Uses for Amex MR points
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I currently have 217,000 Amex Membership Rewards (MR) points. These points were the first MR that I’ve earned, so I really need to figure out what to do with these points! I know that many people are in the same boat as me with the large Amex sign up bonuses that have been out in the last year, so I’m hoping this post will be helpful beyond my specific situation as well.
Why do I have this many Amex MR?
Generally, I recommend signing up for cards that earn points that you have a particular use for in mind. In this case, I repeatedly did not follow this advice! Last year, the Amex Platinum card had a 100k points offer that I jumped on. Now it has an even better offer. Then, last month I signed up for the Amex Gold card to get a 75k point bonus (a longer explanation of why I wanted this card is here). Given the pandemic I’ve had an excess of points to pay for travel and have just let these points sit. Part of the reason I leaned towards other points is because I knew what to use them for - since I wasn’t sure with my MR, I just let them sit. I’d like to stop doing that and find some good uses for them!
What I’m looking for
There are plenty of blog posts out there that show great uses for Amex points. These are typically for international business class flights because you can get exceptional value with your MR to pay for these flights. They also have great deals for booking domestic flights using international carriers. I’d recommend looking into these redemption options to see if they’re a good deal for you. Here’s why I’m not focused on those redemptions at this time:
I don’t plan on very many international flights over the next few years. If I do, I’ll probably have a baby with me so don’t think I’ll be focused on business class.
I have points already in domestic carrier programs so I’d love ways to top up those balances with my transferable currencies rather than have to transfer the full points cost of those flights. If I get to the point where I get my point balances closer to zero, I will look into some of the domestic sweet spots in the blog post linked above.
So in this post, I’m going to talk about ways to use MRs that may not be talked about as much in other points and miles blogs. This is because they are usually not the best deal to be found, but I’ve gotten a lot of value in “medium good” deals and want to share how I find them.
The Simple Option
Points can be redeemed for one cent each when booking travel through Amex Travel. I would classify this as a “last resort” type of option because one cent per point is really the floor of the value you should be getting from points, especially a valuable transferable currency like this one. However, I have used points before when booking a hotel through the Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts or The Hotel Collection programs. Not the best deal around, but these programs offer extra benefits that help to boost the value of your points, and it is a way to use points to pay for hotels that may not otherwise be accessible to you on points (because they are independent or you don’t hold the currency needed to pay for them).
If you find yourself wanting to take advantage of this option, it would also be worth looking into the Schwab Amex Platinum card. With this card, you can cash out your points into an eligible Schwab investor account at a rate of 1.25 cents per point. This is a pretty good option for people who prefer cash back to travel, although there may be simpler cards out there for that (see: Chase Freedom Unlimited, Citi Double Cash).
Transfer Points
The rest of the deals I will focus on involve transferring points to a hotel or airline program. Here are instructions to transfer your points if you haven’t done that before. This is where you’re likely to get the best deal. I tend to consider any value greater than one cent per point a pretty good deal. Keep in mind that with the Schwab card you can cash out for 1.25 cents per point, so perhaps that might be your floor. My method for finding deals in each section was pretty non-scientific. In each case I picked about three routes or hotels that I could reasonably see myself flying or staying at in the next year. To find your own value, you will want to do the same for yourself. One thing to note is that if you transfer your points to a domestic airline, you will be charged an excise tax of .06 cents per point (up to $99). This is factored into my calculations.
How I determine “cents per point”
To figure out if something is a good deal or not, I use cents per point. Here’s how I would calculate that:
Figure out the points price for a specific route
Figure out the cash price for the same route
Multiply the points price by .06 (only applicable for cases where the excise tax will be charged)
Divide the cash price by the result of step three
Move the decimal point so you are looking at the value as cents
Determine if this meets your threshold for a good deal (mine is above one cent per point)
I’ll tell you the cents per point of the options I found, but decided to skip the math. If you’d like to see how I got there, let me know!
Domestic Flights via Delta
Amex MR transfer to Delta at a ratio of 1:1. The excise tax does apply. Here are the routes I checked, based on my travel habits. You’ll note that the dates are sort of random, that’s because I used the calendar view on the Delta website to find the best deal in the timeframe that I was looking at. I also included WAS as the departure city in my searches - this allows me to search for the best deal from the Washington, DC area. Since the DC area has three airports, you’ll note that my home departure city varies. This is fine as I would be willing to travel to any of the airports for a good deal, although I definitely have a preference for a specific airport if all else is equal.
Route: DCA > MSP
Points Cost: 11,000 points
Cash Price: $171
CPP: 1.55 cents per point
Evaluation: Good deal!Route: BWI > SLC
Points Cost: 14,000 points
Cash Price: $207
CPP: 1.47 cents per point
Evaluation: Good deal!Route: BWI > SFO
Points Cost: 26,000 points
Cash Price: $426
CPP: 1.63 cents per point
Evaluation: Good deal!
Overall I found some great value in the Delta searches I did. I found this pretty surprising because I thought Delta Skymiles had a reputation of not being very valuable, but I’d be happy to transfer my points for any of these uses. One thing I realized is that one of each of these city pairs is a Delta hub. If you don’t travel out of or to Delta hubs as often as I do, you may have worse luck than I did.
Domestic Flights via Jet Blue
Amex points transfer to MR at a ratio of 1:.8. The excise tax also applies. Since Jet Blue is a smaller airline, you will only want to look into this if they serve your airport or if you are willing to relocate to a Jet Blue focus airport.
Route: DCA > BOS
Points Cost: 5700 points
Cash Price: $94
CPP: 1.28 cents per point
Evaluation: Okay deal
2. Route: DCA > FLL
Points Cost: 12,400 points
Cash Price: $185
CPP: 1.18 cents per point
Evaluation: Okay deal
3. Route: DCA > SJU
Points cost: 16,600 points
Cash Price: $244
CPP: 1.16 cents per point
Evaluation: Okay deal
There are very few nonstop destinations that Jet Blue flies to from the Washington, DC area and most of them don’t fit my travel patterns very well. Out of those that I thought were appealing, the cents per point value was okay, but not great. If one of these flights fit my travel patterns, I would consider it because I think Jet Blue is a very nice airline to fly on, but otherwise I wouldn’t go out of my way for these redemptions given that I could get a better deal by cashing out my points through Schwab.
Domestic Hotels via Hilton
Amex MR points transfer to Hilton at a ratio of 1:2. I looked into three Hilton hotels (Motto by Hilton Philadelphia Rittenhouse Square, Hampton Inn Mebane, and Hampton Inn & Suites Richmond Short Pump). All three were terrible deals with a cents per point value of below one cent per point. Based on this, I would not recommend transferring your MR to Hilton. An exception may be when Amex offers a transfer bonus if you have a specific redemption in mind. If you want Hilton points, you might consider looking into the Amex Hilton Aspire card or finding deals when paying with cash. A better deal would even be booking Hilton hotels through the Amex travel portal, although then you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of status benefits if you have status.
Domestic Hotels via Marriott
Amex MR points transfer to Marriott at a rate of 2:3. Similar to Hilton, I didn’t have much luck with the hotels I looked into (Fairfield Inn and Suites Mebane, SpringHill Suites Madison, Courtyard Virginia Beach). All three hotels were not even providing one cent per point. There are many Marriott specific cards that you may want to look into if you want Marriott points (Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, Marriott Bonvoy Business, Marriott Bonvoy Boundless). This isn’t to say that good deals with Marriott can’t be found, it’s just that they seem to be more difficult to find than some other programs.
Next Steps
After reviewing these options, I am most likely to redeem my Amex MR for domestic flights on Delta. I really like Delta as an airline and they have some convenient routes out of my location, so I feel good about this! I will probably reserve quite a few points for my next international trip as well, as that is where the value of Amex points really shines.
Let me know in the comments - was this helpful? Do you have points you don’t know what to do with?
