jeanrtco

you're right mia, i did see the statement

There is no fee to access and use our online reservations system.
And anyone want to pay a service fee when there are so many other online agencies, including the airlines themselves which would not charge the fee, after all, I do the same work anyways.

jean

swrider77

Hello everyone,
I am pretty new to the whole using rewards points for travel and what not, and the AMEX card seems like a good deal so far. I am leaning towards the AMEX Blue, mainly because its a no fee card, I can earn 3x points for shopping online and sometimes 10x points, plus I can use the pay with points option when purchasing airline tickets. Only draw back it seems is that I have to use AMEX Travel Site, where I am used to going either with Expedia or Orbitz. Can anyone out there tell me how the AMEX travel site compares to them?
Also, is there a major difference between the Blue card and Blue Sky ???
Thanks for stopping by.
Any and all comments are greatly appreciated.

nobias

Amex travel is run by travelocity with more fees.

mia

The rewards programs are fundamentally different.

Blue participates in Membership Rewards Express. Spend $1, earn one point. I think (not sure) that Express points are worth $0.01 each when redeemed through Pay with Points. This means that if you spent $7,500 you would have a $75 potential travel credit, which could also be redeemed for a giftcard or other type of reward (but cannot be transferred to an airline or hotel program.)

Spend $7,500 with Blue Sky, earn 7,500 points and you would have a $100 travel credit. To use the credit you would purchase travel anywhere you like, including Expedia or Orbitz, then redeem points to offset a portion of the expense. (Redemptions must be made in multiples of 7,500 points.)

You won't be able to earn bonus Blue Sky points at the Bonus Points Mall, but you can earn comparable bonuses at a shopping portal associated with most any frequent flyer or hotel loyalty program. No real loss there.

swrider77

Hi Mia, thanx for the answer, thats basically what I thought, the one thing I didn't quite understand was the last bit about Bonus Points. I thought you couldn't get bonus points with the Blue Sky? Are you awarded bonus points on Blue Sky when you book thru the Amex Travel Site and similar locations?

mia

Not to my knowledge, but you can earn bonus miles in an airline frequent flyer program, or bonus points in a hotel frequent guest program, for shopping online. These won't be Blue Sky points, but they will be rewards of equal or greater value in another program.

mia

One final thought: don't be distracted by the number of points that you might earn in Membership Rewards Express versus Blue Sky, focus on the value of the rewards. An Express point is worth $0.01, while a Blue Sky point is worth $0.0133. You'd need to earn 33% more Express points just to break even.

This doesn't mean that Blue Sky is a "better" program than Membership Rewards Express. The tradeoff is flexibility. Express points can be accumulated and upgraded to the full Membership Rewards program if your circumstances change.

captainramius

If I could rate the FHR portion of the Amex travel site it would probably get a negative rating. The flash engine doesn't work well with my Chrome browser and not at all on iPhones & iPads (and let's not blame Apple for holding its grudge against Adobe -- Amex could have chosen XTML or some other format for the interface). When it does work, the flash interface is a practical joke. The simple task of getting a list of FHR properties is "mission: impossible", as the link takes you to a worthless twelve-page brochure that doesn't have a hotel list to start with. Come to think of it, Amex should call the site developer and use "purchase protection" to have its money back.

JFKLAX321

+1

AMEX Travel website is nothing great in general. Sure, you get a bonus MR point per dollar but you also have a pay a booking fee for something that is free almost anywhere else.

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

That's right. How much would you value MR points? If you say 1.25 cents per point (because of pay with points), an extra 1x for booking on Amex Travel for a $300 ticket + $6 fee will net you 306 MR points = $3.83. You're underwater with the $6 fee and better not booking on Amex's site. How about 2 cents per point? Then you get $6.12. Now you're breaking even.

Of course, for large valued international tickets, maybe the extra points are worth it.

patriots68

how much is the booking fee in general airfare, hotels, car cruises, etc

JBAeroEngineer

about $7

TBD

I gave up on using AMEX's travel site. On the rare occasion that the site actually functions like it is supposed to, it "can't find any flights" for my request. Funny - I can easily find multiple possibilities when I go to airline websites direct (or orbitz, or ....)

patriots68

$.01 a point i'd have to spend about 800 bucks to have the fee start to pay for itself

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

Which card do you have? If you have the Plat card, you would need $560 to make it worth the fee (assuming pay with points), or less depending on your value of MR points.