How Much Are AMEX Membership Rewards Points Worth? It depends, but potentially 7 cents or more per point when redeemed for first class or business class awards. Yet if you use AMEX Pay with Points, you'd only be getting 1 cent per point, which is terrible value, especially since there are so many cards that earn you 2X, 3X or even 5X on certain categories of spend.
One of my new clients, who was initially going to book flights herself with AMEX Travel wrote:
“I just got off the phone with AMEX Platinum Travel. I was very surprised (not in a good way) with what we came up with.
A roundtrip ticket [to Europe] in business class is $8969. My points, 171,000, only knock $1712 off the roundtrip; fare…”
Fortunately, that's not what she's booking. Instead, we found her business class flights that cost 55,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points each way, 110,000 points total roundtrip, with total taxes of ~$110. She'll have 60,000 AMEX points left, and have saved over $7000 over what AMEX Travel was proposing.
Or look at it this way: a similar $8000+ business class ticket to the one we booked with 110,000 AMEX points yields 7.2 cents in value per AMEX point redeemed. And that's a business class flight; first class awards to Asia can yield even greater value, if you can find award availability.
Sure, it can require a little more effort on your part, or if you're a TravelSort Client reserving at least $5000 pre-tax in hotels and cruises you can use our Award Booking Service. But if you've worked hard to earn your AMEX points and frequent flyer miles, why not maximize the value of your AMEX Membership Rewards points and miles? Getting only 1 cent per point is a travesty, you may as well be using a cash back credit card.
What's your best value redemption of AMEX Membership Rewards points?
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