Getting the Most Out of Your American Express Rewards Points

Exchanging American Express Membership Rewards points for British Airways Avios can help you score a cheap international flight. Photo: Mark Harkin

When it comes to earning points and miles, it often pays to focus on flexible, versatile points that can be redeemed in a number of ways. Fortunately, American Express offers its own flexible rewards program that allows consumers to earn travel rewards without being tied down to a specific loyalty program or travel currency. Here’s how it works.

How to Earn Membership Rewards Points

One of the fastest ways to build a stash of Membership Rewards points is to sign up for an American Express credit card that earns these rewards and offers a welcome bonus. One example is The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, which has a welcome offer of 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on qualifying purchases within your first 3 months of Card Membership. Here are a few of the most important card details:

The Business Platinum Card® from American Express

• Earn 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on qualifying purchases within your first 3 months of Card Membership.
• Get 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on amextravel.com.
• Get 50% more Membership Rewards® points. That's an extra half point per dollar, on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more. You can get up to 1 million additional points per year.
• Enroll to get up to $200 in statement credits annually by getting up to $100 semi-annually for U.S. purchases with Dell. Terms apply.
• 35% Airline Bonus: Use Membership Rewards® Pay with Points for all or part of a flight with your selected qualifying airline, and you can get 35% of the points back, up to 500,000 bonus points per calendar year when you book on amextravel.com.
• Terms Apply
• See Rates & Fees

Using Membership Rewards to Save On Travel

The American Express Membership Rewards program offers a wide range of options when it comes to saving on travel. You can do this one of two ways – either save on travel by booking directly through the American Express website or by transferring your points to one of your favorite hotel or airline loyalty programs. If you opt for the first option, you will experience the following benefits:

• Using the American Express travel portal is easy: Whether you’re booking flights or hotel stays, booking through the American Express travel portal is as easy as booking with any online search engine.
• There are no black-out dates: When booking travel directly through the American Express travel portal, you don’t have to worry about finagling your schedule to find award availability. Since it works like a regular travel portal, there are no black-out dates or capacity controls.

Booking travel directly with American Express can be both convenient and lucrative. However, some of the most valuable redemption options become possible if you are willing to transfer your points out of the program and into one of the frequent flyer or hotel loyalty programs they partner with. Your current options consist of these popular programs and corresponding transfer ratios:

If you already belong to any of these programs, you know just how lucrative these options may be. The value will depend heavily on how you ultimately choose to redeem your points, but the following options illustrate just how valuable your points could become after you transfer them:

• British Airways: Because the British Airways Avios program is distance-based, you can book flights that are 1,150 miles or shorter for just 7,500 Avios per leg. So for example, that means a flight from Chicago to Washington D.C. would only cost you 15,000 Avois round-trip!
• Starwood Preferred Guest: Even though the transfer ratio isn’t stellar, your Starwood Points can still go far. Since a Category 1 Starwood property costs only 3,000 points per night on weeknights, you could easily parlay 10,000 Starpoints into three free nights.
• Hawaiian Airlines: With a 1:1 transfer ratio from Membership Rewards, Hawaiian Airlines miles are always a good choice. Book a one-way coach SuperSaver award from North America to Hawaii for only 20,000 miles.

Reward Options If You Don’t Like to Travel

There are plenty of ways to redeem Membership Rewards points that don’t require you to jump out of your comfort zone or leave your home state.

Let’s say you signed up for The Business Platinum Card® from American Express  and met all of the requirements in order to earn the Membership Rewards points. First of all, you have the option to redeem your Membership Rewards points for around 0.6 cents per point. Not great, but nothing to sneeze at either.

If you want to extract more value for your Membership Rewards points, you also have the option to redeem them for gift cards at a normal rate of one cent per point. For example, you can currently score a $25 Home Depot Gift card for 2,500 points, a $25 Staples gift card for 2,500 points, and a $50 Benihana gift card for 5,000 points. Watch out though; you can’t score all gift cards for a penny a point. For example, a $25 American Express gift card will run you 5,000 points, which is not a good value at all.

Beyond gift cards and statement credits, you can also use your Membership Rewards points for merchandise and “shop with points” at online retailers like Amazon.com. These options will never be particularly valuable, however, which is why you should only use them if you can’t think of any other way to redeem your points.

Best Ways to Use American Express Membership Rewards Points

No matter what, there is no “wrong way” or “right way” to redeem your credit card rewards points. It all depends on your personal goals and what you hope to achieve. If you love a good gift card or want to redeem your points for statement credits, there is certainly no shame in doing so. However, your most valuable redemptions will always come in the form of travel rewards, whether that means booking travel directly through the American Express website or transferring your points to a partner hotel or airline program.

So do your homework and make sure you have an idea of how you might redeem your points before you sign up. And don’t forget – the best ways to use Membership Rewards are only possible if you use credit card rewards responsibly. It is never rewarding to end up in debt.