Good morning from beautiful Canada, my former home and one of the greatest places in this world.

While I attempt to recover from jet lag, here are some epic travel tips to finish off the week:

• ✈️ 30% transfer bonus to Aeroplan (yay)

• 🔁 Travel Tip: How to transfer Avios between airlines

• 💳 Current Transfer Bonuses

✈️ 30% transfer bonus to Aeroplan (yay)

There's a transfer bonus to Aeroplan right now, and depending on what's in your wallet, it's either very good or VERY good.

Everybody gets a 20% bonus when transferring UR points to Aeroplan through September 30, a full month and a half.

And if you happen to hold this co-branded Aeroplan card, you get an extra 10% on top of that, for a total of 30%.

Aeroplan already offers some pretty stellar deals, but this bonus makes many of them even more exciting.

So let's walk through where those points actually go.

Central America on the cheap

Aeroplan prices short hops in Central America absurdly low, and Copa and Avianca fly basically everywhere down there.

Panama City to San José, Costa Rica, is 6,000 points in economy, for example. 👇

With the full 30% bonus, that's about 4,600 UR points.

Business class on the same flight is 15,000 points, which is under 12,000 UR points with the bonus.

The taxes are super high for such a short flight, but cash rates are also really high, so the value is definitely still good.

The Japan sweet spot

You can fly ANA nonstop from the West Coast to Tokyo for just 32,500 Aeroplan points in economy, which is a super underrated sweet spot.

With taxes of just $57 USD, this is an amazing deal with no bonus. With the bonus, it’s among the best deals in the world at just 25,000 UR points from the U.S. to Japan.

As you can see, that specific flight even has 6 seats available, which means this is something you can book for a whole family.

Business class on this route is a different story… you’ll have to get super lucky, and I wouldn’t count on finding any availability.

If you'd rather not rely on luck

EVA Air is the more reliable path into Asia in a lie-flat seat. They fly to a bunch of U.S. cities and have solid availability in business class.

This flight from Chicago to Taipei is 85,000 Aeroplan points in business class for a 15-hour flight, plus $57 USD in fees.

With the full bonus, that's roughly 65,000 UR points, which is a steal and a half. Many of these flights only have one or two seats, though… so that’s the tradeoff.

Hawaii sweet spot

Aeroplan also prices United flights to Hawaii nicely, though availability is hit or miss.

West Coast to Honolulu is just 15,000 points in economy and $46 USD in fees. 👇

That's under 12,000 UR points with the 30% bonus for a nonstop to Hawaii, which is great.

United flies tons of routes from the West Coast to Hawaii, so you’ll have lots of options to search through.

Finally, let's talk Europe

Aeroplan is great for flying to, from, and around Europe, mostly because Star Alliance is stacked over there with airlines like Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, LOT Polish, TAP Portugal, and more.

The east coast is definitely where Aeroplan shines, though.

For example, Boston to Frankfurt on Lufthansa is 32,500 points in economy or 60,000 in business, plus $57 USD in taxes.

With the bonus, that's as few as 25,000 UR points in economy or about 46,000 in a lie-flat seat.

Both of those are excellent with or without a transfer bonus.

The bottom line

This bonus is live for everyone at 20%, and 30% if you have the co-branded card.

I personally carry four cards that earn UR points (or cash back I can convert into UR points), because I think it's the most valuable transferable currency out there and I want as many of them as I can get.

If you want to be in position for the next bonus, check out our favorite cards that earn UR points.

🔁 Travel Tip: How to transfer Avios between airlines

There's a rule in the points and miles world that gets repeated so often that nobody really questions it anymore: never transfer your points to an airline until you've found the seat you want.

It's good advice, because once your points are sitting inside an airline program, that's where they live forever.

Avios is the exception to that, and I want to make sure you understand this concept.

Avios isn't one airline's currency

Most people think of Avios as British Airways points, and that's not really what they are.

Avios is a shared currency that seven different airlines use, and your Avios move between all of them at 1:1, for free, instantly, as many times as you feel like it.

If you move them somewhere and then change your mind, you can just move them right back.

And there's finally a decent tool for doing it, too.

You link your accounts once, and after that it's a few clicks.

Six of the seven programs live right inside that tool. Qatar Airways is the odd one out and links to British Airways separately, which is a little annoying but still only takes an extra minute.

The same seat for two different prices

Here's why any of this actually matters.

Every one of those programs has its own award chart. So the exact same flight on the exact same plane can cost different amounts of points depending on which website you happen to book it through.

Take this American Airlines flight from Charlotte to New York. Booked through British Airways, it's 13,500 Avios plus $5.60 in taxes.

Now here's that same exact flight on the same exact day booked through Qatar Airways instead.

That's 4,000 points less than British Airways wanted for it, which you can access by spending less than a minute moving Avios around.

Nothing about your points changed. You just moved them across the street. 😉

And there's a 30% bonus running right now

Through September 27, there is also a 30% transfer bonus from MR points to Avios. 👇

Every 1,000 points you send over becomes 1,300 Avios.

It only covers British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus… but because of this concept, you effectively get a 30% bonus to the other four Avios airlines as well.

For example, you can transfer into British Airways to pick up the 30% bonus, and then you move those same Avios over to Finnair for free.

Finnair flies from the U.S. to Europe for 62,500 Avios plus $148.90 in business class (to Helsinki or onward to other cities).

With the bonus, that's roughly 48,000 MR points for ten hours in a lie-flat seat to Europe – even from cities like Dallas, which are a bit further out.

If you'd rather sit in the back, economy on that same flight is 30,000 Avios and $85.40, which works out to about 23,000 points with the bonus.

The one thing to do today

There's a catch here, and it's something you can get ahead of right now.

Your accounts have to be at least 30 days old before you can transfer Avios around between them.

So finding an incredible Finnair seat and opening a Finnair account that same afternoon doesn't work.

Here’s what to do:

Go open accounts with all of these programs right now, before you have any reason to use them. They're free, the whole thing takes about ten minutes, and then you never have to think about them again until you need them.

The bottom line

Avios is the one currency where transferring points isn’t as much of a dead end as with other programs.

That kind of flexibility is worth real money, and it's why I keep a healthy stash of transferable points that I can transfer to Avios.

If you want to do the same, check out our favorite travel cards, almost all of which can get you a stack of Avios:

💳 Current Transfer Bonuses 💳

That’s all, folks! Have a lovely weekend and see you Monday.

Peace ✌️

45.5088° N, 73.5878° W

With contributions by Katie Begnoche and April Wilson.