Best use of AMEX reward points? Air Miles? Please help
 

I have approx. 70,000 reward points with my AMEX card and was hoping to use them for air miles. I prefer to fly on American Airlines but that doesn't seem to be an option. What is the best deal and is it even worth it to use my AMEX on air miles? Would it be more advantageous to use them on something else?

AA award inventory is bookable via Air Canada or All Nippon. Both take Amex transfers. I usually recommend holding off on transferring to DL until there is a promotion. 20-40% bonus is typical.

You can also book AA flights with BA Avios points. This can actually be a VERY good use of Avios points, but you'll want to book direct flights. The amount of Avios required is based on distance flown, and you won't get the high BA fees when flying domestic on AA.

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/09/how-...out-huge-fees/

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/04/maxi...-based-awards/

I'm not sure where you're getting this. AA is in oneworld whereas AC and NH are StarAlliance members. No way you can book AA awards using AC or NH miles. If you want to book on AA using Amex MR points you can transfer to BA or CX.

You can get a bonus when transferring from MR to BA Avios if you don't need to do the transfer right now and can wait for the next bonus. As was said, if you use it for domestic AA awards, you can avoid the fuel surcharges. If you travel to Alaska or are flying routes that AS flies to, using BA miles for flights on AS is also a good option.

I use a lot of MR points to transfer to DL, but I tend to find low level awards when many others can't. Flexibility is the key for me.

How do I know where there is a bonus?

You can book and pay with points on the amex website, no need to transfer, and you get the miles and MQM's. Booking on Delta equates to $0.01/ MR point. 70000 points = $700

True that it is easy to book that way (and one gets MQMs), but the value is less than what one can get on any airline.

Take the routes I fly on for example. It is a pain, but one can get TPAC on DL US<>SE Asia for 120K SMs (If one does not want to fight the DL SM award inventory nightmare, the same tickets are fairly easy to find for about 180KSMs).

The same ticket costs upwards of 4K, so you get at least 2-3 more RT tickets using the airline miles (and that is w/o the bonus xfers). Yes, there is a penalty in loss of MQMs.

I do agree that I would avoid xfering to DL until they had an open bonus offer. I would only do some in very constrained situations.

Best way is to read the AmEx Credit Card forum here on FT.

I would not say the value is less than one can get on any airline. Most of the time you are correct, but there are examples where (especially when one has a limited number of miles) that using miles for 1% makes sense. If one has 20K miles, they get a $200 "credit" toward a flight. Many times people find good value in this if they find a fare for $200. So rather than using 25K miles for a domestic award ticket, they use 20K miles for $200 off a $200 fare.

Would you and I use miles this way? Probably not. But if someone is not a frequent flyer and is not saving miles for some international business class award, I can see why they might use miles this way.

bonus
 

any upcoming bonuses for amex pts transfered to airmiles?

Why post this here instead of the AMEX forum?

still wondering
 

I have been saving up MR point for about 5 years now and have 190k. What is the best value for the miles? I'm think airline points. I prefer American and Delta. Can anybody help me out please?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html

Contact an award booking service and tell them origin and destination airports, when you want to travel, in what cabin of service, and how many travelers.

Best value is highly subjective and varies by the moment with award availability. Focus searches on places you've been wanting to visit.

It really depends where you want to travel, and in what cabin. Once you know that, then you can start to work on the best program to transfer those points to. This is where an award booking service like 3Cforme mentioned can help.

Good point and that is where this thread is headed. @:-)

RSSrsvp - Moderator