Churnman

How would I go about redeeming Membership Rewards points for tickets on a small airline? For example, I have Amex Mem. Rewards that I would like to redeem for Air Tahiti flights. This is not Air Tahiti Nui, but is the smaller 'cousin' which has local flights within French Polynesia. Amex said they can't booked those flights yet their travel services can book a package which includes those flights, but I only need the island jump flights from Air Tahiti. Then, the travel services said they might be able to but added $180 fee, which is unnecessary in my case.

In the past, I would just buy the tickets using Cap1 or Arrival and then redeem my points so the flight expense would be credited on my cc. In this instance, I have plenty of AMR points so want to use them.

I wish Amex let you charge a travel related purchase to your card and then you'd call in to redeem MR points to take care of the charge, like Arrival and Cap1, at 10,000 points = $100 credit for a travel related purchase. I see this: https://rewards.americanexpress.com/...pe=notloggedin but I understand doing it that way gives you a horrible redemption value of about half (only get $500 credited for a $1000 charge or something like that). Amex reps have sadly been no help and claim to not know how many points = $xxx for this prospective charge of airline tickets. Even Amex travel services (agency) doesn't know how many points it would take for the tickets + their $183 fee. So, I'm here hoping someone will know more.

I admit I haven't had a lot of experience using MR points for this type travel and have only transferred them. In this case, there's no transfer partner connected with the local Air Tahiti; for those of you unfamiliar with that airline. My other option is to redeem my points for gift cards to then turn into cash (resell) to pay for the tickets, but that is a long way around to the end result. Any ideas or suggestions? I doubt I'll find anyone with direct experience with using MR to pay for Air Tahiti tickets, but surely there are those with lots of MR experiences in redemption options. Remember, this is not Air Tahiti Nui I'm talking about.

Update 2:56pm: Well, I partially answered my own question, but would still appreciate options and input from more experienced MR members.
We were already planning on making a charitable cash donation before the year ends and saw that we could use our MR points to donate to the charity at the good value of 100,000 MR points = $1000. Then, we can take the cash we would have used for the donation and use that to buy the tickets since we can't use the MR points to directly buy the airline tickets we wanted. The charitable donation using points takes a hit of 2.25% that Amex charges in fees, but we can make that up in cash separately since we don't want the charity to come up short from what we were going to give. Does anyone see any potential problem with this based on prior experience? I understand Amex sends the charity the check on the 10th of the month (cuts check on that day), so next date would be Dec. 10.

takeshi74

MR does not work like the Venture or Arrival. You need to be able to transfer the points to an airline program or you need to be able to get the tickets via the MR travel portal.

dawhipsaw

"Please consult your tax advisor on the deductibility of a donation of Membership Rewards points."

MSPeconomist

You're getting some MR points for yourself by doing it this way versus using MR for the tickets and writing a check for the charity.

However, will tree still be a $183 service fee for the tickets? That seems extreme.

Centurion

Wow not a tax pro but i would stick with a check for a donation.

Churnman

We checked on the tax deductible status of the charity donation before we made the decision and we'll be fine. The donation sent by MR from our account to the charity gives us the credit with our name printed on the check. However, I'm not advising anyone (nor can MR) and recommend checking with your tax specialist for your own situation.

`X'

Which Amex card do you have as I'm surprised they can't book those tickets on their own? Generally for a Platinum or Centurion (who can use Amex Travel direct) they only charge $39pp for a ticketing fee.

As for a gold (if what i am seeing is correct) you can only use the Amex Travel Affiliated Agents. These guys set their own rules. If it is a gold you have, maybe consider upgrading to the platinum and even with the jump in annual fee, you would still come out ahead?

Churnman

You have some good ideas on differences of card type relating to service. As far as what we were told, Amex can only see around 100 airlines in their booking system, but not this particular one (it's very small). Therefore, only their travel agency service could book it just like any agency could. I haven't used an agency in years especially if they charge fees. We normally never pay for our trips since we only use points for all aspects of trips.

We were able to use our MR points to make a donation and then we took the cash we had for the donation and will use that to pay the cc bill since we used Cap 1 to buy the tickets. This way we still feel like we got a decent payout on the awards at 100000 MR points = $1k. The Amex card my wife has is only Gold, so maybe that limited the options available to her regarding points redemption. She made it work this time and basically drained most of her points.