One thing I often forget about writing a points, miles, and travel blog is what it’s like to not thing about miles all day long. I’ve long forgotten the early days of trying to navigate the world of miles and points. Because of this I often forget that your average person probably doesn’t think too much about using miles. In fact, I’d venture to guess the average person gets terrible value from their points.
Thankfully, today a reader (ok fine, a family member) reached out and asked how I use my American Express Membership Rewards points. I loved the question because it reminded me of a whole slew of topics that I can now write about! So, than you for the question!
How To Earn American Express Membership Rewards Points
Don’t worry, I won’t waste too much time on this, but you can’t spend points you don’t have, right? For starters, to earn Membership Rewards points you must have a card that allows for that. Surprisingly, of all the (personal) cards that American Express offers only a few that earn Membership Rewards points. Those cards are as follows:
- Platinum Card From American Express (Charge Card)
- Premier Rewards Gold Card From American Express (Charge Card)
- Gold Card From American Express (Charge Card)
- Green Card From American Express (Charge Card)
- Amex EveryDay Cards (Standard and Preferred)
- Blue From American Express
You can also find the listing here (not a referral link).
Each card listed above has a slightly different earning structure. Some earn 1X MR points on all purchases while others earn up to 5X points on airfare and pre-paid hotels. It’s best to compare all cards and considering your spending habits before picking a card. The Platinum Card is great for a frequent traveler, but not so great for someone who buys one or two plane tickets a year.
As you pay for purchases with a qualifying card American Express automatically awards MR points to your linked Membership Rewards account. Additionally, you can earn bonus MR points through Amex Offers, Sign-Up Bonuses, and Referrals (anyone want to help me out?).
What Can You Get With Membership Rewards Points?
Well, a whole lot of stuff actually. According to the Membership Rewards website you use MR points the following ways:
As you can see, you can use points to pay for merchandise through Amex partners (Amazon, Expedia, etc.), redeem points for gift cards, use points to offset charges, book travel with points (essentially the same as the previous option), transfer points, or use points to buy merchandise through the Amex shopping portal.
Only a single one of those options actually provides good value. The breakdown of each option is as follows:
- Book Travel – $0.01/point
- Redeem for Gift Cards – $0.01/point
- Pay with Points at Checkout – $0.008/point
- Cover Your Card Charges – $0.006/point
- Go Shopping – $0.005/point
As you can see your best bets here are to use points to book travel or to redeem points for gift cards. The other options represent absolutely terrible value. Except, those first two options represent terrible value as well!
If you really want to maximize your Membership Rewards points then your best bet is to Transfer Points to qualifying transfer partners.
American Express Membership Rewards Transfer Partners
Currently American Express maintains 16 airline transfer partners and 3 hotel transfer partners. The current list of airline transfer partners is as follows:
- Aeromexico Club Premier – 1:1.6 transfer ratio
- Air Canada Aeroplan – 1:1
- AirFrance KLM Flying Blue – 1:1
- Alitalia MilleMiglia – 1:1
- All Nippon Airways Mileage Club – 1:1
- Asia Miles – 1:1
- British Airways Executive Club – 1:1
- Delta Air Lines SkyMiles – 1:1
- El Al Frequent Flyer Club – 1,000:20
- Emirates Skyward Miles – 1:1
- Etihad Guest – 1:1
- Hawaiian Airlines Hawaiian Miles – 1:1
- Iberia Plus – 1:1
- JetBlue TrueBlue – 250:200
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer – 1:1
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club – 1:1
Hotel partners are as follows:
- Hilton Honors – 1:2
- IHG Choice Privileges – 1:1
- Starwood Preferred Guest – 1,000:333
Note: Transfer ratios are 1 MR point to the transfer currency. So, 1,000 MR points -> 333 SPG points.
As you can see there are a lot of options to chose from. Additionally, it’s hard to say exactly which transfer partners are the most valuable since that will vary widely by each individual. However, I don’t think anyone could go wrong transferring points to Asia Miles as there are so many partners to choose from. By banking MR points in the Asia Miles you gain the ability to book award flights with another 27 airlines!
How Do I Use American Express Membership Rewards Points?
While that’s all well and good, the question specifically was how I use MR points. For me, I transfer MR points to one of two programs only. I’ll either transfer points to my Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer account or my British Airways Executive Club account.
Also, I only do this if I have a specific redemption in mind. If I’m not ready to think about booking something I’ll keep my points in the MR program because once you move them to a transfer partner you can’t bring them back.
Transferring MR Points To The Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Program
So, I usually transfer my MR points to the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program when I’m trying to book Singapore Airlines Suites Class. That flight is hard to come by, but when Saver Space becomes available it only costs 72,000 KrisFlyer (72,000 MR points) and a few dollars to go from New York to Frankfurt.
That flight typically costs $6,495 so in that case you’re getting about $0.09/point of value! That’s a 900% improvement over buying gift cards!
I also love transferring points to the KrisFlyer program because I can also transfer Citi ThankYou points and Chase Ultimate Rewards points to my same account. This makes it incredibly easy to pool enough points for an awesome redemption.
The only thing to consider when transferring points to the KrisFlyer program is that they do expire. KrisFlyer points expire after 3 years regardless of account activity. So if you end up transferring points to the KrisFlyer program you have 3 years to use them. Hopefully at least one Singapore Suites seat opens up during that time!
Transferring MR Points To The British Airways Executive Club Program
I also transfer MR points to my BA Executive Club account with some regularity. However, I do this for a very different reason from the KrisFlyer program. With KrisFlyer I’m trying to find the most lavish way to cover a long distance. With BA Executive Club I try to find the cheapest way to cover a short distance.
I can use BA Avios to book domestic American Airlines flights if I really need to get somewhere and cash prices are too high. For example, I often fly between Chicago and my hometown of St. Louis. Cash prices on those flights can often easily top $200 each way. While I love going home to see my family I don’t necessarily enjoy spending $400 to do so efficiently. For that reason I’ll often use BA Avios to pay for the flight.
When using Avios to pay for short-haul American flights I usually only get about $0.02 to $0.03 of value from that redemption. For that reason I usually only try to transfer MR points to the BA program when a bonus is offered. Occasionally, Amex will offer a 25% bonus on points transferred to the BA Executive Club program. By taking advantage of this bonus I increase my per point redemption value by 25% to about $0.035/point. Again, that’s not as great as $0.09/point, but it’s still much better than just $0.006/point!
Final Thoughts
I hope you found this helpful. I often forget how overwhelming all of this information is when you start earning and using points and miles. Sadly, when I opened my first Membership Rewards credit card I earned 50,000 Membership Rewards points which I then used to buy headphones. That purchase represented terrible overall value, but I didn’t know what else to do with my points and it felt wasteful to let them sit there.
I know many people other than myself have also made this mistake and it honestly upsets me when I hear it today. Whenever someone tells me they used points to pay for merchandise or credit cards I have to fight very hard not to scold them. Hopefully this post will help you avoid making the same mistake.
Lastly, thank you sincerely for the question. Questions like yours help me understand better what to write about. So to that end, if any of you reading have other questions about miles and points please feel free to ask in the comments below. Thank You!
