HeyMax restores direct points transfers to Qatar Privilege Club

In April 2025, HeyMax announced a major overhaul of its Max Miles loyalty programme, part of an ambitious road map to grow its ecosystem to 50 airline and hotel partners by 2027.

While that sounds promising and all, the bad news was that there’d be some friction during the transition period— namely, an increase in the minimum conversion requirement to 10,000 Max Miles, and the suspension of instant points transfers.

Well, three months later, we’re now seeing the first fruits of this transformation, with HeyMax restoring direct points conversions to Qatar Privilege Club —with increments as small as 1 mile. 

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HeyMax restores direct points transfers to Qatar Privilege Club

HeyMax has restored direct points transfers between Max Miles and Qatar Privilege Club Avios, with effect from 10 July 2025. 

• Transfers are at a 1:1 ratio
• A minimum conversion of 1,000 Max Miles is required, but subsequent conversions can be as little as 1 Max Mile
• All conversions are free of charge
• While HeyMax quotes a lead time of one business day, transfers should be more or less instant in most cases

Conversions can be made via the HeyMax website or app. You will be required to link your Qatar Privilege Club and HeyMax accounts, which cannot be subsequently unlinked.

If you don’t have a Qatar Privilege Club account yet, you can enjoy 4,500 bonus Avios for signing up and booking a Qatar Airways flight using the promo code HEYMAX. Flights must be booked by 31 August 2025 and travel completed by 31 December 2025.

HeyMax users can also earn 0.8 Max Miles per S$1 when booking Qatar Airways flights via HeyMax, on top of whatever miles are awarded from their credit card (think of it like using ShopBack).

And of course, since Qatar Airways, Aer Lingus, British Airways, Finnair and Iberia all share the same loyalty currency, this effectively adds five partners at once. You can convert Avios freely within the ecosystem, through a British Airways “hub” account, at a 1:1 ratio. 

What about HeyMax’s other airline and hotel partners?

HeyMax is still a long way from restoring the pre-April 2025 setup, when converting miles was as simple as visiting an online portal, entering the desired amount, and seeing them instantly appear in your account. 

That’s basically the Direct Transfer model which Qatar Privilege Club has now reverted to, which is far superior with its instant conversions and 1,000 Max Mile minimums. 

Unfortunately, the rest of HeyMax’s 27 airline and hotel partners remain under the Cash For Miles model, which is cumbersome to say the least.

1. Fill out a manual redemption form
2. Wait for a virtual Visa debit card to be issued (up to five business days)
3. Visit the airline/hotel’s official portal to purchase miles/points
4. Wait for the miles/points to be credited (may be instant, but could take a few days)

The lack of instant conversions hampers your ability to act quickly should the award seats you want suddenly become available. Moreover, there is a hefty minimum conversion of 10,000 Max Miles, and not every airline and hotel programme has a seamless process for members to purchase miles or points.

With some, like Air Canada Aeroplan, it’s a very straightforward task that can be done completely online. With others, like Royal Orchid Plus, the process is more clunky, requiring members to call up customer service or submit a manual form. Fortunately, most of the partners you’d want to redeem miles for — like Air Canada Aeroplan, British Airways Executive Club, Flying Blue  — do make miles purchases very simple.

What can you do with Max Miles?

HeyMax has a total of 28 airline and hotel loyalty programmes, all of which offer 1:1 conversions without any fees.

Max Miles can also be used to pay for air tickets at a rate of 1.8 cents each via FlyAnywhere, with a minimum redemption of 1,000 Max Miles. All you need to do is submit a recent air ticket on any airline, to anywhere in the world.

Do note that after several months of allowing partial redemptions, FlyAnywhere now requires full redemptions once again (i.e. you must redeem sufficient Max Miles to cover the entire value of the ticket). On the bright side, it now allows you to redeem the cash portion of your award flight booking- something I’ll cover in a separate post. 

This effectively sets a baseline value for Max Miles, which should rule out some airline and hotel transfer partners.

Conclusion

HeyMax has restored direct points transfers to Qatar Privilege Club, which allows for 1:1 conversions with a minimum increment of just 1 mile after the first 1,000 miles.

This is a huge improvement over the current Cash For Miles model, and hopefully HeyMax isn’t too tardy with the migration of the remaining partners.