How to earn, use, and maximize Amex Membership Rewards points in 2023

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Amex Membership Rewards points are some of the most valuable credit card rewards you can earn because they're flexible — you can redeem them for a wide variety of rewards, including travel, or cash them in for other redemptions like gift cards or statement credits.

Many of the best credit cards, like The Platinum Card® from American Express, the American Express® Gold Card, and The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express earn Membership Rewards (MR) points, and each has different bonus categories and benefits to suit your spending and travel habits.

We're focused here on the rewards and perks that come with each card. These cards won't be worth it if you're paying interest or late fees. When using a credit card, it's important to pay your balance in full each month, make payments on time, and only spend what you can afford to pay.

American Express Membership Rewards Guide

Whether you're just getting started with American Express cards or are looking for new ways to use rewards, here's everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex points.

How to Earn Amex Points

When you open an American Express card, you can often earn a large welcome bonus offer, in addition to being able to rack up points quickly through your normal, everyday spending.

American Express personal cards

Any of the Amex personal cards that earn Membership Rewards allow you to transfer points to airline and hotel partners. 

American Express business cards

Amex issues some of the best small-business cards; the American Express business cards below earn Membership Rewards points:

Some cards come with lucrative travel and shopping benefits that can make paying their annual fees more than worthwhile. For example, the Amex Platinum charges an annual fee of $695, but in return, you get a slew of valuable benefits. 

Other Amex cards without as high an annual fee don't come with as long a list of benefits, but still offer perks like secondary rental car insurance, purchase protection, extended warranty, and more.

Once you have a healthy stash of Amex points, you've got plenty of options for using them. Be sure to log in and look at the Amex Membership Rewards portal for all the options available on your cards.

How to Use Amex Points

Insider pegs Amex points value at 1.8 cents each, on average, based on our latest points and miles valuations, but the exact value you'll get depends on how you redeem your rewards.

Transfer points to a hotel or airline partner

Just like with any transferable points program, the best potential value you can get is from transferring your Amex points to a partner program. You can transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to 17 airline and three hotel loyalty program partners, mostly at a 1:1 ratio. Amex occasionally runs transfer bonuses that let you get even more value for your points when you move them to certain partners.

This is particularly valuable for flying, as opposed to hotel stays. In many cases, the cash price and the miles price of a ticket aren't linked, so it's possible to get exponentially increased value from your points by transferring them and booking an award ticket instead. That means potentially being able to fly long-haul in first or business class with points, among other things.

Ultimately, remember to compare pricing between the Amex Travel Portal (more on that below) and how many points you would need to transfer to a frequent flyer program for an award flight. Because award tickets sometimes have cash taxes and fees — occasionally rising into the hundreds of dollars — it's good to compare.

Use Amex points for flights, hotels, and more through American Express Travel

Amex Travel is essentially a travel-booking website operated by American Express. It works similarly to travel booking sites like Expedia or Orbitz. The American Express Travel portal allows you to book flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, and more with your Membership Rewards points. 

Airfare is the best option when you're paying with points. When you book a flight through Amex Travel, you'll get a value of 1 cent per point. You may also find "Insider Fares," which generally offer a slightly better value — a lot of these fares are on Delta.

Unfortunately, if you want to book anything else through the Amex Travel portal — like hotels, cruises, rental cars, or vacation packages — you'll only get 0.7 cents per point. The exception is Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts, which gets you 1 cent per point.

This is in contrast to Chase, which offers the same price for anything through its Chase Ultimate Rewards® travel portal — 1 cent per point if you have a basic card like the Chase Freedom Unlimited® or Chase Freedom Flex℠ , 1.25 cents per point if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, or 1.5 cents per point if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve®.

Bid for upgrades on your next flight

American Express lets you use points to bid for discounted upgrades to first class, business class, and premium economy on participating airlines.

A number of airlines offer an option to place cash bids on upgrades before your flight — if there are available seats in premium cabins, you can snag them at a potentially steep discount. Most airlines that offer this manage it through a third-party service called Plusgrade.

Under the Amex partnership with Plusgrade, you can use Membership Rewards points to place bids on over 20 airlines, including Aeromexico, Air Canada, Etihad, Qantas, Ethiopian Airlines, and TAP Portugal.

Each Membership Rewards point is worth $0.01 toward a bid. So 10,000 points are worth $100 — a solid valuation. The best value from points, however, can be had by transferring them to one of Amex's airline or hotel partners, and booking flights or hotel stays that way.

To bid for an upgrade using your Membership Rewards points, visit americanexpress.com/upgrade and enter your reservation details. If your bid is accepted, you'll receive an email.

Redeem points for cash or gift cards

You can exchange Membership Rewards points for cash or gift cards, but keep in mind that this is usually a pretty terrible value compared to other redemption options. 

Different merchant gift cards have different prices and values for your points. Some offer a not-horrible 1 cent per point — meaning a $25 gift card costs 2,500 points — but the others are as low as 0.5 cents per point — so that $25 gift card would cost 5,000 points.

You can also redeem points as statement credits against specific charges — essentially, cash back used to pay your card. However, this is a similarly poor value, only offering 0.6 cents per point. 

Use points to check out online at major retailers 

When you check out online at a growing list of major retailers and enter your American Express card number, you can opt to pay in part or in full with points.

Merchants that currently let you pay with Amex points at checkout include:

• Amazon
• Best Buy
• Dell.com
• Newegg
• PayPal
• RiteAid
• Saks Fifth Avenue
• Staples

While promotions occasionally make this worthwhile — for instance, there have been deals where you could save up to $80 at Amazon by using a single Membership Rewards point at checkout — it's generally a poor value of 0.7 cents per point.

Buy merchandise through Amex or tickets through Ticketmaster 

Amex offers a shopping portal that has a wide range of different products, all of which can be purchased with Membership Rewards points. However, you'll only get 0.5 cents per point (unless there's a promotional offer), so if you were set on using points for merchandise, you'd be better off going through a shopping partner like Amazon, or possibly buying a gift card.

To redeem points at Ticketmaster, you'll need to call Amex after using your card to pay for your Ticketmaster purchase, then use points at a rate of 0.5 cents each to cover the charge. 

Other ways to use American Express points

There are a few other, little-known options for redeeming your American Express rewards, including:

• Donating points to charity through JustGiving (0.7 cents per point)
• Redeeming points for food delivery through GrubHub or Seamless (0.7 cents per point)
• Paying for NYC Taxi fare with points (1 cent per point)
• Using points to offset the excise tax for transferring points to a US airline (0.5 cents per point)

David E. Slotnick

Senior Reporter

David is a Senior Transportation Reporter for Business Insider. He primarily covers airlines and air travel. A native New Yorker and avid photographer, David previously covered travel, credit-card rewards, and frequent-flyer programs. Before joining Business Insider, David was a freelance writer and editor — before that, he worked in public affairs. He earned his bachelor's degree from Muhlenberg College and his master's from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK. You can follow him on Twitter or Instagram, or send him an e-mail at dslotnick@businessinsider.com.

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Jasmin Baron

Editor

Jasmin Baron was an editor at Insider, responsible for credit card coverage on Personal Finance Insider. Before joining the Insider team, she was a senior editor at The Points Guy and Million Mile Secrets, covering credit cards, points and miles, and loyalty programs. Her expertise in maximizing travel rewards grew from over two decades of experience in the aviation industry, including 18 years working as a pilot and flight instructor in her native Canada. Learn more about how Personal Finance Insider chooses, rates, and covers financial products and services »

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