Preflight Briefing
As I’ve discussed in my recent Trip Report: Paris The Long Way, first and business class award space to Asia has been difficult to come by in 2023. While award space remains limited, one sweet spot for better business class award availability to Asia is on EVA Air through its Infinity MileageLands program. EVA releases more award space to its own members than those of other Star Alliance airlines, such as United and Air Canada. So while you may not see EVA Air award space through your preferred Star Alliance airline, you will find a lot more award space through EVA Air’s Infinity MileageLands program. EVA Air has an incredible business class product so read on to learn more about transferring points to EVA Air and how long it takes for those points to transfer.
Good EVA Air Business Class Award Availability
You can often find Eva Air award availability close to departure and for flights months in advance from major US airports such as San Francisco (SFO), Houston (IAH), and Chicago (ORD). Awards from the US to various destinations in Asia range from 75,000 to 80,000 miles. See examples of some recent EVA Air award searches below.
While business class award availability with EVA Air is an advantage in the current state of limited award space, booking an award ticket through EVA comes with some headaches. I’ll be covering some of those painpoints in a series of posts with today’s focus on how long it takes to transfer points to EVA Air. With these insights, you can approach booking an EVA Air award ticket the right way and avoid frustration.
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands Transfer Partners
Before covering how long it takes to transfer points to EVA Air, I want to review who the EVA Air Infinity MileageLands transfer partners are in the US. The two transfer partners are Citibank’s ThankYou Points program and Capital One Miles.
Citibank ThankYou Points can be earned with the Citi Premier Card. ThankYou Points transfer to EVA Air at a ratio of 1:1, meaning each ThankYou point converts to 1 mile that you can redeem for your EVA Air award flight.
Capital One Miles can be earned through the various “Venture” rewards cards offered by Capital One. Capital One miles transfer to EVA Air at a ratio of 2:1.5, meaning you only get 1.5 miles in your EVA Air account for every 2 you transfer from Capital One.
Citibank ThankYou points are the better deal if you are looking to book an EVA Air award and have points in the program (as opposed to just Capital One).
How Long Do Transfers Take?
While looking for how long it takes to transfer points to EVA Air, I couldn’t find many recent data points and wanted to share my experience.
In July 2023, I transferred Citi ThankYou points to EVA Air. I initiated my transfer at 6 PM on a Thursday (US Central Time). The points did not arrive in my account until Monday at 6 AM (US Central Time). This resulted in a transfer time of 3.5 days. Of course, individual results may vary, but based on scouring the web, it seems that EVA may not have a fully automated integration with the Citi and Capital One. Instead, it seems someone from EVA may be getting involved manually somewhere along the way before the points post to your Infinity MileageLands account.
Assuming this is the case, I would anticipate a minimum of 2 business days for points to transfer to EVA Air. If you initiate the transfer over a weekend, you should not count that as part of the two business days. Keep in mind the business days are based on when you initiated the points transfer in Taipei time, not in your local time zone.
In my instance, I initiated my transfer on a Friday morning in Taipei (Thursday 6PM Central Time in the US), so I only fulfilled one business day before the weekend started in Taipei. Monday morning in the US is when my points transfer cleared, which is Monday evening in Taipei (end of the second business day). So, while I can’t guarantee exactly how long your transfer will take, I anticipate two days minimum, not including the weekends.
For those used to transferring points to other airlines, this probably seems like a long transfer window. Many airlines and mileage programs are able to receive points instantly or within a few hours from credit card rewards programs.
Transferring points to EVA Air takes longer than you may anticipate, which is important to be aware of. Typically people transfer points to airlines when they have available award space identified for a desired flight and immediately book it. Any delay in transferring points or getting the ticket booked could result in the award availability being taken by someone else.
EVA Air Points Transfers Take Too Long – What Now?
Given that EVA Air points can take days to transfer over from your credit card rewards program, I would use a different thought process to booking EVA Air award tickets.
Instead of searching for EVA Air award availability for a specific day of travel and hoping the points transfer in time to book it, make a general use case transfer instead. Look at EVA Air award availability for a place you are interested in flying to and see if there are multiple days of award space that you could book (ideally over different months). This would indicate that EVA Air tends to release a good amount of award space on this route, and you have multiple award flights you could book. If this is the case, I would feel comfortable that not all award inventory would disappear during the time it takes to transfer points.
On the other hand, if I only saw one award flight for one specific date, I would not risk transferring points as the award availability could easily disappear.
If all else fails, Eva Air does have an award waitlisting process and is good about clearing them as departure nears. I will share my waitlisting experience in another post. If you have the flexibility for last-minute travel, you could also consider this option.
Pilot Debrief
EVA Air has good award availability to Asia at a time when award availability is difficult to come by. With that being said, EVA Air’s Infinity MileageLands program comes with some pain points to be aware (please read more about the booking process here)
The first pain point is that I would anticipate transfers from Citi ThankYou points and Capital One to EVA Air to take a minimum of 2 business days. In my experience, the points transfer took 3.5 days over a weekend timeframe.
While this transfer time is longer than the norm, if you view transferring points to EVA from the lens of having a general use case in mind rather than a specific date/flight, I think you can get a ton of value from this program. EVA Air has a top notch product and redeeming for a long haul flight in business class is a great way to utilize your Citi ThankYou Points or Capital One miles.
