FAQ - Different ways to use American Express MR Points

Faqs

Different ways to use American Express MR Points

Parts of this series:

While many folks in this sub spends hours figuring how what card to use where to earn the most points/miles, the more complicated part of this hobby is the redemption of those points. Almost every day, we see people struggle with trying to use the points they've earned, and getting frustrated in the process; or they redeem the points in a way that others consider sub-optimal.

I've decided to put together this short guide describing some of the ways you can use the American Express Membership Rewards points. I hope this can help educate folks in starting to explore other ways they can use those points.

###MR point earning cards not eligible for transfer###

The following cards can earn AmEx MR Points, but are not eligible for transfer to airline/hotel partners: (thanks to u/screaming_infidel)

Blue for Business® Credit Card
Blue for Students®
Blue from American Express
Business Management Account
Gold Optima® Card
Optima® Credit Card
Optima® Platinum Card®
Platinum Business Credit Card
The Platinum Credit Card
ZYNC® Card

###Under 1 cent per point value

These redemption options can be good is you have a small amount of MR points, and it doesn't look like you will earn more for a major redemption.

Shop with Points On the AmEx website, you can purchase goods directly using points. An Apple Macbook will cost you 320,000 points, valuing the points somewhere around 0.5 cents/point or less.

Use Points as Statement Credit

You can directly use MR points to pay off charges on your card. The value is around 0.6 cents per point, so you will get less than 1 cent per point when you use points this way.

Transfer Points to Plenti

Plenti is the new Retail loyalty program AmEx is pushing along with a number of large retailers. AmEx MR points can be converted to Plenti points at a 5:4 ratio, so 500 MR points convert to 400 Plenti points. Plenti points can be used at various retailers for discounts.

###1 cent per point value

These redemption options can be good is you have a small amount of MR points, and it doesn't look like you will earn more for a major redemption. Or, when you feel that 1 cent/point is a good enough value for your purpose.

Using Points for Gift Cards

You can order various gift card from the AmEx MR website at the value of 1 cent/point. For example, a $100 AirBnB GC costs 10,000 MR Points. There are GCs for shopping, Dining, Travel, Retail, Theme parks, and much more.

Pay with Points for Taxi/Uber

You can pay your Taxi or Uber using your MR Points at the value of 1 cent/point.

Pay with Points on AmEx Travel

You can search for flights/cars/hotels/vacations/cruises on the AmEx travel website. You can choose to pay some or all or your travel with points at the value of approximately 1 cent/point. A quick look shows that the prices are comparable as shopping directly with the airlines, so AmEx travel is just a online travel agent, except you can pay part of the price with points.

The advantage with purchasing tickets through AmEx portal is twofold: You can get a seat as long a ticket is being sold, and you can earn additional frequent flyer miles for the ticket. For all intents and purposes, you are buying a ticket using your points as cash.

###Greater than 1 cent per point

Transfer Points to Frequent Customer Programs

This is where the good stuff happens with plenty of caveats. Note that these redemptions will likely require a lot of MR points, and quite a bit of planning and research.

AmEx partners with a number of airlines and hotels, and you can transfer MR points into the program for those airlines/hotels. When you have miles in an airline program, you now redeem the miles using the airlines price. This can lead to some really good values, but also a lot of limitations. You have to study various airline award charts to find the best values, and then you also need to find availability of awards.

For Example: (The following two examples are real, search done on 7/19/2015 using Delta.com)

1. Let say on Aug 26, 2015, I want to fly on Delta from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale. Delta sells a ticket for $200.60 (DL 2339, DL 1589), but if I were to use Delta SkyMiles, it would cost me only 12,500 SkyMiles + $5.60. My 12,500 MR points is now worth 1.56 cents/point. The caveat here is that is you want to fly on Aug 23, it would cost you 20,000 MR Points for that same flight.

2. For an outlier example, I now want to fly from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand on Aug 18th in Business Class. To get this award, I will transfer MR points to Delta, then use Delta to book an award on Virgin Australia in their nice lie-flat business seat. This redemption will cost me 80,000 MR points + $28.60, which is a lot. But that ticket, if you buy it from Delta, would cost $4070. This means that the MR points now have a nominal value of 5.05 cents/point. The caveat here is that the 80k seats is not around very often. Were you to try Aug 19th, it would cost you 215,000 MR points.

###Transfer Partners

The following is a list of airline transfer partners for the AmEx MR points program:

The Ratio (1000:1500) means 1000 MR points to 1500 Program points/miles.

Delta SkyMiles (1000:1000)
Aero Mexico Club Premier (1000:1000)
Air Canada aeroplan (1000:1000)
Air France/KLM Flying Blue (1000:1000)
Aitalia Mille Miglia (1000:1000)
ANA (1000:1000)
Asia Miles (1000:1000)
British Airways Avios (1000:1000, soon to be 1000:800)
El Al (1000:20)
Emirates (1000:1000)
Hawaiian Airlines (1000:1000)
Iberia (1000:1000, soon to be 1000:800)
jetBlue (1000:800)
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (1000:1000)
Virgin American Elevate (1000:500)
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (1000:1000)

The following is a list of hotel transfer partners for the AmEx MR points program:

Best Western Rewards (1000:1000)
Choice Privileges (1000:1000)
Hilton HHonors (1000:1500)
Starwood Preferred Guest (1000:333)

Note: There are literally thousands of possibilities to redeem MR points using a partner transfer. It is beyond the scope of a post to list out all the Best deals.

Posted Jul 20, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC · edited

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