Travel Tips Points + Miles This New Tool Will Show You Exactly How to Maximize All Your Unused Travel Rewards Get ready to go further on points. By Stacey Leasca Stacey Leasca Instagram Twitter Website Stacey Leasca is an award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of newsroom experience. Her photos, videos, and words have appeared in print or online for Travel + Leisure, Time, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Men's Health, GlobalPost, LA Confidential, and many more. Stacey also served as an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Southern California teaching feature writing and visual journalism. She is now pursuing her Ph.D., specializing in building resiliency to disinformation in early-career journalists. * 17+ years of journalism experience * 5+ years covering travel * LA Press Club award-winning feature writer * LA Press Club finalist in the travel, sports, and, soft feature categories Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines Published on November 17, 2021 Share Tweet Pin Email Odds are you have your fair share of credit card and airline points sitting around in the back of your digital closet, even if you're just a mildly active traveler. However, Nerdwallet is here to help you dust those bad boys off and get on your way for less. This month, the financial advice wizards at Nerdwallet unveiled a new tool to help travelers make the most of their unused points by showing you which partners will accept which points, and which ones will take you the furthest. Courtesy of American Express "We built a tool that allows you to input the points/miles that you have and where you want to go, and we'll give you our recommendations based on our nerdy research of which partner airline likely offers the best value for your points," reps for the company wrote in a blog post. To use the tool, simply click on each place you currently hold points (think: United, Delta, Chase, Capital One, etc). Then, click on where you want to go. In a snap, the system tells you where you should use your miles, be it on the credit card or airline's own hub, or transfer them to a partner. For example, I checked off that I currently hold American Express Membership Rewards and want to travel to Europe. According to Nerdwallet, my best bet would be to transfer my points to one of two airline mileage programs: Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or ANA. Courtesy of American Express "Transferring AmEx Membership Rewards to the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a great option for flying to Europe from the U.S., as awards cost as few as 10,000 points each way to fly between the northeastern part of the U.S. to the U.K. in economy or 17,500 points in premium class," Nerdwallet said. "Just watch out, as Virgin points bookings may also incur a cash fee that can be high. You can also use your Flying Club points to book partner awards with Flying Blue (Air France/KLM) and Delta, which opens up more opportunities from airports across the U.S." As for ANA, it notes that the program "offers one of the cheapest business class awards to Europe. You can pay 55,000 miles round-trip for economy. Or, upgrade to business class for just 88,000 miles round-trip. You can fly on United, Lufthansa, or any other Star Alliance partner once you have your points in ANA's Mileage Club. Even better, you can book a free stopover." Want to see your best options? Check out the Nerdwallet tool here. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit