The bonus is real.
The deal isn't.
Bonus season means banks dressing up mediocre transfers in impressive-sounding numbers. 70%. 100%. 30%. This week, three live bonuses are doing exactly that — and families moving four tickets' worth of points have the most to lose.
IHG uses fully dynamic pricing now — no award chart — so "good" IHG redemptions are harder to find and the program won't tell you in advance what a stay will cost. The tell that the program knows its points aren't worth much: IHG runs buy-points sales at 0.5¢ constantly. If they valued their own points higher, they wouldn't sell them that cheap. Your Chase points are flexible, transferable to Aeroplan, Flying Blue, Hyatt, Singapore, and a dozen other programs. Don't lock them here.
The deadline pressure here is doing some of the work — but even without urgency, the math doesn't hold. Choice Privileges points are already a weak currency — earned mostly through mid-tier hotel stays and worth a fraction of flexible bank points. Doubling them gets you to Flying Blue at a ratio that still destroys value. If you have a specific Flying Blue redemption in mind and actually have a pile of Choice points you can't use any other way, the calculus changes slightly — but "100%" is not a reason to move Chase, Amex, or Citi points into Choice just to re-transfer them here.
The distinction here matters: this isn't a bad program, it's a mismatched one. Capital One miles transfer to JAL at a nearly 1:1 ratio with this bonus, which is genuinely attractive if you have a premium cabin redemption locked. But JAL's partner award availability for economy is capacity-controlled and historically limited — and the recent wave of both Capital One and Bilt transfer bonuses to JAL has made that availability worse, not better. Families need 4 seats. JAL partner economy often can't supply them.
If you're a family building a business class trip to Japan for two adults — this changes. But that's a different readership. For the family trying to fly four seats in economy on a reasonable budget, there are better programs for the same Capital One miles.
If you saw the 70% headline and almost moved points: you just saved yourself from converting $20 of Chase value into $8.50 of IHG value. Log into Chase Ultimate Rewards and confirm your balance is sitting still. Aeroplan and Flying Blue are there when a real deal shows up.
The ratio is legitimately good. If you have a Japan trip on the horizon and 2 adults traveling business class, this changes. Log into jal.co.jp and search your route and dates. If you see 4 economy saver seats on your exact dates, that's a conversation worth having. If you don't, the analysis above holds.
Flying Blue is a genuinely useful family program — Air France/KLM economy to Europe with low taxes when you find the right dates. What's missing right now is a transfer bonus into Flying Blue at a ratio that makes sense. Go to airfrance.us and run a search for 4 economy seats on your target summer dates. If saver space exists, you already know the 1:1 transfer math from Chase or Citi. No bonus needed if the availability is there and the price is right.