American Express Membership Rewards - Value of a MR point?

Greetings All,

I'm trying to figure out the value of a MR point. I tried a search, but it didn't yield anything recent on the value of a Membership Reward point.

I currently use an SPG Amex for the majority of my personal purchases, but I will be finally starting to travel regularly for work next year. I have a Amex Corporate card & have not signed up for Membership Rewards. My spending this year on my Corporate Card will be about $2,000 & I didn't think 2,000 MR points was worth the fee to join MR (75 bucks, right?).

Looking at the prospective travel schedule for next year, I'll be going from 4 business trips this year (1 flying - 3 local rental care trips) to potentially 50+ business trips next year (can someone say job change! :D) - the majority of which will be with airfare, rental car, and meal expenses, etc - so I'm figuring an average $400 per trip (some trips will be WAY cheaper as the locations are within 50 miles of my house & I'll just drive my own car) & that's if I do it on a budget-minded (which I will since its my first travel job with my company & I don't want to blow it). I can definitely forsee myself spending at least $20K on my Corporate Card, if not more in 2006. To me, this means that I should probably spend the 75 bucks & join Membership Rewards since the only cost would be my annual fee as all charges to the card will be paid for by work.

What's the value of a point to most people? I would most likely use points for hotel stays & merchandise as I've got (and will gain) plenty of miles. I believe it would be worth it to pay the annual fee, for MR, but want to make sure its even worth it.

Thanks!

The norm seems to be $.01/point. For example, you can redeem for gift cards at a lot of stores at that ratio. Any of the cash equivalent rewards (traveller's cheques, etc.) they give you one half of that. Airline points would be whatever you value them at. The only thing that seems to give a better ratio is when they're offering bonus on redemption (they recently were awarding a 35% bonus for redemptions to skymiles). But for what you are interested in, I think the penny-a-point is it.

Wait for a redemption bonus to Skymiles, then redeem for an award to Hawaii. If you are from the East Coast then you are likely to get a very good return on your MR points (even if you have to use 2x miles to get an award seat).

Jeff

At a 1 cent per point, then the break even price on the annual fee would be $7,500 in spending? I do believe I'll spend at least that next year, so it sounds like a worthwhile investment.

Thanks!

The cash value of a membership reward point is about 1 cent. A conservative estimate regarding the value of a MR point via airline miles redemption is closer to 1.6 cents per point.

Mike

My number is about 1.7 cents per point.
The cash value of a membership reward point is about 1 cent. A conservative estimate regarding the value of a MR point via airline miles redemption is closer to 1.6 cents per point.

Mike

My number is about 1.7 cents per point.

taking into account the 25% bonus for xfer to co when offered, I've never redeemed for less than 2.5 cents per point. Things like ewr-ogg, etc.

taking into account the 25% bonus for xfer to co when offered, I've never redeemed for less than 2.5 cents per point. Things like ewr-ogg, etc.

I usually use 2 cents for a conservative estimate. Points are worth 1 cent minimum, since 10,000 can be exchanged for a $100 gift certificate at many stores.

When they do 2:1 transfers to Starwood they're worth much more to me. Last year I redeemed 48,000 membership rewards for 24,000 starwood points for 4 nights over New Years at the 4 points Sydney - approximately US$1600 in value or 3.3 cents per point.

I generally use 1.5 cpm as a conservative baseline but 1.8 is more around where I'm redeeming.

This has been said before, but the best use of points and miles usually is international first class tickets. We just used 625,000 DL and NW miles to get 5 NW F last-minute tickets to Japan. Those tickets cost close to $45,000 if purchased. (The coach price was almost $10,000.) With the 35% Amex-to-DL bonus, the value of these converted Amex MR points was just under 10 cents a point. Can't beat that.