What can you do with American Express Membership Rewards points?

What can you do with American Express Membership Rewards points? Who are the best UK Membership Rewards partners?

Today I wanted to do one of our occasional ‘first principles’ articles where we look at a topic that is regularly discussed on Head for Points but which, if you are a new reader, you might not fully understand.

This is very much an article for beginners who have not yet, or who have only just, applied for their first Membership Rewards-earning card.  This is usually American Express Preferred Rewards Gold which I regard as the best starter card for a miles and points beginner as I explained here.

Amex Gold comes with a very generous bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points and is free for the first year. You also receive four airport lounge passes per year and 2 x £5 credits per month to spend at Deliveroo.

What are Membership Rewards points?

Membership Rewards points are a global currency used by American Express to reward users of its charge cards and selected credit cards.

It is important to note that the scheme has different partners and different conversion rates in different countries. You may read, for example, that Lufthansa is a Membership Rewards partner, but this is only true if you live in Switzerland.

More commonly, you may read that the conversion rate from A to B is 1:2, when for the UK card it is actually 1:1.

How do I earn Membership Rewards points?

You earn Membership Rewards points from American Express Centurion, Platinum, Preferred Rewards Gold, Green and their equivalent Corporate and Small Business credit and charge cards.

There is also the Amex Rewards Credit Card – this is the only ‘free for life’ UK card which earns Membership Rewards points.

The earnings rate is 1 point for every £1 spent on the card.  The exception is the Preferred Rewards Gold card – which earns double points on airline transactions and on foreign spend – and on all cards for American Express Travel transactions, which earn 2 points per £1.

By far the most popular Membership Rewards card is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  This is due to its good sign-up bonus of 20,000 points and the fact that the first year is FREE. The Gold card also has points bonuses for every £5,000 you spend, up to £25,000 per year.

Heavy travellers can also get value from American Express Platinum, despite the £650 fee, because of its strong benefits package. The sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is 50,000 Membership Rewards points.

Our review of Amex Gold is here and our review of Amex Platinum is here.

Are you self employed or a small business owner?

Small business owners may be attracted by the generous sign up offers available for the Business Gold (20,000 points) and Business Platinum (50,000 points) versions. Following a change in 2024, there are no rules relating to who qualifies for the bonus. If you are accepted and you hit the spend target, you get it. No restrictions.

Remember too that Business Gold is FREE for the first year.

Closing your American Express card?

It is important to remember that you must retain an American Express charge or credit card which earns Membership Rewards points to retain your Membership Rewards points.  If you are planning to cancel your Gold, Green or Platinum card to stop paying annual fees, you will need to empty your Membership Rewards account.

For simplicity, it is best to transfer your points before cancelling the card.  Strictly speaking, according to the Membership Rewards terms and conditions here (p20), you have 30 days from the day you cancel the card.

There is an alternative.  Getting the free Amex Rewards Credit Card lets you cancel your fee paying card and keeps your Membership Rewards points alive as I explained here.

Where can I spend Membership Rewards points?

Here are the key links to the American Express website:

• the UK Membership Rewards home page is here
• the UK airline rewards home page is here and
• the UK hotel rewards page is here

Here is a summary of the UK airline rewards and which airline grouping each airline is in.

1 Membership Rewards point gets you:

• 1 Avios (into British Airways, Iberia, Finnair or Qatar Airways)
• 1 Asia Mile (oneworld)
• 1 Delta mile (SkyTeam)
• 1 Etihad mile (no alliance)
• 0.75 Emirates miles (no alliance)
• 1 Flying Blue mile (SkyTeam)
• 1 Qantas Point (oneworld)
• 1 SAS mile (SkyTeam)
• 0.66 Singapore Airlines miles (Star Alliance)
• 1 Virgin Point (SkyTeam)

And here are the hotel rewards with 1 Membership Rewards point getting you:

• 3 Radisson Rewards points
• 2 Hilton Honors points
• 1.5 Mariott Bonvoy points

You can transfer into Club Eurostar at the ratio of 15 Membership Rewards points to 1 Eurostar point.

How do I maximise the value of my Membership Rewards points?

There are other reward options apart from airline, hotel and Eurostar points, such as store gift cards and travel gift vouchers. 

However, in almost all cases, these are based on a simple formula which gets you no more than 0.5p per point redeemed (eg 10,000 points for a £50 voucher).  Some of the easiest ones to use are Amazon and iTunes gift vouchers.

For the truly lazy, you can also redeem your points for a credit against your American Express statement.  This gets you a poor 0.45p per point.

Airline miles provide the best value

In general, you can get FAR more than the gift card level of 0.5p per Membership Rewards point by transferring into an airline programme.  I value airline miles – very conservatively – at 0.8p to 1p each depending on programme and route, but it isn’t hard to beat this.

Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy points are less interesting as transfer options, but still better than taking gift cards:

• I value Hilton Honors points at around 0.33p so that would be 0.66p per Membership Rewards point based on the 1:2 transfer rate

• I value Marriott Bonvoy points at 0.5p, which means you are getting 0.75p per Membership Rewards point based on the 2:3 transfer rate

You can do substantially better than these rates if you need a hotel room on a peak date in a peak city

There is no reason to transfer to Radisson Rewards, since this is now a fixed value programme with each point worth a fixed amount, roughly 0.15p, off your next booking.

When should I transfer my Membership Rewards points?

Unless there is a conversion bonus going on, it makes sense to keep your points in Membership Rewards until you need them. This lets you maximise your flexibility. However, in order to speed up a transfer when you do need one, you can ‘link’ your loyalty programmes in advance.

The ‘link’ process allows Amex to confirm that your loyalty account is correct, and knocks a day or two off the time taken for your first transfer to that programme to be processed. You can do this by going into your Membership Rewards account and doing a dummy transfer for the relevant programme.

Once your accounts are linked, a transfer will usually only take 2-3 days at most. In reality most transfers complete overnight and some partners (Virgin Points, Emirates Skywards, Marriott Bonvoy, Delta SkyMiles, Qantas Frequent Flyer, Avios via Qatar Airways Privilege Club) are usually instant.  I compiled a list of Membership Rewards transfer times with help from Head for Points readers.

Can I transfer to another persons frequent flyer account?

This is a common question – and the answer is ‘No’.  Until recently, the US Membership Rewards scheme let you transfer to an airline or hotel account in any name.  This has never been the case in the UK.

It is possible, if you are transferring to someone with the same surname, it will work with some partners who only verify that the account surnames match.

Historically Nectar and Radisson Rewards transfers did no name matching at all. I don’t know if this is still the case.

British Airways has Household Accounts which would allow you to pool your Avios with those of other people. You can also pay £50 to transfer up to 60,000 Avios to another person. If you use Finnair Plus as an intermediary, you can transfer an unlimited number of Avios to someone else for a flat €10 fee.

Virgin Atlantic lets you pay £10 to transfer any number of points from a Virgin Points account in your name to someone else.

Are there conversion bonuses?

We have not seen any UK Avios conversion bonuses for the last few years.  Etihad, Virgin Atlantic and Singapore Airlines have done ‘unofficial’ transfer bonuses recently, ie ones which are not promoted by Amex directly and are only advertised by the airline.

My understanding is that American Express has been trying to reduce the number of people who redeem for airline miles, as these are substantially more expensive than other options.

There have been modest Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy hotel transfer bonuses in the last couple of years, so they may be making a comeback.

Conclusion

American Express Membership Rewards points can be very valuable.  The key thing is that they offer FLEXIBILITY – you do not need to commit them to an airline or hotel scheme until it is time to redeem.  You can avoid being caught out by scheme devaluations or changes in travel plans.

The big sign-up bonuses on the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (20,000 points) and The Platinum Card (50,000 points) offer an easy way to get your collection going.