Just a month after American Express points transfers to Cathay Pacific took a hit, cardholders are losing another option to transfer their points altogether this summer.
The bank behind the *amex platinum* and the *amex gold* announced Wednesday that cardholders “will no longer be able to transfer Membership Rewards® points to Etihad Guest Miles, effective June 30, 2026.”
Etihad is also a transfer partner with Capital One, Citi, Bilt, and newcomer Rove Miles. It's unclear if anyone else in the group plans to follow Amex's lead.
Once Amex drops the Abu Dhabi-based airline, it'll leave the bank with less than 20 transfer partners. That said, Etihad's mileage program is a mixed bag.
The airline nuked its award chart a few years back, eliminating much of the value booking award tickets on partners like American and others. On the flip side, it's become virtually the only way to book Etihad business and first class awards … at relatively high award rates with substantial fees, to boot. Plus, Etihad has a particularly nasty cancellation policy: You'll forfeit at least a quarter of the miles you used if plans change and you need to cancel.
But overall, the hits just keep coming for travelers with transferrable credit card points.
It started less than a year ago, when Citi dropped its ThankYou point transfer ratio to Emirates in mid-2025. That quickly spread to American Express and eventually Capital One, too. Chase dropped Emirates as a transfer partner altogether last fall.
And to dispel any doubt that this was just an Emirates problem, Amex cut transfers to Cathay Pacific down to a subpar 5:4 ratio effective March 1 after issuing a warning a few months beforehand. That's a lot of change to the points landscape in just six to nine months.
Now, it's not been all bad news. Japan Airlines' excellent Mileage Bank program has entered the fray in a big way by partnering up with Bilt, Capital One, and Rove Miles.
Still, it's an undeniable trend: Something is shifting in the world of credit card points and airline miles.
After more than a decade of chasing after a share of Americans' wallets by partnering with the big banks on points transfers and offering co-branded credit cards, some carriers are clearly rethinking their loyalty programs as a whole. Combined with ever-increasing award rates and airlines getting stingier with award space, we had to ask the question on the podcast recently: “Is the Points Party Ending in 2026?”
This is just another piece of evidence.
Bottom Line
Amex will drop Etihad as a transfer partner come June 30.
It's just the latest big (and negative) change on the points and miles landscape in recent months. And we're betting it won't stop with just American Express …
Lead photo courtesy of Etihad
