between them. 28 programs, 3 named sources, nothing averaged.
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Open tool →