American Express Membership Rewards - How to book trips on Amex Points

My parents want me to book them a trip to France in March. As I was looking into flights, my father said he had some points in his Amex account that he had never used. When I looked into his account balance, I found he has over 830,000 points in his account.

I do not know the value of this, but it seems to me like this is quite a bit. I would like to send them 1st Class on UA, BA, LH or one of the other majors... can someone give me some advice please.

A: Transfer from MR to the MR-participating airline of your choice.

B: Book FF tickets.

Or if you're enrolled in MR Plus and have at least 3 weeks prior to the trip you can book miles-earning trips thru MR +

I don't think you can transfer to UA, LH or BA. Take a look at the AMEX Canada MR link http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/page/0,1641,13430,00.asp

I see.... hummmm

So the have international partners like Vigin...

Thats not to bad, Vigin Upper Class is supposed to be real good...

Is your fathers AMEX account Canadian or US based? It makes a big difference when assessing the value of the points.

dnw

It is Canadian...

Is that bad? We didn't mean to be Canadian... does that help?

I'm not familiar with the details of a Canadian-based MR account but perhaps DL-AF would work. Transfer to a DL account and claim a T331 (100k FC AF ticket) to Paris. Or really splurge and try the Concorde from JFK.

Long time, no see Vidiot ...

Unfortunately Canadian Memebership Rewards members have more limited choices than US members ... this page has a summary of the award options available:

http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/page/0,1641,13429,00.asp

For airlines they can choose WestJet, Air Transat, Delta, or Continental ... not great. For DL and CO the transfer rate is 1,000 points = 750 miles. Air Transat redemption levels aren't mentioned on the website, but it looks like they have a Business Class like product, so they may be worth looking at, especially since it looks like their awards do not have blackout dates or capacity controls!

Hotel choices are a bit better, you can choose from many brands and other independent hotels, either points or some awards are for stays at specific hotels. However, in general I'd suggest using the points for air travel and paying for hotels as the value of hotel awards is significantly less typically ... but if they want the "free vacation" that's the way to go.

Note, they can also transfer points to Delta/Continental then to Hilton, which is probably the best bet for hotel redemptions if they want to do that.

Actually, looking a little more at the website, they might want to consider the Travel Certificates:

http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/page/0,1641,13449,00.asp

You can redeem 10,000 miles for a $100 travel certificate, which isn't too terrible a deal for hotels and other travel related items they could reserve through an AMEX travel agent ...

ok, how 'bout this...

could I transfer miles into a Detla account, then, since they offer redemption oppertunities with Virgin, book a Virgin flight with those miles?

I guess after looking through the Virgin website, looking at their Upper Class product, I really wanna sent them Virgin if possible

I queried the Canada vs US account because of the transfer rates to Starwood. At Canadian Rates 830,000 MR = 190,900 Starpoints which can then be transferred on to pretty much any airline. I was specifically thinking of suggesting BA First for two (which would really make it a trip to remember for your parents), but at 200,000 miles there aren't quite enough points http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

VS via a Delta award would thus seem the best way to go.

dnw

Edited to add: VS is good, but not that good. International F (i.e BA) is far, far superior.

[This message has been edited by dnw (edited 01-03-2003).]

Dnw,

Did you take the 5k bonus miles per 20k points transferred into your calculation? this could mean another 45k BA Miles....

And yes BA First is much better than Virgin Upper Class. Upper Class is a coded as J - J being premium business, it is not a first class product.

Thanks,
Richard

[This message has been edited by RichardMannion (edited 01-03-2003).]