LEVERAGING AMERICAN EXPRESS TRANSFER PARTNERS

Introduction

When redeeming points from any card issuer for airline flights, the most efficient approach is through leveraging their transfer partners.

Card issuers offer points as perks for using their cards, either as sign-up bonuses or for dollars spent on the card. The same issuers have agreements with transfer partners. Each major issuer partners with a number of airlines and a handful of hotel chains. With the airlines, they buy the rights to reward miles so their cardholders can convert their points to airline reward miles and earn discounted or free flights. The process is the same for their hotel partners.

To redeem their points, cardholders can book travel through the travel portal available on the card issuer site. This is the simplest approach, but when doing this each point is worth roughly 1 cent.

If the cardholder is willing to take an extra step when booking airfare, they can first transfer their points to an airline reward partner, where their points will be converted to airline reward miles with that carrier. This approach can be much more rewarding, and each point can be worth upwards of 2, 5 or even 10 cents.

There are, however, several challenges with this approach:

• It can be challenging to find discounted flights to maximize point value, and can require checking with each airline partner separately.

• Discounted flights change rapidly. A bargain seen today may be gone by tomorrow.

• Once points are transferred to a partner, they can’t be transferred back. If points are transferred in the hopes of booking a bargain rate and that rate disappears before the flight is booked, the points are now stuck with that carrier.

American express has taken the guesswork out of at least one part of this equation though a partnership with point.me. This offer helps you find the best value across the American Express transfer partners.

This article includes:

• What is point.me and how does it work?

• How To Find a Flight In point.me for Membership Rewards Points

• Limitations of the point.me for Membership Rewards Points Tool

• How To Minimize Transfer Partner Booking Risks

• Max’s Take

What is point.me and How Does it Work?

point.me is a search engine that helps travelers find and book award flights using points or miles across multiple airlines and loyalty programs.

It is designed to simplify the process of redeeming points and miles for flights. It searches 150+ airlines to find the best value for your points. While you cannot book directly on the site, it provides step-by-step instructions for booking through the airline or loyalty program.

Select Visit point.me's website and log in to begin your search. No password or ID is necessary.

Limitations of the point.me for Membership Rewards Points Tool

American Express did not add the piont.me engine to its website to help cardholders find the best flight option available. It added it to help cardholders find the best flight option available among the American Express transfer partners. This means that, instead of point.me searching 150+ airlines, it is only searching 16 airlines. You won’t find flights on common carriers such as American, Southwest or United in this version of the engine, so you might not be seeing the best deals. This makes sense because you can’t use your Amex Membership Rewards points with those other carriers. They want to guide you to partners where you can use them.

How to Minimize Transfer Partner Booking Risks

Because discount offers can rapidly come and go, you need to be able to act fast when you find a deal. To book a flight using points, you must have an account set up with the carrier in question. To transfer Membership Rewards points to a carrier, you need an account with the carrier and that account must be linked with your American Express account. If you want to be able to act fast, it is best to already have this done before booking flights. American Express provides estimated transfer times of 48 hours. A deal could be gone in that time…you don’t want to extend that time by having to create an account and then link it to your Amex account. I recommend creating accounts with each transfer partner before you start any searches to use your Membership Rewards points. Creating an account will give you an account number, which can be entered on the American Express rewards site to link it.

Before transferring points to one of the American Express partners, it is recommended that any bargains found using the point.me engine be verified on the actual site of the carrier. Remember that once points are transferred, they cannot be transferred back, and neither point.me nor American Express will guarantee any of the rates the engine finds for you.

Tip from Max:

Even though American Express estimates point transfer times to be 48 hours in all cases, transfers to most of their partners are immediate. Some, however, are not. Before you decide to transfer points, it is good to know what transfer time to expect. Reach out to me for help with this.

Max’s Take:

The landscape is changing, and card issuers are beginning to embrace relationships with the experts who have learned to extract maximum value from credit cards. Several card issuers list the awards given by travel experts in advertisements for their cards. The Points Guy sits on the board of directors for the Bilt card. American Express’ use of the point.me tool for travel planning is another step in this direction, and in my humble opinion it is a good one. Redeeming points for maximum value has long been the most frustrating, challenging and time consuming aspect in the points game. It’s refreshing to see at least one card issuer helping to take the edge off.

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If you would like further guidance on how to maximize the value of your credit cards, please reach out to me at email@maxyourplastic.com to set up a free, no obligation consultation.

How To Find a Flight In point.me for Membership Rewards Points

On the Amex website, select Rewards & Benefits, scroll down and select Transfer Points.

Select View All Partners. Do NOT select Book Travel, as that will take you to the American Express Travel Portal.