Originally Posted by
umustbjokim
Just completed a survey from AMEX regarding platinum card benefits and potential enhancements. Gist was if you use "pay with points" for first or business class tickets, the miles required would be less. Two options with a series of questions:
- 20% fewer miles for First & Business, so 167K instead of 200K for a $2000 ticket
- 40% fewer miles for First & Business, so 143K instead of 200K for a $2000 ticket
I completed same survey.
Pay with points? I really struggle to see how it would EVER make sense to pay with points through Amex Travel.
Let's compare to an awful program, like Delta. To fly Business Class to Hong Kong is easily $6000 or more. If you want to use SkyPesos, and are lucky enough to grab the one single "saver" seat they offer per year, it's maybe not a bad deal. But generally it's 240K - 320K for a business class seat.
That values the points at $0.025 each on the lower redemption, and and $0.0188 on the higher. I'd never accept that.
Under the hypothetically improved Pay with Points, you'd need anywhere from 429,000 to over 501,000 points. This is just crazy.
Of course, I look at it through the lens of International Long Haul in Business Class.