How To Use Amex Points For Flights

Transfer to Airline Programs

Leveraging Amex’s transfer partners is perhaps the best way to extract the most value out of your hard-earned Membership Rewards points. With over a dozen airlines to choose from, you’re almost guaranteed to find an excellent award ticket price with a partner’s loyalty program.

All you have to do once you log in to your account is click “Transfer Points.”

Next, click “View All” to see the available transfer partners and check the conversion rates for each one. Then just follow the on-screen instructions to finalize your transfer.

You can transfer to most partners at a 1:1 ratio. Also, it’s a good idea to check regularly for transfer bonuses that can help you get more points into your loyalty accounts.

Using the Amex Travel Portal

If you want to use your Amex Membership Rewards to offset the cost of flight bookings, you can do so by going to “Explore Amex Travel” and searching for the flights you’d like to book.

Once you find the ideal flight, you’ll be shown how many points it would take to book. You can finish your reservation with just a few more clicks.

Your Amex card will be charged the full amount for those tickets, but within the next 48 hours you will see a separate transaction crediting back the dollar amount you offset by using your Membership Rewards points. Note that you’ll need to redeem a minimum of 5,000 points to use the Pay With Points option on Amex travel bookings.

This isn’t the best value for your Membership Rewards, as you’re converting points at a fixed rate of a penny a piece unless you’re using The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (Terms apply, see rates & fees).  It offers a redemption bonus of 35% when redeeming on first- or business- class flights or flights on your selected qualifying airline with Amex Travel. Bonus or no, using Amex Travel is a great way to book flights on airlines that aren’t Amex transfer partners.

Cover Your Card Charges

Another way to pay for your flights using your Membership Rewards is to cover your past charges with them. That way, you can offset previously made airline ticket purchases on your statement by drawing points out of your balance.

While this is also not the best value from your Membership Rewards, redeemable at 0.6 cents per point, it’s a way to get reimbursed for flights that you booked directly with airlines rather than with the Amex travel portal. All you have to do after you’ve purchased your airfare is click “Cover Your Charges,” select which purchase you’d like to offset, and the necessary points will be taken from your account to cover the purchase total.

There are multiple ways to earn American Express Membership Rewards, but the most straightforward is by having one of the many Membership Rewards-earning credit cards. They come with different earning structures but all have rather generous welcome bonuses.

Personal Cards

*The information for these cards has been collected independently by Forbes Advisor.

Business Cards

*The information for these cards has been collected independently by Forbes Advisor.

You can earn additional Membership Rewards by taking advantage of Amex Offers. These are targeted offers that change all the time and allow you to earn more points than normal when you hit a spending threshold or spend a predetermined amount of money at specific retailers.

Amex allows you to refer friends and family members and earn Membership Rewards if they are approved for their own Amex card. The incentive amounts change from card to card and fluctuate through the year, but you can refer multiple people before you reach the yearly cap.

Another way to earn extra Membership Rewards without leaving your house is taking advantage of the Rakuten shopping portal and its ability to change from its default cash-back earning scheme to earning Membership Rewards instead. All eligible purchases that you run through the portal will contribute to your Membership Rewards balance and get you closer to your next flight.

You can maximize Amex points on the earning side by choosing a Membership Rewards-earning card that aligns best with your spending. Some like The Platinum Card® from American Express (Terms apply, see rates & fees) earn their highest rates on travel spending while others like the American Express® Gold Card (Terms apply, see rates & fees) earn the most points on everyday spending like grocery stores and restaurants.

The easiest way to maximize the value of your redemptions is to leverage transfers to partners. It’s generally easy to obtain more than 1 cent per point of value via Amex points transfer, plus it’s higher than any of the other ways to redeem. Amex also regularly runs transfer bonuses of 10% to 50%, which substantially lowers the cost of those redemptions.

While transferring Membership Rewards points to partner airline programs is generally the recommended way to maximize their value, you can also use them to book flights through the Amex travel portal or offset the cost of ticket purchases on your current statement. With so many ways to earn and redeem Amex points for flights, you’re sure to find an excellent use of them to cover your future travels.

To view rates and fees for American Express® Business Gold Card please visit this page.
To view rates and fees for The Business Platinum Card® from American Express please visit this page.
To view rates and fees for The Platinum Card® from American Express please visit this page.
To view rates and fees for American Express® Gold Card please visit this page.
¹Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions and Limitations Apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by New Hampshire Insurance Company, an AIG Company.