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Accor Live Limitless (ALL) and ITA Airways Volare recently launched a new partnership allowing two-way point conversion. While the exchange rates are not the same in either direction, this new ability can be very useful if you are looking to boost your points balance in one program using points from the other.
Although this is the first partnership of its kind we've seen from ITA Volare, Accor has similar partnerships with Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Qantas Frequent Flyer, several other airlines, and even Eurostar.
Accor ALL to ITA Airways Volare Transfer Ratio
Transfer ratios are not symmetrical each way. Points transfer between the Accor Live Limitless and ITA Volare programs at the following ratios:
- Accor ALL point transfers to ITA Volare: Transfer 4,000 Accor ALL points to receive 5,000 ITA Volare points.
- ITA Volare point transfers to Accor ALL: Transfer 4,000 ITA Volare points for 1,000 Accor ALL points.
Transfering ITA Volare Points to Accor ALL points
Transferring points from Volare to Accor is not a great idea since you would lose substantial value. Although Volare does not publish an award chart, it does give an example of the minimum pricing in points its awards start.
Meanwhile, Accor ALL points have a fixed value. You can redeem 2,000 ALL points for €40 off your hotel stay. This gives Accor ALL points a value of €20 per 1,000 points — equivalent to 2 euro cents.
Looking at one-way business class travel, you can quickly work out how many euro cents worth of value you would get if you transferred the maximum amount points from a fare bucket to Accor:
- Domestic: Converting 20,000 Volare points into 5,000 Accor points would yield €100 of value.
- International: Converting 32,000 Volare points into 8,000 Accor points would yield €160 of value.
- Intercontinental: Conveting 196,000 Volare points to 49,000 Accor points would yield €980 of value.
Even a cursory look at the figures and you can see that the lower-end transfers are poor value. In addition, the higher end is exceptionally poor value. Using 196,000 Volare points for a one-way intercontinental business class award (or round-trip Media award) will almost certainly yield far more value than the €980 (~$1,052) you would get by transferring them to Accor.
This transfer can only make sense if you have orphaned Volare points you are not planning to use. In that case, transferring them to Accor ALL may be your best option.
Transfering Accor ALL Points to ITA Volare
Wondering if it makes sense for transfer Accor ALL points to Volare? Well, it depends on what kind of award you'd book with your Volare points. For instance, if you want to book a domestic round trip with Volare, you could be on to a winner. At the cheaper end of the pricing range, domestic round-trip awards will set you back as few as 4,600 points.
At an exchange rate of 4,000 Accor points to 5,000 Volare points, you are trading €80 (~$85) of value for enough points to book this round trip. If you are wondering how much a domestic round trip would cost in cash, the answer is not much. The cheapest economy fares from Milan to Naples will set you back $115.70 round trip.
In this case, it makes sense to exchange around $85 of value for about $116 worth of value. However, not all redemptions will make as much sense. Make sure you're getting more than 1.6 euro cents per Volare point before transferring your Accor ALL points to Volare.
Our Take
More flexibility and ways to use your points is always welcome news. This is still true even if the value is nothing to write home about. Knowing you have the ability to transfer these points is a great little ace up your sleeve, even though you may not want to utilize it often.
The ability to transfer points between Accor and ITA adds another layer of potential value to both programs. In addition, it gives you another way to get out of a bind if you are a few points short of redemption.
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