Last year OCBC added eight new frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programme partners to its previous single offering for those converting points from its credit cards in Singapore, fulfilling a long-awaited promise to improve transfer options for its customers in late 2022.
Among the new entrants was the British Airways Executive Club programme, though unfortunately points don’t credit across to Avios there at the same ratio from your OCBC account as they would into the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer programme.
Instead, OCBC expects its customers to take a 10% haircut on transfers into BA Avios, compared to a KrisFlyer transfer, something very few would be willing to do while points from American Express, Citi and HSBC convert into Avios at exactly the same rate as they do to KrisFlyer!
OCBC to British Airways Avios 15% bonus
No surprise perhaps that OCBC is rolling out a bonus promotion for transfers into British Airways Avios points over the next few weeks, which effectively removes this inconsistency.
This isn’t the first OCBC bonus offer since additional partners were added, with recent promotions including:
- a 20% bonus for Flying Blue conversions
- a 50% bonus for IHG One conversions
- a 15% bonus for Asia Miles conversions (capped at 2,500 bonus miles)
Between 15th June 2024 and 14th July 2024, those holding the following OCBC credit cards can transfer into the British Airways Avios programme with a 15% bonus:
- OCBC Titanium Rewards Credit Card
- OCBC Rewards Credit Card
- OCBC 90°N Card
- OCBC Voyage Card
- OCBC Premier Voyage / Premier Private Client Voyage Card
- Bank of Singapore Voyage Card
Don’t get too excited though.
Under this offer, transferring a rewards quantity from OCBC that would give you 10,000 KrisFlyer miles will now give you 10,350 Avios points, instead of the usual 9,000.
That’s a relatively small 3.5% bonus compared to the value you should be getting from your OCBC points, and so effectively it simply “repairs the damage” of the original lousy conversion rate.
You will need to meet the usual minimum transfer volume to Avios of either 1,000 Voyage Miles, 1,000 90N Miles or 10,000 OCBC$ in order to be eligible.
For example, a transfer of 1,000 Voyage Miles during this promotion will see you receive 1,035 Avios in your account once the transfer has been completed and the bonus element has credited, instead of the usual 900 points.
The bonus Avios may be reflected as a separate transaction to the originally-transferred points in your British Airways account.
Nonetheless, bonus Avios will be credited at the same time as the base points, which should take only one business day.
A S$25 transfer fee applies for each conversion from OCBC to the Avios programme, so you’ll probably want to be transferring a decent amount to make it worthwhile.
Rather obviously, you must be enrolled in the British Airways Executive club in order to transfer your OCBC points across and participate in this promotion. If you’re not a member yet, you can join for free here.
Avios points never expire provided you earn or redeem at least one point every 36 months. A transfer from OCBC to Avios counts as earning activity.
Full terms and conditions for this transfer bonus are available here.
Is it worth it?
Given that this deal is only really giving you the opportunity to transfer credit card points to Avios at a 3.5% bonus compared to the ‘proper’ full transfer rate to KrisFlyer, it’s not likely to be something you feel that you must jump on.
Let’s say you have sufficient points on your OCBC credit card to transfer them into 10,000 KrisFlyer miles, which would be 10,000 90°N Miles / Voyage Miles, or 25,000 OCBC$.
Here’s what you’ll get instead with an identical transfer into the bank’s alternative partner programmes, including to British Airways during this promotion.
| Longstanding Option | Miles or Points |
 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer |
10,000 |
| New Partner Programmes | Miles or Points |
 Air France-KLM Flying Blue |
10,000 |
 IHG One Rewards |
10,000 |
 Marriott Bonvoy |
10,000 |
 British Airways Executive Club |
10,350 (till 14 Jul ’24) |
 Etihad Guest |
9,000 |
 Cathay Pacific Asia Miles |
7,500 |
 United MileagePlus |
7,000 |
 Accor Live Limitless |
5,000 |
As you can see, the promotion has made the British Airways transfer option good, but not exactly compelling.
However, if you don’t have any points in American Express, Citi or HSBC, this is an opportunity to transfer from OCBC into Avios at a good rate for once, which you might well consider if one of the programme’s redemption ‘sweet spots’ is on your radar.
These include:
- Malaysia Airlines Singapore to KL Business Class for 12,500 Avios (for a Oneworld ‘lounge safari’ at Changi).
- Finnair Business Class Singapore to Helsinki for 62,500 Avios, with minimal taxes and good award space.
- Qantas Singapore to Perth for 38,750 Avios in Business Class or 13,000 Avios in Economy Class.
- Qatar Airways Qsuite trips from Singapore to Europe for 70,000 to 75,000 Avios.
For example, if you’re a Citi PremierMiles cardholder and you wanted to redeem this Business Class flight from Singapore to Helsinki, you would normally have to transfer 62,500 Citi Miles to British Airways Avios.
However, if you have OCBC Voyage points you’ll only need to transfer 60,400 Voyage Miles to British Airways Avios under this offer, giving you 62,514 Avios to redeem.
You can also link your British Airways Executive Club and Qatar Airways Privilege Club accounts and transfer Avios 1:1 for free between the two, also unlocking some more ‘sweet spot’ redemptions in that programme, such as:
- Great value Cathay Pacific intra-Asia awards in long-haul J seats, with no fuel surcharge, like Singapore – Bangkok in Business Class for 16,500 Avios + S$67 and Singapore – Hong Kong for 22,000 Avios + S$67.
- Bangkok Airways Singapore – Koh Samui flights for 6,000 Avios.
Summary
OCBC is offering a 15% bonus on transfers from its credit card points to the British Airways Avios programme, which can be used to redeem some good value awards in the region and between Asia and Europe.
The problem is, OCBC transfers to Avios already came at a 10% disadvantage compared to other options like KrisFlyer, and so this bonus is actually only giving you a 3.5% hike on what should be your normal conversion ratio anyway.
With other cards on the market in Singapore transferring to Avios at an identical rate to KrisFlyer, this effectively just brings OCBC ‘on par’ with them for a few weeks, albeit with a small advantage.
On the plus side, this is the fourth conversion bonus OCBC has announced since adding eight new transfer partners to its repertoire last year, so hopefully there will be more of these deals to come in future.
(Cover Photo: British Airways)
Avios is considered one of OCBC’s new transfer partners, so there’s currently no fee if you transfer using OCBC Stack under the promo (strangely the marketing promo says no fee, the pre-submit screen says there is fee, but the post submit screen also says no fee, and the email confirmation says no fee but the fee waiver expired sometime in 2023. Very confusing – quite simply OCBC having hard coded this information in different places and never revised them thoroughly and coherently in light of the promo. Yet my card was never charged the fee).