Originally Posted by ijgordon
Actually, looks like Amex is now letting people "pay" for any air/hotel bookings through their site with Membership reward points. It appears this is valid for any airline, any flight, any time. Exchange rate looks to be 1 MR pt = $0.01, so a $300 ticket would "cost" 30,000 points. While not a great exchange rate, it creates significant flexibility, which of course would cost more. But certainly when those $150 or less NY-FL specials come up (thanks B6!), that's a great use of 15,000 MR points.
Yeah, there was an article in today's WSJ that the Membership Rewards program and Travelocity/AMEX Travel will permit you to use MR points to pay for plane tickets, hotel rooms and, I think, cruises. And yes, it will be 1 point = 1 cent.
As an aside, since you are in effect paying for the ticket (or could conceivably by using MR points to pay for some of the ticket and credit card for the remainder), would you earn AAdvantage miles for an AA flight booked thusly?